May 18 / Matt. 24:1-14

I expressed frustration yesterday about the inequality of vaccination distributions worldwide. Then a number of news agencies reported yesterday that President Biden is committing another 20 million doses above the 60 million that had already been committed – that the USA would become an “arsenal of vaccines” for the world. So that’s good, but still far short of need.

But today’s Scripture reading… Portions of today’s reading seem to point to the “end of the age” question that the disciples ask at the end of verse 3, especially the last two verses. But other portions seem to reflect ongoing issues in the world from Jesus’ time until now: For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (v. 7) Finally, other portions of today’s reading seem to target Jesus’ disciples and their followers, especially toward the last half of the first century: Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. (v. 9) Naturally this last verse is also alive and active in today’s world, as we hear during our prayers each Sunday for the persecuted church.

With it all, as I read through these “end times” pronouncements by Jesus I am secure in the confidence that I have that “He will not leave us or forsake us”. Although this section in quotation marks is not a direct quote, here are five sources that say essentially the same thing: Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5-6, Deuteronomy 31:8, 1 Chronicles 28:20. “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

See also: September 27 (2019) / Matt. 24:1-14

May 17 / Mark 12:38-44, Luke 20:45-21:4

Mark 12:38-44 and Luke 20:45-21:4

It keeps coming back to me – am I doing enough? Are we doing enough? The latest is COVID vaccinations. We are moving quite well in the USA to getting everyone 16 and over vaccinated who wants the vaccine and now we’re moving on to the 12-15 year old group. And that’s good news, but the poor countries in this world have barely begun vaccinations. Click down to the table on the following website to see the ranking of percent vaccinated by all countries: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/?itid=hp_pandemic%20test. Our dear friends in Uganda – 1% of their population vaccinated. I often fear for the moral state of our country. But the financial inequities, both within and outside our country are truly staggering. What would Jesus do…??

See also:

May 16 / Matt. 23:25-39

Matthew 23:25-39

Hidden in plain sight… So many times I have read Jesus’ chastisements, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…, and His continuing comments on their behaviors, but for some reason I always imagined that He was speaking to the crowd. But not true! He was speaking directly to the scribes and Pharisees! In fact Jesus speaks the word “you” 35 times in these 24 “woe” verses (13-36). On other occasions Jesus is speaking to the crowds or to His followers about the scribes and Pharisees and their hypocrisy (e.g., Matthew 6:5, Luke 12:2), but here He is speaking directly to them. Yes, their anger against Him must certainly be growing!!

I mentioned in my second comment below a chronological issue concerning Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem. But even then I hadn’t realized that He very likely had spoken these words earlier. Luke has Him speaking these words during His Galilean journey toward Jerusalem (Luke 13:34-35). Luke also has Him weeping over Jerusalem as He approached the city during His Palm Sunday procession (Luke 19:41).

I continue to be challenged by Jesus’ call to humility and His chastisement of hypocrisy.

See also:

May 15 / Matt. 23:1-24

Matthew 23:1-24

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (vv. 13, 14, 15, 23) So many times I have likened myself to the Pharisees, especially in the area where they were distrusting this would-be Messiah as a faker or a scam artist. So if I often identify with the Pharisees, I need to read these passages carefully where Jesus challenges their hypocrisy and ask myself if I am being hypocritical in my words vs. my actions? Message to myself, just that…

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (v. 9) This verse has been in Scriptural texts for two thousand years – how did we come to the point where we refer to priests as “Father”??!!

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. (v. 23) I often wonder if we as a church are doing enough for “justice and mercy and faithfulness”. From our $421,147 church budget we allocated only $16,634 (3.9%) in 2021 for our Mission Committee. And a very large chunk of that Mission Committee budget goes to missionaries that we support, of which much of that (I would think) covers living expenses and evangelistic activities. I am not criticizing the Mission Committee or the missionaries, but I wonder how much of what we give actually feeds down to the poor and needy. And while we do what we can for needy Hispanic families through our Avanza ministry, the conditions in which these families live is sad compared to our own lifestyles. And it’s not just an issue for our church – it’s also an issue for us as individuals and us as a nation. I don’t have answers, but wouldn’t it be great if we could tithe our church budget or our own incomes for pure need-based activities? Where to go from here…??

See also:

May 14 / Luke 20:27-44

Luke 20:27-44

But He said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? (v. 41) It’s intriguing to me that Jesus raises this question after He has been questioned by both the Pharisees (paying taxes to Caesar) and the Sadducees (the resurrection). After these two questions (and many, many previous questions and challenges) we have the line that …they no longer dared to ask him any question. (v. 40) Jesus has answered well, leaving the Jewish leaders with nothing more to challenge Him. So to top it off, He asks them a question which they cannot answer! A bit of “salt in the wound” from Jesus to these Jewish leaders – it likely increased their anger to Him all the more.

See also:

May 13 / Mark 12:18-37

Mark 12:18-37

I would suggest that it’s worth reading my comment in the second link below from 2019 on the scribe’s question about the most important commandment. I find that discussion between Jesus and the scribe to be really heartwarming – a genuine question from the scribe and a perfect reply from Jesus, then further discussion between them. It makes me want to meet that scribe!

And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. (v. 34b) I looked ahead in The Chronological Study Bible and as far as I could tell this statement is true, that there are no more incidents where the Pharisees or Sadducees were asking Jesus questions in which they were trying to challenge Him.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (v. 30) I don’t know if I’ve said it to all of you before, but this quote from Jesus is my “conversion verse”. On May 17, 1975 late in the evening I was once again sitting with my friend, Jim and he was sharing with me again as he had for the previous 3.5 years. But somehow through all that he said this verse came to me and I was convicted that I was a sinner and that I needed God’s forgiveness. I knew that I was not even close on obeying that “greatest commandment”. I think of this almost every Sunday when we read this commandment at the beginning of our service following the “Prayer for Purity” when the deacon reads the “Summary of the Law”. Sweet…!

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May 12 / Matt. 22:23-46

Matthew 22:23-46

In the second link below I tried to clarify Matthew’s verse 44 which reads The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies under Your feet”. (Caps for further clarification…) Substituting differently than below, another way to read this verse could be God the Father said to Jesus <i.e., David’s Lord, the Messiah>, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies under Your feet”. How does that substitution work for the rest of you? Is it still faithful to the Scriptural meaning?

Now there were seven brothers among us. (v. 25) Matthew, different from Mark and Luke adds these last two words, “among us”. I doubt that the Sadducees knew of one real-life case of seven brothers having the one wife. It’s one thing to ask Jesus a question, to test Him. But it’s another to employ a falsehood to initiate the test. Jesus could easily have responded, “Really? Six dead brothers and then a seventh…?? Amazing!” (Yes, it’s a very small point, but it’s something that I noticed this morning.)

See also:

May 11 / Luke 20:9-26

Luke 20:9-26

Verse 18 from today’s first parable is one that has been confusing to me: Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. But a key to understanding lies in the pronoun, everyone. My Study Bible suggested pottery instead of people. A clay pot falling on a stone will be broken to pieces, but stone falling on a clay pot will surely do more damage. The NASB says, “will scatter him like dust”, an even stronger wording. Maybe something was lost in the translation?

Both Mark and Luke note that “they” (presumably the chief priests) did not try to arrest Jesus because they “feared the people”. All of our readings for the next two weeks take place during the first few days of Holy Week, with Jesus presumably teaching in the Temple. If the chief priests are afraid of arresting Jesus because of the people, it must have been a very large crowd of people to whom Jesus was speaking – every time He spoke! And He is doing His teachings every day, Monday through Thursday, probably within the Temple grounds until He celebrates the Passover with His disciples at the Last Supper. Only then do the chief priests hatch a plot to catch Him late at night when the crowd is gone. And even then they incite a rabble crowd to force the Roman governor to sentence Jesus to death. What a sad commentary on these Jewish leaders.

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May 10 / Mark 12:1-17

Mark 12:1-17

I noted in the second link below that the group sent to Jesus with the tribute question differs in the three Gospels. Mark has the following statement: And they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap Him in his talk. (v. 13) Here “they” must clearly refer to the chief priests who at that time were from among the Sadducees. This is yet another occurrence of the Sadducees and Pharisees, opponents in many respects, now joined in their plot to destroy Jesus. The first occurrence that I noted was in John’s Gospel after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, where the high priest, Caiaphas had suggested that …one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. (John 11:49-52) The third group in today’s incident, the Herodians presumably had nothing against Jesus, but were used by the other two groups in trying to trip Jesus up.

In his sermon yesterday Michael Matlock mentioned that God had ordained three institutions for our society – marriage and the family, the church, and the government. In answering the tribute question Jesus acknowledges the authority of both the government and the church. Interesting…

See also:

May 9 / Matt. 22:1-22

Matthew 22:1-22

And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. (v. 10) This verse caught my eye – my NASB translation said “both evil and good”, replacing “bad” with “evil”. “Evil” is a much stronger word than “bad”. But with either word, Jesus is making it clear that all people are invited to the wedding feast, even to His great wedding feast when the church will be presented to Jesus as His bride. There is no one out there who is not worth saving, even those family and friends who have been most resolute in rejecting Jesus. Whether by word or deed, we need to continue to reflect Jesus to them.

On paying taxes to Caesar… I had made a mistake in filing our 2019 taxes last year and filled out a Form 1040-X earlier this year to correct that mistake. It involved us paying back multiple thousands of dollars to the IRS. Then last week I saw a large deposit in our bank account for a smaller amount, but still multiple thousands of dollars. We haven’t received the official notification yet, but I did check online and it is a true refund. I imagine an IRS employee seeing a large check to correct an earlier error and doing what s/he could to minimize that correction – a good outcome for us. The point – we need to pay to Caesar what is due, even when it hurts, but the Lord will continue to provide for us!

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