Matthew 16:11

How is it that you do not understand? Note, Christ's disciples may well be ashamed of the slowness and dulness of their apprehensions in divine things; especially when they have long enjoyed the means of grace;

How is it that ye do not understand,....

How is it that ye do not understand - We are not deficient in spiritual knowledge, because we have not had sufficient opportunities of acquainting ourselves with God; but because we did not improve the advantages we had. How deep and ruinous must our ignorance be, if God did not give line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little!

In these verses we find our Lord assailed by the untiring enmity of the Pharisees and Sadducees. As a general rule these two sects were at enmity between themselves; in persecuting Christ, however, they made common cause. Truly it was an unholy alliance! Yet how often we see the same thing in the present day. Men of the most opposite opinions and habits will agree in disliking the Gospel, and will work together to oppose its progress. “There is no new thing under the sun” ( Ecclesiastes 1:9 ).

In these verses we find our Lord assailed by the untiring enmity of the Pharisees and Sadducees. As a general rule these two sects were at enmity between themselves; in persecuting Christ, however, they made common cause. Truly it was an unholy alliance! Yet how often we see the same thing in the present day. Men of the most opposite opinions and habits will agree in disliking the Gospel, and will work together to oppose its progress. “There is no new thing under the sun” ( Ecclesiastes 1:9 ). The first point in this passage which deserves special notice is the repetition which our Lord makes of words used by him on a former occasion. He says, “a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.” If we turn to the twelth chapter of this gospel and the thirty ninth verse, we shall find that he had said the very same thing once before. This repetition may seem a trifling and unimportant matter in the eyes of some. But it is not so in reality. It throws light on a subject which has perplexed the minds of many sincere lovers of the Bible, and ought therefore to be specially observed. This repetition shows us that our Lord was in the habit of saying the same things over again. He did not content himself with saying a thing once, and afterwards never repeating it. It is evident that it was his custom to bring forward certain truths again and again, and thus to impress them more deeply on the minds of his disciples. He knew the weakness of our memories on spiritual things; he knew that what we hear twice, we remember better than what we hear once. He therefore brought out of his treasury old things as well as new. Now what does all this teach us? It teaches us that we need not be so anxious to harmonize the narratives we read in the four Gospels, as many are disposed to be.