Category: Gospel of Matthew
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Pearls Before Swine: Jesus the Riddler and What He Might Have Meant
The Greeks and Romans didn’t use paragraphs. So when my Bible lumps Matthew 7:6 in with the discussion on judgment right before it, I take it on faith that they’ve got the flow right. In this case, though, I’m not sure they do. It’s curious either way that Jesus would follow up a long teaching…
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How to Be a Judgment-Free Zone: Jesus on Judgment, Part 4
In an earlier post I wrote that seeing, understanding, and discerning are intuitive, things we do automatically and instinctively, but judgment is a choice. I believe that to be true, but it isn’t obvious. For most of us, judging itself FEELS instinctive. We do it so fast we aren’t aware we’re doing it. So Jesus’s…
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The Comparison Trap: Jesus on Judgment, Part 3
Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and…
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What We Do When We Judge: Jesus on Judgment, Part 2
“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1-2) Last week, looking at the phrase “Do not judge,” we said that judgment is a fact. It will come, and it will…
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Jesus on Judgment: What “Do Not Judge” Does and Does Not Mean
Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1) Of everything Jesus taught, I wrestle with this passage maybe the most. It’s just so darn…
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Seeing, Seeking, & Asking Questions: How to Find the Kingdom of God
So don’t worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” (Matthew…
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Trust at the Core: Why Jesus Lived in a Different World than We Do
So don’t worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.”…
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“Won’t God Do More for You?” How Jesus Confronts Our Low Expectations of God
And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and…
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Provision, Responsibility, and The Waste of Worry
Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? Jesus begins teaching about money by telling us not to collect stuff: lay up treasure in heaven instead. It lasts and it’s better, and you never have to worry that someone’s going to break in and carry it off. That’s the…
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Right Places, Right Times: What Looking at the Birds Teaches Us about Provision
My friend Sheila watched a nature documentary about penguins. This is a bad idea for anyone who wants to retain magical, fuzzy feelings about the natural world. I saw one recently too: there were all these penguins living on an island near Antarctica or somewhere, and every day they would go plunging off these sheer,…