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Matthew 25:14-30, some manuscripts connect the Greek word “eutheos,” meaning “immediately” to the first servant’s action, which would mean he did not sit on it, he moved, but it is worth pausing on what trading actually involved in 1st century Palestine, because it was not safe. The economy ran...

Matthew 25:14-30, 75 pounds of silver, that is what a single talent weighed in the first, not a coin you could slip into a pocket, a mass of metal you would need both arms to carry. When Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives days before his death and told a story about a man handing that kind of...

Matthew 16:24, the same Jesus who says, deny yourself, also says in Matthew 11:28, the same Lord who calls for a cross also calls himself gentle and lowly in heart, the same Christ who confronts self-rule is the shepherd who gives life, John 10:10. So, Christian self-denial is not a war against...

Matthew 16:24, a cross did not whisper, it announced, it told everyone passing by that Rome had won and the condemned person had lost every appeal, whatever plans he had, whatever family name he carried, whatever arguments he might still have wanted to make, the road answered them all with wood...

Matthew 16:24, the word yourself, Jesus is not calling the body evil, he is not calling emotions evil, he is not calling gifts, personality, intelligence, memory, laughter, creativity or desire evil in themselves, Scripture gives no permission for contempt toward what God created. The self being...

Matthew 16:24, Peter wants the Christ, he does not want the crucified Christ, that is why Jesus’ response is so severe, get behind me, Satan, does not mean Peter has become Satan, it means Peter is functioning as an obstacle, echoing a temptation that would turn Jesus away from the path of...

Matthew 16:24, the other mistake is to make the command harmless, deny yourself becomes a motivational phrase for self-discipline, say no to a luxury, skip dessert, spend less, be a little nicer, make a few religious improvements while keeping the basic ownership of your life untouched. That is...

Matthew 16:24, the Greek verb behind deny, comes from “aparnesastho,” a word used for denying, disowning or renouncing, the meaning many Christians miss is this, Jesus is not attacking human dignity, he is calling for a decisive refusal to let the self remain the ruling authority. The verse is...

Matthew 15:24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. You cannot avoid this, it is too important, because it is not just a test script line that Jesus is running through before revealing his real position, it is, or at least it appears to be, a genuine statement about the scope of his...

Matthew 15:21-28, consider the disciples in this story, they are often treated as secondary characters, bystanders who wanted her dismissed and got shown up, but consider their reaction carefully, something more interesting is happening. These are men who have been with Jesus for a substantial...

Matthew 15:29-39, the God of Israel, commentators have noted for centuries that this phrasing is strange if the crowd is Jewish, you do not praise the God of Israel as if it is a new discovery if that is already your God. That language is the language of people encountering something for the...

Matthew 15:21-28, was Jesus testing the woman? This is the question that has divided scholars and preachers and ordinary readers for 2,000 years and the reason it matters so much is that the answer changes the entire moral character of the story. If Jesus was testing her, then the silence and...

Matthew 15:26-27, it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs. 2,000 years of readers have stopped cold at those words and here is the first thing you need to understand, the thing that most English readers miss entirely, because it is buried in a translation decision...

Matthew 15:22, Mark writing for a different audience, calls her a Syrophoenician Greek, Mark 7:26, that label is more precise geographically, but does similar work. She is Gentile, she is Greek-speaking, she belongs to the dominant Hellenistic culture that had spread across the Mediterranean...

Matthew 15:21, for a Jewish rabbi in the first century, traveling there voluntarily was not just unusual, it was almost unthinkable, the history between Israel and the Phoenician coast went back centuries and almost none of it was good. The prophets Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, all of them had...

Matthew 15:21-28, to understand what happens in this story, you have to understand what happened the day before it, Matthew 15:1-2 opens not with a quiet teaching on a hillside, but with a confrontation. A delegation of Pharisees and scribes has traveled from Jerusalem specifically to challenge...

Luke 15:11-32, there is one more layer that ties this entire parable to the biggest story in the Bible, the parable has three characters, a father and two sons, one son who left and came back, one son who stayed, but was lost. The Bible has the same structure, humanity left the father, walked...

Luke 15:11-32, that is why Jesus said the tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the Kingdom ahead of the Pharisees, not because their sin was smaller, because their awareness of their sin was bigger and awareness is the door to repentance and repentance is the door to the feast. Be...

Luke 15:11-32, the father in the parable ran to the son, God in history ran to you through a manger, through a cross, through an empty tomb, running, always running toward the broken, toward the lost, toward the ones who smell like pigs and have rehearsed speeches about how they are not worthy...

Luke 15:11-32, you are always with me. The greatest gift was not the robe or the ring or the feast, the greatest gift was the father’s presence and both sons missed it. Consider this, right now, not theoretically, practically, if God took away the answer to your biggest prayer, the promotion...