The prayers of Paul This is a new series on the prayers of St Paul found in the letters attributed to him in one of the orders he is belived to have written them. Letters to the same place or person will be treated together with the first letter to that destination. Photo by Pavel …
Tag: Jesus
The Reign of the Lord’s Anointed — Psalm 2
Psalms in Book 1 (Psalms 1 to 41) are mostly personal songs, so I will be looking at how they apply to us personally. Social and communal aspects of life and work do not come in until the later books of psalms. Psalm 2 has no attribution, the quote of this psalm in Acts 4:23-24 …
Matthew 22:41-46 4 questions 4) Whose son is the Christ?
The King’s defence This is it. The last of my blog posts on Matthew's Gospel. When I wrote a poem in January of 2015 based on the beatitudes in Matthew 5 I had no idea what I had let myself in for, I had no idea it would be a series of posts. When I …
Continue reading Matthew 22:41-46 4 questions 4) Whose son is the Christ?
Personal integrity — Psalm 1
Psalms in Book 1 Psalms in Book 1 (Psalms 1 to 41) are mostly personal songs, so I will be looking at how they apply to us personally. Social and communal aspects of life and work do not come in until the later books of psalms. The first two psalms introduce themes that set the …
Matthew 22:34-40 4 questions 3) The great Commandment
The King’s defence When people believe in urban legends and conspiracy theories and someone confronts them with the truth they will not listen and change, they just personally attack. That is all over social media, you find it in the editorials of newspapers and in blogs. There is nothing new about that. The religious and …
Continue reading Matthew 22:34-40 4 questions 3) The great Commandment
Matthew 22:23-33 4 questions 2) Sadducees and the resurrection
The King’s defence The religious and political leaders are trying to trip Jesus up. The first was the Pharisees and Herodians; now it is the Saddusee's turn. They hope they will stop Jesus, but they have no idea what Jesus' mission is and they are actually helping Jesus. Jesus came to be God's sacrifice for …
Continue reading Matthew 22:23-33 4 questions 2) Sadducees and the resurrection
Matthew 22:15-22 4 questions 1) Paying Taxes to Caesar
The King’s defence After three parables where Jesus said the chief priests had been shown up before the people for rejecting God Matthew's account moves on to three questions to attack Jesus, followed by a question to them by Jesus. I have mentioned a few times in this series how Matthew likes to group things …
Continue reading Matthew 22:15-22 4 questions 1) Paying Taxes to Caesar
The wedding — Matthew 22:1–14
The King’s judgements Jesus cleared the temple and the chief priests, who ran the temple, did not like this, so on Jesus' next visit they ask Jesus where his authority to do this came from. Instead of giving a direct answer Jesus tells three parables against them — in the first, the parable of the …
The truth
Whistle blowers and the church When I was in secondary school one of the teams we played against was from the Verona Fathers, a Roman Catholic seminary where boys were being trained as prospective priests. We cheered our team and jeered theirs during the game but before and after the game things were OK between …
Vineyard — Matthew 21:33–46
The King’s judgements Following Jesus clearing the temple of market traders, Jesus was asked by the Temple authorities where he got his authority. The answer seems to be evasive until you realise that the three parables that follow form the bigger part of the answer. The first was covered in the last post, the gist …
Making an ass of myself 