Revealing Christ to the Simple

All of Matthew 11 hangs together as an instructive sequence revolving around two key ideas: the hiddenness of God’s ways in the world, on the one hand, and the way that wisdom allows one to apprehend those ways. The question posed by John the Baptist in the beginning of the chapter highlights the hiddenness of God’s ways in the world. He has found it difficult to see how his cousin is fulfilling messianic expectations, at least according to the light he had been given. After defending the soundness of John’s faith, which is the only solid foundation upon which we may question the unexpected ways of God, Jesus turns to the crowd, appealing to wisdom’s power to discern the validity of both John’s preparatory ministry and Jesus’ fulfillment of the truly scriptural expectations for the Messiah.

            These twin threads then run through the rest of this chapter. As Jesus pronounces woes upon the cities in which his miracles had been done, he highlights the spiritual blindness so prevalent in his day. The ways of God are hidden to Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, such that they missed the core idea of Jesus’ preaching: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But then, the hiddenness of God in the ministry of Jesus is further deepened as Jesus bursts forth in praise of his heavenly Father on account of the counter-cultural way in which he was working in the world. Though the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have been hidden from “the wise and understanding,” God the Father has revealed these things to “little children.” Once again, the hiddenness of God is interwoven with the principles of wisdom that have already been revealed to God’s people.

            To wit, there is a conceptual link between Matt 11:25 and the book of Proverbs. The “little children” in Matthew are analogous to “the simple” in Proverbs.[1] These are “those who do not have the capability in themselves to seek out and understand these things but are wholly dependent on the magnanimous help and instruction of others—and also allow themselves to be led by that.”[2] In Proverbs, “the simple” carries a more negative connotation as “the mildest sort of fools,” yet still “capable of being shaped and improved by the educational process.”[3] On the other hand, “the wise and understanding” as Jesus intends it in Matt 11:25 fall into the category of fools, those who are wise in their own eyes. In a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, they believe they have arrived at the fullness of wisdom, but precisely on account of that belief they cannot apprehend true wisdom. The truly wise are humble (Prov 15:33) and teachable (Prov 15:31). They possess the awareness of their need for help and instruction but also the capacity to seek out and understand these things.

            Reflecting on the apparently contradictory ideas in Proverbs that Lady Wisdom cries out at the busy intersections and yet there are frequent exhortations to put in the effort to find wisdom, Zoltán Schwáb asks, “Why is it so difficult to find something which is so visibly there? Maybe one can see in this phenomenon a parallel to the hiddenness of God, not to the hiddenness in the sense of not being visible, but to the hiddenness in the sense of being fully visible yet something hard to grasp.”[4] It seems to me that this tension is reflected in Matt 11:20-30 as Jesus condemns some for their inability to apprehend the significance of his words and works even as he offers a simple and clear invitation to come to him to find rest. A partial resolution of the tension is further offered in these verses as Jesus praises his Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, for his own part in hiding true wisdom the so-called “wise and understanding” but revealing it to the simple. But implied in Christ’s invitation to find rest in him is a summons for the simple to become wise by decisively stepping towards the one who is the wisdom and power of God.

            One implication of these interrelated themes of hiddenness and wisdom in Matthew 11 is the need for growth. Little children should grow to be mature adults. The simple should progress in wisdom. Followers of Christ need to move from milk to meat—but always with the openness to correction that characterizes the little children. May we, then, strive for true wisdom in Christ’s light with humility and proper fear of the Lord.

[1] While there is not a direct linguistic connection, the Latin translation of Proverbs frequently renders the Hebrew word for “the simple” as “little one,” which is semantically equivalent to the Greek word used in Matt 11:25. The Greek translation of Proverbs uses a few words to render “the simple,” once (Prov 1:32) using “little child” as is used in Matt 11:25.

[2] Herman N. Ridderbos, Het Evangelie Naar Mattheus, 2nd ed., Korte Verklaring Der Heilige Schrift (J. H. Kok, 1952), 1:225.

[3] Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, 2 vols., NICOT (Eerdmans, 2005), 1:111.

[4] Zoltán S. Schwáb, Toward an Interpretation of the Book of Proverbs: Selfishness and Secularity Reconsidered, Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplements 7 (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 235.