The miracle stories in the Gospels (like the ones in the OT) are stories with the wow factor that’s part of all miracle stories – think of the ones we hear on the infomercials on TV 😉 They called this reading “Feeding the Five Thousand” but it comes in a context. Luke (like the other [&hellip...
Everyone loves a good miracle story, the Infomercials are full of them, buy this exercise machine use it just 10 minutes a day and be instantly sexually attractive, sleep on our special magnets and your pain will go away and you’ll feel 30 years younger. Infomercial miracles sell things: it worked for me, you buy [&hellip...
This is a chapter of parables. Remember parabole (Greek) or mashal (Hebrew) means a comparison, so ask ourselves what’s the point of comparison here? One clue is to look at the numbers (no, I’ll not be getting into numerology 😉 Another, Jesus gives us himself. And a third comes from noticing where the climax of [&hellip...
OK this story must be one of the best-known that Jesus ever told, everyone has heard it! And if not (at least if they speak English or French or just about any other European language) they know the main character’s name – The Good Samaritan. Except that, what we know if we know this, is [&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...
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...
How would you take to John as preacher in your church? He certainly had an attention grabbing opening: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Luke 3:7 If a little lacking in pastoral skills 😉 But for a modern audience it actually gets harder, just as John seems [&hellip...
This is perhaps the chapter of the Bible that more people have partly heard than any other. We have also heard things that aren’t there: like the animals around the manger who don’t get a mention in Luke’s account – perhaps because their presence in houses as well as “stables” they were taken for granted. [&hellip...
