JEFF TURNER
In Matthew chapter 19, the apostle Peter asks Jesus a question that some readers find a little embarrassing on Peter’s behalf. After Jesus had spoken of the difficulty of the rich entering the kingdom, Peter turned to him and said, in effect: “We have left everything and followed you. What is in it for us?” No, not those words, that’s my summation. It sounds, at first hearing, like the kind of frank self-interest that we might quietly hope the disciples had moved past by this point in their discipleship. Yet Jesus does not rebuke him. And that absence of rebuke is worth pausing over.
We ought to be honest enough to admit that there was something genuinely human, and perhaps genuinely limited, in the disciples’ understanding of what they were following Jesus toward. James and John had their mother approach Jesus to lobby for the best seats in his coming earthly kingdom. The disciples were, on more than one occasion, debating who among them would be the greatest. They were not simply interested in spiritual blessings; they wanted to know about tangible, earthly, visible reward.
Jesus, rather than correcting the expectation entirely, seems to validate its essential core. There is an earthly kingdom coming. He calls it a “palingenesia” a word meaning the regeneration. I see this as a remarkable word pointing to the restoration of all things, a period described in Revelation chapter 20 where believers will reign with Christ on this earth and the apostles themselves will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The expectation was not entirely wrong; it was simply premature and somewhat self-serving in its orientation.
What does this say to us? I believe it says that God’s people are not wrong to long for the day when Christ rules visibly and righteously over a renewed creation. The new heavens and the new earth, the reign of Christ, the restoration of all things, these are genuine promises, and we are permitted, even encouraged, to desire them.
The correction Jesus offers is not to extinguish that hope, but to set it within the larger framework of faithful following, sacrifice, and trust that the one who promised is able to deliver.
If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
2 Timothy 2:12
If we deny Him, He will also deny us;
