Huffington Post article claiming the pais was the centurion’s sex partner produced a little flurry of posts and comment on the biblical blogs. Gavin at Otagosh in Jesus and the Centurion’s boy wrote: “I’m not sure the story actually has much value in terms of current debates on homosexuality.” Is that right? ...
As it does in Luke, Matthew’s account the feeding of the 5,000 follows after Herod speculating that Jesus is John come back to life, but Matthew used this opportunity to tell the gruesome story of John’s death. Luke moved quickly from John’s death, to tell of the disciples’ successful mission, whereas Matthew tell us that [&hellip...
This chapter is a big sack of parables, and we’ve already seen that a parable is in essence a comparison, where light is thrown on something by talking about something else, better known or more clear or vivid. The parable of the the sower is particularly complicated and developed, with lots of details but still [&hellip...
Prayer and Parables This section is a mix of teaching and parables. There is so much to talk about, so I’ll focus on how Jesus teaches: like a true Jew! in parables 6:5-8 sounds just like the prophets: true religion is not about what other people think of us, but Jusus is even more deeply [&hellip...
Matthew and Luke both give short collections of Jesus teaching early in their Gospels (Mt 5-7 and the second half of Luke 6) there are similarities, both e.g. have “The Beatitudes” a series of sayings listing sorts of people who will be blessed by God, near the beginning but each sermon (or summary compilation of [&hellip...
This week’s readings contain a sample of Jesus teachings. In reading them we will notice two things particularly that will help us better understand: (a) Jesus is a prophet: so the rules we learnt for reading Old Testament prophets will help us understand Jesus. These rules were: Prophets spoke to a context: knowing the who, [&hellip...
Matthew has introduced Jesus, giving his genealogy, linking him to the story of God’s chosen people in particular to David the great king (messiah) and Abraham the ancestor (patriarch) whom God first chose and blessed to be the blessing of the rest of humanity, and four really interesting women. He has told the birth, with [&hellip...
What is a “Gospel”? Not a collection of sayings, because they tell more stories, but not a biography, they almost miss out most of Jesus’ life! We’ll get an idea what Gospels really are by looking at how each Gospel concludes (Matt 28:17-20; Mark 16:15-20; Luke 24:51-53; John 20:30-31). Then, the four gospels begin so [&hellip...
Yes, like some of the Bible writers, I just can’t resist a pun, especially if it really does help carry the message 🙂 And in this case I think it does, more specifically after we have noticed quickly some of the good stuff in the famous David and Goliath story of David and Goliath. For [&hellip...
More than 5 minutes, so not a podcast for here, but if you want to listen to something longer (like 30 mins plus question time) I’ve posted this morning’s sermon to my blog: Matthew 5:17ff. : How to Read the Old Testament. Taking the “difficult” passage from the sermon on the mount and asking what [&hellip...
