37 Surprising Demonstrations of Jesus' Love in Matthew

Love is all the rage among Christians today, as it should be in one sense.  What worries me is that when I hear many professing Christians talking about love, especially the love demonstrated by Jesus during his earthly ministry, it doesn’t sound like the love of Jesus I read about in Scripture.  It seems that may people imagine Jesus walking around Israel, always smiling, always helping people, partying and having a good time - but never saying a harsh or potentially hurtful word to anyone.  That’s not the Jesus found in Scripture.  

Jesus did love people.  He did perform many miracles for the benefit of those with needs.  He did dine with tax collectors and prostitutes.  Yet, at the end of his earthly ministry, even after his resurrection from the dead, he only had around 120 followers (Acts 1:15).  Why is that? 

I think many in the church today have a very simplistic view of Jesus.  Paul warned the Corinthians against believing in another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:1-6).  I’ve compiled below a list of 37 surprising ways that Jesus demonstrated love as recorded in the gospel of Matthew.  Read this list and ask yourself, does this Jesus sound like the Jesus I believe in?

Also keep in mind as you read that Jesus is eternally God, and God is love, therefore everything Jesus said and did was a demonstration of God's perfect love.

1. He called people to repentance, using the word repent. (Matthew 4:17)
2. He warned that some people will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20)
3. He told the angry that they are guilty of murder (Matthew 5:21-26)
4. He told the lustful that they are guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:27-30)
5. He told the angry and the lustful that they are in danger of begin thrown into Hell (Matthew 5:21-30)
6. He said that those who divorce and remarry for any reason other than adultery are guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:31-32)
7. He called unbelievers hostile to the gospel dogs and pigs (Matthew 7:6)
8. He warned that many are on the wide road to destruction and few will enter the narrow gate to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14)
9. He warned that the road that leads to eternal life is hard (Matthew 7:14)
10. He warned against false prophets and said they would be thrown into the fire (Matthew 7:15-20)
11. He warned that on the last day many who called him Lord will be cast away from him because they never knew him (Matthew 7:21-23)
12. He told those who wanted to follow him that there were costs to following him (Matthew 8:18-22)
13. He warned the disciples that they would be hated and suffer persecution for being his followers (Matthew 10:16-24)
14. He said he came not to bring peace, but a sword; to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, make a person’s enemies those of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-36)
15. He said that anyone who loves their mother or father, son or daughter more than him is not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37)
16. He said that anyone who does not take up his cross and follow him is not worthy of him (Matthew 10:38)
17. He pronounced woes on unrepentant cities and told them harsh judgment was coming for them (Matthew 11:20-24)
18. He said that only an evil and adulterous generation seeks signs [miracles] (Matthew 12:39)
19. He said that the men of Nineveh will rise up to judge and condemn his generation because of their unbelief (Matthew 12:41)
20. He spoke in parables to conceal the truth from those to whom the secrets of the kingdom of heaven had not been given (Matthew 13:11-13)
21. He warned that on the last day the wheat (genuine believers) and weeds (false Christians) will be separated and the weeds will be thrown into the fire to be burned, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43)
22. He called the falsely teaching Pharisees blind guides (Matthew 15:14)
23. He called a Canaanite woman a dog before healing her daughter (Matthew 15:26)
24. He called Peter Satan when Peter attempted to rebuke him (Matthew 16:23)
25. He said that those who do not have humble, childlike faith will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4)
26. He said that it would be better for someone who cause a little child to sin to have a millstone cast around his neck and thrown into the sea (Matthew 18:5-6)
27. He warned that the punishment for sin is eternal fire (Matthew 18:7-9)
28. He said that anyone in the church who refuses to repent of sin he must be treated by the church as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matthew 18:15-7)
29. He warned that anyone who does not forgive his brother who has wronged him from the heart will be like a man thrown into prison and kept until the debt is paid (Matthew 18:23-35)
30. He taught that God created males and females and that marriage is a one-flesh union between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:4-6)
31. He turned away the rich young man who would not sell his possessions (Matthew 19:16-30)
32. He drove out all who sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers (Matthew 21:12)
33. He refused to answer a question posed by the chief priests and elders (Matthew 21:23-27)
34. He called the Pharisees hypocrites to their faces (Matthew 22:18)
35. He pronounced seven woes on the scribes and Pharisees, using extremely harsh language (Matthew 23:1-36)
36. He said that on the last he will divide all the people of the earth into two groups, sheep and goats.  The sheep will inherit the kingdom, the cursed goats will be and cast into eternal fire. (Matthew 24:31-46)
37. He said it would have been better for Judas if he had not been born (Matthew 26:24)