“It’s true! I swear!” We’ve all heard such statements, and have perhaps made them ourselves. But in today’s passage, Jesus urges us to examine what we are really saying – and why we say these kinds of things. Now, the ancient Pharisees were most clearly in Jesus’ crosshairs. They refused…

“How far is too far?” That’s what the middle-school and high-school boys I taught used to ask me where it came to their interactions with girls. And the men who first listened to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount were no different. In the seventh commandment, God had clearly said “Thou…

In this era of increasingly violent disagreement, Jesus reminds us that seeking reconciliation is not optional for Christians. This is especially true if we are the guilty party, if someone has accused us of wrongdoing. In this case, Jesus insists in verses 25 and 26 that it is our responsibility…

Jesus Himself said that He came to fulfill the Law of Moses (Matthew 5:17), and it is in fact true that all the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. So, why can’t we just forget about the Law and the Prophets and just read the…

How can salt become tasteless? Well, in the ancient world, the salt people used was often impure, mixed with all sorts of other chemical elements. Over time, and with exposure to the weather, the true salt – the sodium chloride – could leach out of this mixture, leaving a substance…

Believe in Christ and you will be saved. That’s true, as long as we understand what it means to believe in Christ. After all, everyone in this passage believed in Jesus in one way or another. Think about the unclean spirits, the demons mentioned in Mark 3:11. After all, they…

In their legalistic mania to justify themselves in the sight of God, the Pharisees took God’s Sabbath requirement and blew it up to ridiculous proportions. For they had come to the conclusion that it was work to have a snack while walking through a field. They even thought the Sabbath…

While “intermittent fasting” as a way to boost our health and shrink our waistlines has become more popular in modern America, fasting as a spiritual discipline has largely fallen by the wayside. But it was an important part of Old Testament religious practice. The Law of Moses prescribed one fast…

How could Jesus possibly associate with “those people”? In our increasingly polarized society, the question is becoming increasingly common. Some might point to the January 6 protesters or to those who espouse racist views as especially worthy of condemnation. Others might point to some of the millions of able-bodied, working-age…

What do you want from Jesus? We have no reason to believe that this paralyzed man and his friends were interested in anything other than physical healing. And that’s how we often pray for ourselves and our loved ones, asking God to change the material circumstances of our lives: to…