The prayers of Paul This is a series on the prayers of St Paul found in the letters attributed to him in the order he is believed to have written them. Letters to the same place or person will be treated together with the first letter to that destination. I am writing this at a …
Continue reading Holding out in a troubled world part 2 – 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
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?
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 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 …
The King’s judgements It is easy to take this passage on its own as a question of where the authority of Jesus comes from and use it to branch out into what Christians believe the authority of Jesus to be; there's nothing wrong with that and I will be doing it later. Bear in mind …
The King’s judgements One thing to remember when reading through Matthew's Gospel is that things are not necessarily consecutive, Matthew was writing a gospel, not a history, but they are carefully placed so that the stories that run together affect each other. The previous passage had children praising Jesus because of his miracles but the …
Continue reading It wasn’t the fig tree’s fault — Matthew 21:18–22
The King’s judgements The children got what Jesus was about before the adults. What have they got that adults have not? Some say that they have a simplicity that adults have lost. 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes …
Continue reading Out of the mouths of infants — Matthew 21:14–17
The King’s judgements "A den of robbers," said Jesus about the temple. But if so who were those who ran the temple of Jerusalem stealing from? The images above show different stages in the life of the Jewish temple. It started out as a tent so that it could be transported through the desert from …
The King’s actions This is one of those passages which if you read it in each of the synoptic Gospels it contradicts. Luke has the healing happening to one man as Jesus enters Jericho, Matthew and Mark have it as Jesus leaves the city, Matthew heals two men, whilst Mark has one man named Bartimaeus. …
The King’s actions Christmas is all about families. That was repeated on TV News (it isn't news it is opinion), as if family is what Christmas is about families, complete with the strory of the birth of Jesus as often depicted, with Mary dressed in expensive blue silk. I do not believe that story. Picture …
Making an ass of myself 