Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 1-4.

When John the Baptist was preaching he preached “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Later, Matthew tells us that after John was imprisoned Jesus began preaching exactly the same message.  We normally teach that Matthew did this to show that John had come to prepare the way for Jesus.  We are not wrong to think that because that was indeed part of Matthew’s message in today’s passage.  However, we miss the similarity between what John says when he condemns the religious leaders for putting their trust in being Abraham’s descendants and things that Jesus said later in His ministry on the same subject.  Matthew was connecting Jesus to a line of teaching among religious Jews of which John the Baptist was a part.  What the original readers of Matthew’s Gospel would have known that we had forgotten until recently is that John the Baptist did not arise out of nowhere to begin teaching.  The Bible mentions two major Jewish religious traditions of the time of Jesus: the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  With the discovery and translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls we learned that there was a third major Jewish religious tradition, the Essenes.  A comparison of what the Dead Sea Scrolls tells us of some of their practices suggests that John the Baptist was part of that tradition.  Matthew knew this, as did those to whom he was writing.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 27-28.

The first thing I want to point out is that Pilate found none of the charges against Jesus justified putting Him to death, despite the fact that Jesus mounted no defense against the charges.  I have often seen commentators write that from what we know about Pilate he was unlikely to have been bothered by condemning an innocent man.  From this, they conclude that the account of Pilate washing his hands and the crowd taking responsibility for Jesus’ death was an attempt to shift blame from the Romans to the Jews.  I think the people who see this are on to something, but I believe they see antisemitism where there is none.  Instead I believe Matthew meant for us to understand that “the crowd” was responsible for Jesus’ death, not the government.  And we are “the crowd”.  We are responsible for Jesus dying on the cross.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 25-26.

Today’s passage begins with three parables which Jesus told about the kingdom of heaven shortly before His crucifixion.  The first one warns us against waiting until we know that Jesus’ return is imminent to prepare for that day.  Repeatedly throughout the Bible we are told to seek God while He can be found, and to do His will before it is too late.  The second parable teaches us that God has given us gifts which He expects us to use to advance His kingdom.  If God has given you wealth, work to increase that wealth so that you can use it to advance His kingdom.  If God has given you skills, hone those skills so that you can use them to bring His words to others.  The final parable discusses the difference between those whom God will invite into the kingdom and those He will banish to the eternal fires.  The blessed fed Jesus when He was hungry, gave Him water when He was thirsty, clothed Him when He was naked, and extended hospitality to Him when He was a stranger, while the damned did none of these things.  The members of both groups were equally unaware of any opportunity they may have had to serve Him in this way.  Jesus tells us that whenever we did, or did not, do these things for the least, we did, or did not, do it for Him.   If you read this and do not immediately start thinking about trying to figure out how you can feed more of those who are hungry, or clothe more of those who need clothing, or visit more those who are sick or in prison, you will find yourself among the goats.  Both groups felt like they never had the opportunity to serve God in this way, the difference was that the sheep kept looking because they thought they had not done so.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 23-24.

In light of what happened in Israel over the weekend, and what is continuing to happen there, I want to start with what Jesus says here in Matthew 24 verse six: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.”  He goes on to tell us that such things are merely the beginning of the birth pangs of the end.  Then a little farther on, Jesus warns us that wickedness will increase and that increase will cause the love of most to grow cold.  Do we not see that around us?  People no longer treat those with whom they disagree with love, and this change is indeed because wickedness has increased.  Let us be on wary of the false prophets and false messiahs whom Jesus warned us about.  They will perform great signs and wonders, deceiving many.

Which brings me back to the beginning of the passage.  I believe that what Jesus says there can help us identify the false prophets and false messiahs.  I want to note that the primary purpose of this teaching by Jesus is a lesson about our own behavior, but it can also help us identify false teachers, and false prophets.  He tells us that we should not take titles for ourselves which imply that we are somehow closer to God than others, nor should we apply such titles to others.  Jesus goes on to warn us about those who concern themselves with appearing righteous.  Our concern should be with doing that which is righteous, not with acting so that others think we are righteous.  I want to be clear.  As I read what Jesus tells us here, He says that if we act righteously it will result in us appearing righteous, but when we get caught up in attempting to look righteous we will fall short of doing that which is true righteousness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 21-22.

I debated a lot about what I wanted to write today.  There are several different things I thought about writing but none of them flowed into each other.  I finally decided to start with the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree.  I think that this illustrates better than anything else in the Gospels that Jesus was fully human.  The text tells us that He was hungry, so He went over to the fig tree but found no fruit on it.  So, He cursed it to never bear fruit again, and it immediately withered.  Jesus uses this as an opportunity to teach about the power of faith, but He cursed the tree because He was disappointed that it had not fruit.  That is a very human thing to do.

I also want to write about the parable of the two sons.  In it Jesus speaks of one son, who rebelliously tells his father that he will not do what his father told him to do, and a second son who obediently agreed to do was his father directed.  Yet, the first son then went and did as instructed, despite telling his father that he would not, while the second did not do as instructed, despite saying that he would.  From the context, the son who said he would do as instructed but did not was the Pharisees and other teachers of the Law of Moses, while the son who rebelled, but di his father’s will was those whom they viewed as sinners.  Today, there are those who verbally reject Jesus, yet love their neighbor.  These are the equivalent of the first son.  We also have people today who verbally exalt Jesus, yet treat others with contempt.  Let us strive to both tell God “yes”, and to do as He asks of us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 18-20.

Twice in today’s passage Jesus teaches about what it takes to be great in the kingdom of heaven.   Each time He expresses it somewhat differently, although both convey a similar message.  The first time He tells us that in order to even enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like children and to become great in the kingdom of heaven we must assume the lowly position of a child.  The second time, Jesus tells us that in order to be great in the kingdom of heaven we must serve others.  In between, Jesus tells us that the last will become first and the first will become last, which ties in with His teaching elsewhere that we should not seek honor for ourselves.

However, I want to focus on what Jesus says after telling us to become like children.  He tells us that it would be better to have a weight tied around our necks and be cast into the sea than to cause children, and those who believe on Him like children, to sin.  Further, He warns not to look down on children, or those with childlike faith, because God places a high value on each and everyone of them.  I believe that this passage has double meaning.  First, Jesus applies this to those who follow Him with a childlike faith, which should be all of us, but I believe there is a warning here for those who interact with children as well.  As I read this this morning I think of what is going on in our schools.  Let us be sure that we are not contributing to the corruption of children, and let us seek to help children avoid such corruption.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 15-17.

Today’s passage begins with the Pharisees confronting Jesus over the fact that His disciples don’t follow the tradition of washing their hands before they eat.*  Then later, when Jesus and His disciples are crossing the lake in a boat, Jesus tells His disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.  When Jesus explained to His disciples what His response to the Pharisees meant, He told them that what defiles us comes from inside us, not from outside us.  In this particular case, Jesus says that what we eat does not defile us, because it just passes through our digestive tract.  However, I do not think His teaching here applies only to what we eat.  Which brings me to what I think Jesus was referring to when He warned us to beware of the “yeast” of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  All too often we excuse our words or actions because of things which happened outside of ourselves.  Jesus tells us that we must take responsibility for our actions if we want to be better.  The evil thoughts which we have, which come from within us, defile us, not the things which happen to us from outside.  If we want to be pure, we must acknowledge that our desire to harm others comes from within us.  The “yeast” of the Pharisees and Sadducees is the idea that sin comes from outside forces working on us.  It was not our circumstances which led us to do wrong, it was our heart.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 13-14.

Usually when I look at the Parable of the Sower, or hear someone preach about it, the focus is on what kind of soil the seed falls upon.  However, today I want to look at the one who scattered the seed.  Jesus tells us that the parable is about those who hear the message about the kingdom of God.  Here’s what I noticed about the one spreading the message about the kingdom of God: they did not concern themselves with what type of soil they spread the seed on.  Which brings me to the Parable of the weeds.  There Jesus tells us that weeds were mixed in among the wheat and that the servants asked the farmer whether they should pull the weeds.  The farmer told them not to pull the weeds because they might uproot some of the wheat in the process.  I think this emphasizes the lesson I wrote about the previous parable.  It is not up to us to decide to whom to spread the message about the kingdom of God.  It is not our job to decide if someone is packed down ground, or rocky ground, or thorny ground.  We should assume that everyone to whom we have the opportunity to preach God’s word will be good soil.

I was tempted to stop there, but the message from the Parables of the Mustard Seed and of the Yeast have a message which fits with that one.  Mustard seeds are very small, but grow into large plants.  Yeast is even smaller, yet a small amount of yeast can transform a large amount of dough completely.  So, just as we are not to worry about whether or not our “audience” will be receptive to the message of God’s kingdom, we should not worry about whether we are “big” enough, or strong enough, to accomplish the mission to which we feel called.  We should just do what the Spirit leads us to do and leave the results to Him.

Speaking of leaving the results to Him, this passage ends with the story of Jesus walking on the water.  We always talk about it as Jesus walking on the water, but the real point of the story is Peter.  Peter had enough faith to get out of the water and start walking towards Jesus, but then he looked around and got scared.  Which brings us to the first lesson of this story: when Peter took his focus off of going to Jesus, he began to falter.  However, that isn’t the end of it.  When he faltered and began to sink beneath the water, he called out to Jesus to save him.  Jesus did so.  So, when we inevitably allow ourselves to become distracted from God and begin to falter. we know that Jesus will be there to reach out a hand and catch us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Matthew 10-12.

Today’s passage once again contains so many important points I struggle with where to start and what to write.  However, I saw the similarity between the first part of Jesus’ commission to the Twelve when He sent them out and His answer to the question John the Baptist’s disciples asked him.  Jesus told the Twelve to go out and proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is near.  Further, He told them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the unclean, and to drive out demons.  When John’s disciples asked Him if He was the “one who is to come” or if they should look for someone else, He told them to report what they had seen: the sick are healed, the unclean are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached.  So, how did the people know that Jesus was the Messiah?  He healed the sick, He cleansed the unclean, He raised the dead, and He preached good news.  How can people know that we follow Him?  We can preach the good news, cleanse the unclean (at some point I am going to need to write a detailed blog on what that means), and raise the dead.  While I don’t believe that every follower of Jesus will do all of these things, I do think that every follower of Jesus should be prepared to do any of these when circumstances warrant.  I also believe that every follower of Jesus should be doing the first two in some way.

As for how we are to preach the good news, I think that we can look to what Jesus told the Twelve about what to do when they were arrested for the answer.  He told them not to worry about what to say, or how to say it.  When the time is right, God’s Spirit will speak through us.  We need to make sure that we open our mouths to say those words.  However, Jesus does tell us to take care about the “empty” words we speak, the words which were not given to us by God’s Spirit.  On the day of judgement we will need to account for each one of them.  So, we need not worry about what we should say.  Rather, we should think about the words we should not say.  I am not talking about specific words, but rather thoughts we should keep to ourselves, and consider whether perhaps we should stop entertaining those thoughts.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.