Last week concluded with Jesus pronouncing two woes upon the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees because they, according to Jesus, kept people out of the kingdom of heaven and raised up followers who were twice as bad as the scribes and Pharisees. These were not, however, the only woes […] Read more
In the past few weeks we have looked at a number of events and parables that shed light on how to better pray, “deliver us from evil,” but we have paid little attention to how these events and parables parallel sections of the Sermon on the Mount. Here are just […] Read more
Among the many limitations that result from writing about Scripture in sections, the most grievous is treating each section in isolation from the surrounding context. This week’s passage really only makes sense if we refresh our memory about those verses that came before. Jesus had just told two parables, one […] Read more
I often wonder how good the disciples’ memory was, but for that matter, I wonder if our memory is any better. Other than questioning why Jesus would want to eat figs in the first place, it seems that the following verses did not elicit a memory of Jesus’s previous teaching. […] Read more
Here again, as we are moving into a new section of Matthew’s Gospel as seen through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer, is a brief outline of our study thus far. We have seen that, If you have even a basic knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer, you will know the […] Read more
Jesus, if you recall, had just told the disciples that the rich will find it difficult to enter heaven. Peter responded by asking if the rich couldn’t get into heaven, who could? He also asked what was in it for him and his fellow disciples since they had left everything. […] Read more
Michael Jordan. Wayne Gretzky. Tom Brady. Babe Ruth. Pele. Picasso. Rembrandt. Michelangelo. Shakespeare. Clark Kent. Perfection: we long for it, we idolize it, and we love it. We know it when we see it — whether on the field, the ice, the walls of a museum, the shelf in the […] Read more
This may seem redundant since we just recapped our study of Matthew’s Gospel last week, but here it is again: an outline of our study of Matthew’s Gospel thus far: With 18 chapters of Matthew and six petitions of the Lord’s Prayer behind us, our present discussion will move into […] Read more
As we approach a new section of Matthew’s Gospel, let us take a look back and see how our previous study of Matthew’s Gospel helps us better understand each petition in the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 1-2, God’s power through history is a reason for praying, “Our Father in heaven, […] Read more
I have been studying Matthew’s Gospel through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer to see how we might gain a richer prayer life. But anytime we filter scripture through a set of lenses not readily apparent in the passage, we must be wary of the danger of reading into the […] Read more