Category: Matthew

  • Listening to Hypocrites

    Listening to Hypocrites

    It is Fig Monday during Passion Week. Jesus’s rabbinic knowledge has been tested. He upheld Torah and proved wiser than the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees who exceeded Him in their religious status, formal education, and physical age. Jesus now turns to the crowds who have been watching His exchanges with the religious leaders of the…

  • Worldview War

    Worldview War

    It is Fig Monday, and Jesus is being tested. He started teaching and healing people in the temple. A group of Pharisees tried to question His authority. After they failed, they sent their students with the Herodians to entrap Jesus—to prove He was no real teacher. Instead, they departed marveling because of Jesus’s teaching. The…

  • Reality of Our Resurrection

    Reality of Our Resurrection

    Jesus rode into Jerusalem signifying the fulfillment of Zechariah 9, the establishment of the messianic kingdom. He has been teaching and healing in the temple complex. The chief priests and elders have now tried and failed to put Jesus to shame. The disciples of the chief priests and elders and the Herodians similarly failed. Now,…

  • Entrapment and Hypocrisy

    Entrapment and Hypocrisy

    The chief priests and elders have challenged Jesus’s authority to teach and act the way He has in the temple complex. In response, Jesus told three parables directed at the chief priests and elders in view of the crowd. In response, the chief priests and elders, now identified as Pharisees, plot together to entrap Jesus.…

  • Pharisaism: The Religion of the Degenerate

    Pharisaism: The Religion of the Degenerate

    Jesus is in the temple complex speaking directly to the chief priests and elders. This is Jesus’s third parable against them in view of the public. Matthew 22:1-14 22.1 Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν εἶπεν ἐν παραβολαῖς αὐτοῖς λέγων·  2 Ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ βασιλεῖ, ὅστις ἐποίησεν γάμους τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ.  3 καὶ…

  • Against Human Religion

    Against Human Religion

    Jesus is in a conversation with the chief priests and elders who challenged his authority. He tells his second parable against them. Matthew 21:33-46 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented…

  • What If The Democrat and LGBTQ Enter the Kingdom Before You?

    What If The Democrat and LGBTQ Enter the Kingdom Before You?

    It is Fig Monday, and Jesus has been challenged by the chief priests and elders. They asked by what authority He did and taught the things He did. He did not tell them. Jesus now tells His critics three parables about them. Here is the first. Matthew 21:28-32 “But what do you think? A man…

  • Deceiving the SS

    Deceiving the SS

    On Sunday, Jesus went into Jerusalem and tossed the tables in the outer courts of the temple. So far, on Monday, He has cursed a fig tree. Jesus is going back to the temple to continue His work. In today’s text, we see a dilemma often presented in Christian ethics. We are commanded not to…

  • Cursed Trees and Cast Mountains

    Cursed Trees and Cast Mountains

    On Sunday, Jesus went into Jerusalem and cleansed the temple—tossing the tables of those who sold sacrifices and changed money, making the temple a market rather than a house of prayer for all nations. He spent the night in Bethany and now, Monday, travels back to Jerusalem. Matthew 21:18-22 Now in the morning, when He…

  • It’s All About the Temple

    It’s All About the Temple

    Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and her colt. He rides up to the temple and enters. The crowds called Him the son of David, the rightful heir to David’s throne. David is known for reforming the nation of Israel concerning her religious practices (cf. 1 Chronicles 15ff). Jesus, who fulfilled David’s typological reign,…