Matthew writes not only to encourage his community that Jesus can meet their needs but also to remind them that the opposition they face is not new; Jesus himself had to face it. Jesus' most religious contemporaries were so sure they were right that they were by now sure that he was wrong, preferring to explain his works as emanating from a source other than God (12:24; Mk 3:22; Jn 7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20).

When enemies of the Christian message cannot win a debate according to traditional rules of evidence, some of them change the rules, and those who follow them blindly usually assume that they are correct. When the academy became largely anti-Christian, many Christians reacted against academics; meanwhile those who learned of Christianity only from secular academic sources were often misinformed about its character. When possible, a better response than withdrawal would be for Christians to respond reasonably to opposing arguments and maintain that posture despite the opposition, recognizing that many other hearers will listen to the truth (Mt 9:33; Acts 17:32-34).

The Pharisees were hardly antisupernaturalists; they believed miracles could happen. The consensus seems to have been, however, that though some might seek to adduce miracles in support of their claims, scholarly tradition took precedence over miracles (as in t. Yebamot 14:6). We ourselves recognize that charlatans and false prophets can work signs and wonders (Mt 24:24). But it is too easy, even for Christians, to use charlatans as an excuse to ignore the real workings of God. One can understand the sentiments of religious people in Jesus' day; after all, they may have reasoned, if God were still doing miracles like those he had done through Elijah and Elisha, surely he would have been doing it through them. They, after all, were sure that they were the ones with correct doctrine. When we become so sure of our theological system that we cannot listen to anyone else no matter how cogent their evidence, we may risk repeating the kind of mistake many of Jesus' contemporaries made.