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

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

There is a lot to be learned from this passage, but I want to focus on what Jesus says about following man-made traditions and rules instead of following the commands given by God.  I will first note that the traditions which Jesus calls out were not invented from whole cloth by the Pharisees.  They developed these traditions as an interpretation of certain instructions which had come from God,  However, we must keep in mind that doing this is a human tendency.  We all have a tendency to make complex rules that allow us to justify serving our own interests rather than obeying God.  We should be careful about listening to the guidance given by religious leaders who are willing to tell us what we want to hear.

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

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

Jesus taught using parables because the concepts He was teaching could not be summed up in simple, one-size fits all ways.  Those unwilling to accept the complex answers which Jesus teaches find His parables confusing and contradictory.  Those who truly seek God will understand how each parable presents just a partial picture of the whole truth.  An example of what I am talking about can be seen by comparing Jesus’ parable of the good seed and the weeds to the saying “Kill them all. Let God sort them out.”  Jesus’ parable is the exact opposite of the saying.  Both things tell us that we do not have the ability to distinguish between truly good people and truly bad people.  Both tell us that only God can do that.  However, Jesus tells us that it is better to let the guilty go unpunished than to harm the innocent, while the human saying tells us that it is more important to punish the guilty than to protect the innocent.

We will see how this next bit goes.  I am going to try to make a connection between Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of Heaven and the account of Peter attempting to walk on water.  Jesus describes how small things lead to great things.  This is a theme which Jesus speaks of quite a bit.  Earlier in Matthew, Jesus told us we should be like salt.  Here, Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast and to a mustard seed.  All of these things share a common element.  It doesn’t take much salt to completely change the flavor of food.  It only takes a small amount of yeast to make a lump of dough become much larger.  A mustard seed is very small and hard to locate if you drop it, but the plant which comes from it grows very large.  So, the message Jesus was giving us there was that small things can accomplish great things.  The connection to Peter attempting to walk on water is that if we want to do miraculous things we need to focus on Christ and not let ourselves be distracted by what else is going on.  In a way this brings us back to what I talked about in the first paragraph.  If we want to transform the world by destroying evil, we need to be strong and powerful.  On the other hand, if we focus on doing God’s will, He will transform those around us even though we are no more than a grain of salt, or a bit of yeast.

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

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

Jesus makes many points in this passage which we need to give deep thought.  I am only going to touch on a few of them.  The first one I am going to look at is the contrast between the approach Jesus and John the Baptist took to preaching their message.  John the Baptist took an austere, ascetic approach.  He preached in the desert and expected people to come to him.  Jesus, on the other hand, went to where people were.  He joined them at their feasts and at their parties.  He ate and drank with them.  Despite their different styles, they both preached much the same message; repent of your sins and do what is good.  They also respected each other.  Jesus spoke highly of John, and John sent his disciples to Jesus.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 7-9

Today’s passage begins with Jesus saying something which people love to quote, “Do not judge others…” and there is merit in paying close attention to that and the ways in which Jesus expounds on that.  However, a little further on Jesus also tells us that we can identify a tree by its fruit.  He says this in the context of warning us to beware of false prophets.  There He tells us that we can identify what type of person someone is by their actions.  So, we have two different instructions from Jesus.  One tells us not to judge others, the other tells us to pay attention to how people act and judge them accordingly.  A little closer look at what Jesus says immediately after telling us not to judge reveals that He is telling us to apply the same standard to others that we apply to ourselves.  Actually, I think Jesus is telling us we should apply the standard we apply to others to ourselves.  All too often we loudly complain about those who break a “rule” in minor way when we ourselves break that same “rule” in a major way.  We should instead seek to be more forgiving of the failure of others than we are of our own failures (although there are people who take this too far as well).

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 5-6

I have always loved this passage, there is so much in it for us to learn from.  For me what Jesus has to say about salt losing its flavor strikes me as the central take away from this passage today.  I recently saw someone say that Christians being pro-life makes people not want to get to know Christ.  That is the sort of thinking that Jesus was talking about when He said that if we lose our flavor we become good for nothing.  I almost did not use that example because I am not a champion of making abortion illegal…I am not a champion of making anything illegal.  As a Christian, I want to convince people not to do things which will cause them, or others, harm.  I want them to not do those things because they love God, not because those things are illegal.  Nevertheless, we should not be afraid to express unpopular opinions that reflect Jesus’ teachings.

However, just a few verses further on Jesus warns us against allowing ourselves to be controlled by anger, a temptation which can be hard to resist when talking about some of today’s issues.  I want to go on to another aspect of Jesus’ teaching about being salt.  Well, actually, it is the other metaphor He uses for the same lesson, being light.  He tells us to let our good deeds shine out for all to see, but, again just a few verses down, He tells us to not do our good deeds for others to see them.  He says that we should give to the needy in private, that we should pray and fast in ways that others do not see.  As part of His teaching about giving to the needy, Jesus tells us not to worry about our physical needs.  Let’s pay careful attention here.  He tells us to not worry about OUR physical needs while telling us to care for the physical needs of others.  Seek first God’s Kingdom and His will and everything we need will be provided.

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

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

As I was reading Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt I was struck by something interesting.  I have frequently seen the family (Joseph, Mary, and Jesus) compared to refugees, poor people with just what they can carry on their backs and on the back of their donkey.  I have never questioned that image because it fits with how I think of Jesus’ family going to Egypt.  However, Matthew tells us that the wise men had given Jesus (and, let’s be honest, at that age they really would have been giving it to His parents) gold, frankincense, and myrrh just before the family began their journey to Egypt.  That means that Joseph and Mary were not destitute refugees when they went to Egypt.  In fact, they were relatively well to do at that point.

In addition, reading Matthew’s account of John the Baptist and Jesus’ interaction with John the Baptist struck me differently than I had ever thought of it before.  Typically, we have read this passage as showing John the Baptist as a unique figure who previewed Jesus’ coming.  While there is truth to that and things we can learn about our relationship with God by looking at it that way, I believe there is more to it than that.  We know now that John the Baptist was part of a larger religious movement, perhaps even the leader of that movement, which is only mentioned in the Gospels in connection with John.  Those for whom Matthew was writing would have been familiar with that religious movement to one degree or another.   I believe that Matthew included this account to make the connection between Jesus and that movement.   With his account of John the Baptist, Matthew is placing Jesus in the midst of a Jewish tradition which emphasized faithfully following God.

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

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

Matthew’s description of Judas’ actions after Jesus’ arrest shed a different light on Judas than John’s account.  I have heard several speakers examine Judas’ motives.  Matthew’s account leads us to conclude that Judas thought he had reasons other than pure greed for betraying Jesus.  Also, we need to compare Judas’ betrayal to Peter’s denial.  What do we know about Judas’ betrayal?  We know that he did so for thirty pieces of silver and, from today’s passage, that he did not expect Jesus to be executed.  Further we know that Judas was among the Twelve when they were sent out with the power to heal the sick and cast out demons.  This leads us to why I think it important for us to think about Judas’ motives.  He had experienced God’s power first hand.  While I am sure that the money played a role in Judas’ decision to betray Jesus, I am also sure that he justified his betrayal on some other basis.  Perhaps he thought that by betraying Jesus he could force Jesus to start “The Revolution” which would overthrow Rome and bring in God’s Kingdom (as Judas perceived it).  Or, perhaps Judas thought that Jesus was about to start a revolt against the Romans and wanted to keep that from happening by getting Him locked up until after the Passover (after all, the Jewish authorities did not have the authority to execute Him).  Whatever his motive, Judas removed the option of forgiveness by killing himself.  Whatever his motives, Judas’ betrayal reveals a loos of faith and his suicide reveals the deep depression which results from that loss of faith.

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

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

Jesus’ last three parables, as recounted by Matthew, give lessons on facing God’s judgement.  The first parable tells us that we need to be prepared and that others cannot prepare for us.  The second parable tells us that being prepared involves making good use of the resources and opportunities which God has given us.  The third parable tells us what “making good use of” means.  The second parable scares me because I feel like I have failed to use the gifts and abilities which God has given me to anywhere near their full potential.  However, the third parable eases some of that fear because it tells us that those who have been doing God’s will don’t know what He is talking about.    When we see others in need and care for them, we are preparing ourselves to face judgement and we are investing God’s resources as He intended us to do.  Every time we pass up an opportunity to help someone in need, we are robbing from both ourselves and from God.  Those whom God rewards did not help others in order to receive a reward.  In fact, they were not even aware that they were doing anything special.  When we reach the point where we help those in need without noticing that we are doing anything noteworthy, we have gotten the point of these parables.

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

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

Jesus continues His condemnation of hypocritical religious leaders.  It would be easy to say that Jesus is pointing at someone else when He says all of this, but we should look at how what Jesus says applies to ourselves.  He condemns them for doing things solely for the purpose of gaining respect and being viewed as righteous.  I don’t know about you, but I want people to view me as a good person who does good for others.  However, what Jesus says here makes me want to BE a good person more than I want to be viewed as a good person.  We all have a tendency to create rules which we use to define what it means to be a good person that are easier for us to follow than those given to us by God.  We think that if we convince others to follow our rules that will make our rules the ones that matter.  

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

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

Jesus tells several parables in today’s passage which all have similar themes.  In a way, that theme begins with Jesus’ driving the money changers and other merchants out of the Temple.  Then when the religious leaders asked Him what authority He had for doing so, He asked them to say whether or not John the Baptist had authority from heaven.  When they said that they did not know, Jesus declined to answer their question.  They were unwilling to say that John had authority from heaven because they were unwilling to put his teachings into practice.  On the other hand, they were unwilling to say that he only had human authority because they were afraid of the crowds who believed in John.  However, that was not why Jesus asked them this question.   Jesus asked because if they accepted that John had authority from heaven, He could show how John had testified to His own calling by God.  On the other hand, if they said that John had only human authority it would reveal to the people that they did not have the righteousness they claimed. I have worded that poorly, but I think as I discuss the parables it will give a clearer understanding of what I was trying to say.

From there Jesus starts telling some parables.  The first parable shows us that saying we want to do God’s will is less important than actually doing it.  In fact, there are those who verbally reject God who do His will.  From there Jesus goes on to tell parables about people who present themselves as righteous, but actually attempt to usurp God’s place.  God will replace those people with those who know they are not in God’s presence because of their own merit, but solely because of God’s grace.  However, the ending of the wedding banquet parable shows us that we have to allow God to change us.