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"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and …
Continue reading "The Intermingling of Witness and Suffering"
"When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake." Matthew 8:18 One of the recurring themes in the Gospel of Matthew is the distinction between the disciples and the crowd. The Sermon on the Mount occurs when Jesus sees the crowd, retreats from them to …
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32) I am glad that Jesus pursues sick people. In Luke 5, Jesus reaches out to a man with leprosy, a paralyzed man, a social outcast who …
The world around us has all sorts of darkness these days. There is the darkness that gathers around us in visible ways: violence, famine, global conflict, racial tension, unemployment, etc. For some of us, that darkness feels close and for others it feels distant. However, I’d like to sharpen our understanding of darkness by remembering …
When Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” what does he mean by the word “judge”? The word for “judge” in Greek is κρίνω which has a range of meaning that touches upon the arenas of moral discernment (knowing good from bad), lawsuits, governmental direction, and final damnation by God.[1] This …
Matthew Erickson 