The Lord’s Prayer with Emphasis Placed on “But deliver us from evil.” This ninth reflection on the Lord’s Prayer focuses our thoughts on the truth that only the Father can deliver us from evil and the many ways it infiltrates our lives. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. […] Read more
Jesus, beaten senselessly, bleeding profusely, and stripped naked hangs on the cross for the world to see. Many people mock him, some ignore him, and his closest friends, those who were actually present, mourned him. Matthew writes, 45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until […] Read more
After warning the disciples about the coming of false Christs and imploring them to not be led astray, Jesus begins painting a picture of the end times when he says, 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take […] Read more
This next passage of Matthew’s Gospel is often called “the Olivet Discourse,” primarily because Jesus spoke it while sitting on the Mount of Olives. It has also been referred to as “the Little Apocalypse” because its language and content mirror many passages found in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. Matthew introduces […] Read more
Many of the oldest biblical manuscripts, when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, do not include the final phrase “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.” In most instances, whether this line is part of the original prayer is of no […] Read more
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
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
Lead us not into temptation… I’ve always found this portion of Jesus’s prayer challenging as I never thought the Father would lead us into temptation. In James, we read, “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, […] Read more