Category: Matthew
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Merry Christmas, Figure It Out
There are good Christmases, but none perfect, because Christmas, more than any other season, vibrates with the tension between the “already” and the “not yet”, those two polarities that make up the Kingdom. The “not yet” of Christmas never totally gives way to the “already”, because the first Christmas Day, for those who lived it, felt utterly…
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Matthew 27: 24-31: That One: He’ll Do Just Fine.
“His blood be on us and our children.” They were passionate about something. These are not the words of people who are doing someone else’s bidding. They were rioting, and Pilate gave them Jesus and released Barabbas to satisfy them. All my life evangelical preachers have implied that the cry for Barabbas was just a…
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Matthew 13: Divine unDesign
Jesus says the kingdom is like a field where the farmer planted grain, but his enemies planted weeds. When the busybody farm hands asked to uproot the weeds, the farmer said “no, you’ll just kill the crop.” The field is the world. So Jesus is telling us, again, that God intentionally lets the world appear…
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Matthew 5:45: God avoids the appearance of design
“…so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” So God’s indiscriminate love makes it look like there is no moral actor behind natural law.