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Showing posts from September, 2024

Tackling Tradition (Part 11) - Angels & Marriage

Matthew 22:29 - 33 - But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. This text is not  about angels & whether or not they marry.  It’s about the attitude & aptitude of angels on Judgment Day.    Yeshua was in the temple, having brought his lawsuit there. He’d publicly bested them. The Pharisees’ reply was to ask about Roman taxation, revealing their bigotry & gluttony. The Sadducees’ reply was a question about marriage revealing their gluttony & misogyny, implying they were in the business of robbing women of their rights & ...

The Church Is Called To Care For The Poor, Marginalized, & Oppressed (Part 3)

The Church is called to take care of the poor, yes—but let’s define “poor” biblically. True poverty, the kind that the Bible speaks of, refers to people who are genuinely unable to work due to circumstances beyond their control—whether that be age, disability, or some unavoidable calamity.   That’s a truncated definition at best.   According to the Bible, the poor include those people  and   the  figuratively  poor  and  those whose calamity comes to them by the hands of others.   The Bible constantly calls out those who sow systemic injustice.  Micah 2:   1 Woe to those who devise wickedness     and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it,     because it is in the power of their hand. 2  They covet fields and seize them,     and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house,     a man and his inheri...

The Church Is Called To Take Care Of The Poor, Oppressed, & Marginalized (Part 2)

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:24 - 33 reminds us that people experience anxiety about the necessities of life, like food, clean water, & clothing/shelter.      No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.  Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  26  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?    27  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  28  And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  29  yet I tell you, ev...