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Prayer in difficult times: Can you learn from Jesus’s example and keep in mind the bigger picture of your life? [Matthew 26:36-46; 26:47-56] Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 26:36-56 Prayer in difficult times: Can you learn from Jesus’s example and keep in mind the bigger picture of your life? Unidentified artist (Flemish, 17th century). The Taking of Christ . Circa 1620. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Public domain, https://collections.mfa.org/download/34311 . Tom Faletti September 17, 2025 Matthew 26:36-46 The agony in the garden of Gethsemane They left the city after singing a hymn (v. 30). In the seder, Psalms 115-118 were sung after the meal. They walked out, across the Kidron Valley, to the Mount of Olives. There, they go to a garden known as the garden of Gethsemane. “Gethsemane” means “oil press,” so perhaps there was an oil press there for gathering oil from the olive trees that grew on the Mount of Olives. Jesus decides to go away from the big group to pray by himself. Who does he ask to come with him? How does Jesus feel? What is Jesus’s first prayer (v. 39)? What is Jesus’s second prayer (v. 42)? How is the second prayer different from the first? The first prayer is more focused on the possibility that “this” might be avoided; the second prayer is more focused on how to deal with it. The first prayer suggests the possibility that Jesus’s desire might conflict with the Father’s will; the second prayer is focused entirely on doing the Father’s will. How can Jesus’s prayer be a model for us when we are facing difficult circumstances? Jesus knows (vv. 45-46) that his betrayal is about to be put into action. How would you describe his state of mind? How do you think God feels about the difficulties you encounter? What is his state of mind as you face difficult circumstances? What does this time in the garden of Gethsemane tell you about your relationship with God? What is Jesus inviting you to do? Matthew 26:47-56 Jesus is arrested, the disciples resist and then desert him Judas’s act of betrayal involved telling the chief priests where they could find Jesus away from the crowds, in order to arrest him without enraging a crowd. How does Judas greet Jesus? How does Jesus greet Judas? What does it tell you about Jesus, that even in the act of being betrayed, he calls Judas “Friend”? In verse 51, how does one of Jesus’s disciples respond? John 18:10 tells us that this disciple was Peter. Considering that Judas came with a crowd armed with swords and clubs, what does this tell you about Peter? How does Jesus respond in verse 52? What does “those who take up the sword die by the sword” mean to you? How might that statement guide you in your life? What does Jesus say about angels in verse 53? In verse 54, Jesus says that the Scriptures say it must happen this way. What does that mean to you? In verse 55, Jesus gets a bit testy with the crowd regarding their method of arresting him. What is he implying about their motives? In verse 56, Jesus repeats that all that is happening is fulfilling the Scriptures. How does it affect your faith, knowing that parts of the Old Testament gave witness to what would happen to Jesus even though the Old Testament authors did not comprehend the fullness of what they were writing? Jesus sees these specific events in his life as part of a bigger picture, the bigger story arc of his life. What can you do to keep in mind the bigger picture of your life when you are facing difficult circumstances? Matthew ends this section by noting that at this point the disciples fled. Jesus has just made it clear that he is not going to resist what is coming. Can you stick with Jesus in your life even in times where God is not going to protect you from suffering or illness or rejection or death? What will you need to do in order to be ready to stick with him, and not run away, when the difficult times come? Take a step back and consider this: It is amazing to think that God guided a variety of prophets over a period of centuries to write down things that had meanings they could not have fully comprehend. Often, they wrote things about their own times that could be seen later as also applying to Jesus. Other times, they wrote things that were directly prophetic in nature, but they had no idea when, how, or through whom those things would come to pass. Yet God honored their unique voices and free will in those books. He did not just turn off their brains, put them in a trance, and dictate words to them. We hear the voices of the authors in the Word of God, even while we hear the Author behind them. God also allows us to make free decisions about what we say and do, and yet when we allow ourselves to be guided by him, he does things that may have implications and impacts we never dreamed of. Where have you seen the hand of God in your own life, guiding you in your present to bring you to your future without dictating your decisions for you? Does this make it easier for you to trust God about your future? Explain. Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

What will those who give up earthly goods for Jesus receive? Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 19:27-30 What will those who give up earthly goods for Jesus receive? Image by Emma Shappley, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti February 13, 2024 Matthew 19:27-30 The rewards of giving up everything for God Peter observes that the disciples have left everything behind to follow him. What does Jesus say they will have “at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne” (19:28, NRSV)? What does Jesus say that other believers who have left things behind will have in his kingdom? In verse 29, “a hundredfold” is a metaphor rather than a literal accounting term. What is “a hundredfold” describing, metaphorically? A hundredfold might mean an abundance, a richness of life. If they have left behind houses, brothers and sisters, parents and children, property, what do you think it means to say they will have “a hundredfold” in God’s kingdom? Perhaps “brothers and sisters” is metaphorically referring to the fellow believers we will have as spiritual brothers and sisters. It might have a similar meaning for parents and children, but wouldn’t it be awesome to think that I might have some great-great-great-grandparents who might, in heaven, be like parents to me? The property might stand for the abundance and richness of life that we will experience in heaven. Jesus concludes in verse 30: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (NRSV and NABRE). In what ways does this passage support the conclusion that “the last will be first”? Take a step back and consider this: This incident is part of a series of events in this part of Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus explains what I call Jesus's downside-up/upside-down view of life : the greatest must become like a child (18:1-5), God cares as much about the one stray as the 99 who are safe (18:10-14), the prayers of just two or three people can move heaven (18:19-20), forgiveness is not something we can choose to dole out in limited amounts — we are called to forgive to the utmost (18:21-35), men are to be committed to marriage and not find reasons to divorce their wives (19:1-9), the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, who are the lowest people on the social ladder (19:13-15), wealth is a potential impediment to receiving God's salvation rather than being a sign of God’s favor (19:16-30), the rewards of the kingdom are available to those who come late to Jesus as well as those who (think they) have followed God’s law from the beginning (20:1-16), those who wish to be first must be the servant of all (20:20-28). Jesus’s perspective is often diametrically opposed to prevailing societal perspectives regarding what is important, or valued, or expected, or right. If you want to see as God sees, you generally need to train yourself to look at things from the bottom, not the top. This can be hard for us. We have to work to see as God sees. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to see differently than the world has trained us to see. What is one aspect of your life where you can challenge yourself to see what it looks like from the bottom up, from Jesus’s downside-up perspective? Why does God choose to take that vantage point? Can you do the same? What difference would it make? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

While the normal routines of life go on, Jesus knows that one of his disciples is in the process of betraying him. How do you keep going when bad things are happening? [Matthew 26:14-16; 26:17-19; 26:20-25] Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 26:14-25 While the normal routines of life go on, Jesus knows that one of his disciples is in the process of betraying him. How do you keep going when bad things are happening? Unidentified artist. Judas mottar de trettio silverpenningarna [Judas receives the silver pieces] . Circa 1425-1450. Chalk painting, Brönnestad Church, Hässleholm, Sweden. Photo by Lennart Karlsson. CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kalkm%C3%A5lning,_Judas_mottar_de_trettio_silverpenningarna_-_Br%C3%B6nnestads_kyrka,_H%C3%A4ssleholm_-_9017124.jpg . Tom Faletti September 15, 2025 Matthew 26:14-16 Judas betrays Jesus Why do you think Judas offers to betray Jesus? There are three ways that scholars commonly attempt to explain Judas’s betrayal: Judas might have been greedy. The Gospel of John supports this idea in John 12:6, where John says that Judas kept the money for Jesus and his companions and used to steal from it. This explanation is supported by the fact that in Matthew 26:15 Judas asks the chief priests how much money they would give him if he betrayed Jesus to them. Judas might have been disillusioned because Jesus was not showing any evidence that he was going to rise up against the Romans and establish an independent Jewish nation. Judas might have believed deeply in the cause he thought Jesus stood for and felt that Jesus was moving too slowly. He might have thought he was forcing Jesus’s hand in order to speed up the inauguration of the kingdom. What is the significance of 30 pieces of silver? Exodus 21:32 indicates that 30 shekels of silver was the value of a slave in ancient Israel – the amount of compensation that had to be paid if a man’s ox gored another man’s slave. The weights of various coins were not very standardized, but the shekel and the “silver pieces” in Judas’s time were close enough that it is reasonable to hear hints of Exodus 21:32 in Matthew 26:15. A story in Zechariah 11:7-13 about a rejected shepherd suggests that 30 shekels is 30 days’ wages, and the silver pieces Judas accepted may have had the value of 30 days’ wages. However, depending on the coin that was used, it may have been worth four times that much, or 120 days’ wages: a third of a year’s wages, which is comparable to $8,000 to $16,000 today ( The New Oxford Annotated Bible , Matthew 26:14 footnote, p. 1785). Judas is betraying Jesus for less than half of the cost of the ointment the woman used to anoint Jesus in the previous passage (Matt. 26:6-13). Why do you think Judas decided to betray Jesus? Do you think he really wanted to see Jesus killed? Explain. If we put the best face on Judas’s actions, he thought he knew better than Jesus how to bring God’s kingdom into its glory. How do people in our day try to force a greater manifestation of God’s kingdom? How does Judas contrast with the woman who anointed Jesus? How is Judas different than the other disciples? How might you sometimes be at risk of trying to force God’s hand rather than waiting for God’s timing and method of working in our lives? Matthew 26:17-19 Preparation for the Passover meal In this passage, Jesus prepares to celebrate his final Passover meal with his disciples. He has probably eaten the sacrificial Passover lamb in Jerusalem every year since he was a child (Luke 2:41 tells us that his parents went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover). What do you know about the Jewish celebration of the Passover? What were they commemorating and how did they commemorate it? Passover is the annual Jewish feast celebrating the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It is also known as the feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Israelites were told to prepare unleavened bread to take on their exodus out of Egypt, because they would not have time for bread to rise as they left. Passover as the night when the Jews put the blood of a lamb on the lintels of their doors so that the angel of death would “pass over” their households when the death of the firstborns convinced Pharaoh to stop standing against God and allow the Israelites to leave Egypt. Passover is celebrated on the 15 th of Nissan (the Jewish month that, based on the lunar cycle, falls during our March/April). The “first day” referred to here is the day of preparation, the 14 th of Nissan. At sundown, the 15 th of Nissan would begin. The Passover meal was eaten on the first night of a week-long celebration of the salvation from slavery that God provided by bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. What preparations do Jesus and his disciples make for the Passover meal? It appears that Jesus had spoken with someone in advance about using his house to have the Passover meal. This is one of those little clues that remind us that the Bible gives us only a selected sample of everything Jesus did and said (see John 21:25, which suggests that if all the stories were told, the world could not hold all the books that would be written). Do you suppose there are things in your life that Jesus is also preparing in advance for? If the disciples had not done what Jesus directed them to do, the Passover meal might not have been as orderly: there might have been last-minute scrambling, etc. What does this tell you about the importance of listening for God’s guidance and following his direction? Matthew 26:20-25 Jesus acknowledges that he will be betrayed by an insider What does Jesus say he knows? Why do you think he is saying this, rather than keeping it to himself? How do the disciples feel about the possibility that someone might betray Jesus? Why would they ask, “Surely, not I?” Wouldn’t they know they are not going to betray him? Could they be clueless about just how big the betrayal is that Jesus is talking about, and think that Jesus is referring to some more minor way they might “betray” him due to foolishness or pettiness? Are there ways that we might “betray” Jesus in small ways, not by a dramatic denunciation but by our own mundane sinfulness? How might that be? What title for Jesus do the apostles use in v. 22? What title for Jesus does Judas use in v. 25? “Rabbi” is an Aramaic word meaning “teacher” or “master” that was used as a title of honor for teachers. The Jews of Jesus’s time spoke Aramaic, a language related to Hebrew. Matthew is writing his Gospel in Greek, so he almost always translates into Greek what the people would have said in Aramaic. Everywhere else, he uses the Greek word for teacher where Jews would have said “rabbi.” But not here. Here, Matthew preserves the fact that Judas called Jesus “rabbi.” What does it tell you about their relationship when a person calls someone else “Lord”? Does “Teacher” have the same connotation? Are our teachers seen as our lords? Does the fact that Judas uses the word for teacher, when the disciples usually refer to Jesus as Lord, give us a hint as to Judas’s attitude toward Jesus? Explain. In what ways do you see Jesus as “Lord”? In verse 25, when Judas says, “Surely, not I?”, Jesus replies, “You have said so” rather than a simple “Yes.” Why might Jesus have phrased it this way? Jesus’s choice of words is significant here. If Jesus had said, “Yes,” rather than “You have said so,” it would have suggested that Judas was locked into a path of betrayal and no longer had any choice. By saying to Judas, you have said so, Jesus leaves room for Judas to decide to say otherwise, to change his mind, to retreat from the path he has started down. This shows that Jesus, to the end, loves Judas and is holding out hope that Judas will do the right thing. Note: The fact that Jesus’s death fulfills Scripture does not mean that Judas was forced to betray Jesus. Judas is not a puppet. Jesus ultimately would have died on a Roman cross even if Judas had changed his mind and not helped the Jewish leaders. God did not need Judas to be evil in order to accomplish his work of salvation. In Matthew 26:24, Jesus says, “It would have been better for him if he had not been born.” Some people find this troubling because it seems harsh. However, it is not as harsh as verse 25:41: “Depart from me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Jesus does not actually say that Judas is going to hell. Judas’s final judgment remains to be seen. He could still repent. Does God ever give up on the possibility that you, or any other person, might repent and move away from a path of sin or evil? How can you keep an open mind about others’ potential to turn around? Take a step back and consider this: In these passages, we see the normal routines of life going on – the ordinary preparation for an annual celebration – while the wheels are turning that will lead to Jesus’s crucifixion. And Jesus knows what is going on! How do you think Jesus handled the stress and inner turmoil that comes with knowing that bad things are happening? We face this same problem sometimes. Bad things may be happening in our lives, not necessarily life-or-death situations like Jesus is facing, but serious, potentially life-altering circumstances. Perhaps we are waiting for medical test results that could indicate we have a serious illness or disease. Perhaps we are watching an adult child or other loved one struggle with drugs or other serious impairments. Perhaps a business we are deeply involved in is failing. Perhaps a government is trying to find us and deport us even though we have never done anything wrong other than cross a border to find safety from a life-threatening situation. How do you deal with stress when bad things are happening around you or you are waiting for potentially bad news? Where do you turn for help in those difficult times? Do you see Jesus as someone who has gone through that kind of stress and can help you get through it? What could you do to reach out to him and draw strength from him? Jesus appears to have enjoyed spending time with his disciples. Other than going away to spend time in prayer with his Father, we never see him trying to avoid the disciples. Human beings are social creatures. Jesus was God, but he was also human, and as a human, he may have found encouragement in spending time with those he loved. Who around you might be experiencing the stress of living in a bad situation or waiting for potentially bad news? How could you be a help to them? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Suffering is coming for Jesus, and he calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 16:21-28 Suffering is coming for Jesus, and he calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. James Tissot. Rétire-toi, Satan [Get Thee Behind Me, Satan] . Between 1886 and 1894. Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_Get_Thee_Behind_Me_Satan_(R%C3%A9tire-toi_Satan)_-_James_Tissot.jpg . Tom Faletti June 17, 2025 Matthew 16:21-23 Jesus predicts his passion for the first time, and Peter objects This the first of 3 predictions of Jesus’s passion (see also 17:22-23 and 20:17-19). What does Jesus say will happen to him, and at whose hands? The elders, the chief priests, and the scribes will cause him great suffering, and he will be killed. What will the ultimate outcome be? On the third day he will be raised. The elders, the chief priests, and the scribes made up the Sanhedrin, the council with political authority over the Jewish people, under the Romans. He says that they will cause him suffering, but he doesn’t say that they will kill him. As we know, the Romans killed him, not the Jews. When Jesus says that the elders, chief priests, and scribes will cause him to suffer, he is describing the Sanhedrin, the political body made up of political, economic, and religious leaders of the Jewish society. Jesus’s passion begins with a political body and ends with the Roman government – political leaders, not the crowds of ordinary people. How does that affect or shape your image of Jesus’s death? Notice that Jesus doesn’t include the Pharisees in the list of those who will cause him suffering. The Pharisees were like a religious or social group within the overall society. Most Pharisees were ordinary people, not members of the political or religious leadership. The political leadership, in particular, tended to be Sadducees, not Pharisees. Why do you think Peter “took him aside” to object rather than saying something in front of the other disciples? What is Peter’s objection? How is what Peter says wrong? There are several different elements in Jesus’s response. First, he says, “Get behind me,” implying that Peter is no longer following him. In what sense is Peter no longer following Jesus when he says this? Peter is trying to lead Jesus instead of following him. “Satan” is a Hebrew word meaning “adversary” or “accuser.” Over time, it came to be used as a name for the devil: for example, when Jesus is tempted in the desert, he calls the devil “Satan” in Matthew 4:10. When Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” he is using a Hebrew word that means “adversary.” In what way has Peter become Jesus’s adversary, like Satan who tempted him in the desert? Jesus’s command to Peter is, “Get behind me, Satan,” not “Get out of my sight!” What is the significance of the fact that Jesus put it this way? He is not telling Peter to leave him, only to stop trying to lead Jesus in the wrong direction. Jesus also calls Peter a stumbling block or obstacle (the Greek word is skandalon ). What does it mean when someone is a stumbling block? This is Peer’s first attempt to “bind” – to say what should or should not happen – and Jesus says, No. You need to let me lead you, not have you lead me. Have you ever unintentionally been a stumbling block to someone else? When you realized it, what did you do about it? Jesus says that Peter is not thinking as God does but as humans do (literally you are not thinking of the things of God but of the things of man). What does this mean? We face real problems and challenges, and we need to think in order to deal with them. How can we think about those things in a way that reflects the thoughts of God and not just human thinking? How can you recognize when your mind is stuck on human things rather thinking about the things of God? Matthew 16:24-28 Everyone is called to carry their cross In verse 24, Jesus says there are 3 things we must do if we want to be followers of Jesus. What are they? What does it mean to “deny” yourself? A useful footnote in the New American Bible, revised edition says that “to deny someone is to disown him (see Mt 10:33; 26:34–35) and to deny oneself is to disown oneself as the center of one’s existence” ( NABRE , Matt. 16:24 fn. ). To deny yourself is to live your life according to the principle articulated by Rick Warren in the first words of his book The Purpose-Driven Life : “It’s not about you” (Warren, p. 1). This doesn’t mean you are not important. It just means that everything about you must be seen in the light of the cross of Christ if you want to reach your full purpose. To deny yourself means to always be asking: What is God trying to do here? Based on the answer to that question, I might need to not do something, because it might get in the way of what God is trying to do here. That doesn’t mean that what I might have wanted to do is inherently wrong or evil, only that it doesn’t fit the circumstances if the goal is to have God’s will be done. What does it mean to “take up your cross”? What is that a metaphor for? Luke adds the word “daily” (Luke 9:23). It’s not a one-time decision; it’s a way of life. What does it mean to “follow” Jesus? We’re not following him from town to town as the disciples were. What does it look like in practical terms to “follow” Jesus in our time? It is easy to say that we are taking up our cross while we keep living mostly for ourselves, so Jesus goes on. What does he say about “saving” and “losing” our lives in verse 25, and what does it mean? Most people don’t face the threat of death for following Jesus. What do you think he means by “losing” our lives? This could mean many things, such as not putting yourself first, not focusing on yourself and what you might get out of a situation, but focusing instead on what God is trying to do or would like to see happen. In what ways might we be trying to “save” our lives rather than “losing” them for Jesus’s sake? Jesus says something very similar in Matthew 10:38-39. Is there something you might be trying to hold on to, that might be keeping you from following Jesus more fully? In verse 27, Jesus tells us that when he returns he will give back to each person according to what they have done. This teaching that that there will be an accounting of people’s lives at the end of time – how is that good news from a good and loving God? Note that Jesus describes his return and the Last Judgment in similar terms, with much more detail, in Matthew 25:31-46. How do you feel about the fact that, when Jesus returns, he will give back to people according to what they have done? How, if at all, does this passage make you want to adjust anything about how you live your life? For many people, denying yourself and taking up your cross is hard. It sometimes gets easier with practice. How can you develop in your ability to do this, so that it becomes more of an instinct and less of a struggle? Some people find themselves in situations where they just keep deny themselves, giving, giving, giving, and people around them continually take advantage of them. Are there times when following Jesus does not mean denying yourself to satisfy people who constantly take advantage of you? How would you discern when that might be the case, and still be true to the point of this teaching? In verse 28, Jesus says that some people will not die until “they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” This cannot be a reference to the coming of Christ at the end of the world. One interpretation is that it refers to the time when Jesus comes back after his resurrection. In what ways is Jesus present in his kingdom now? Anywhere that God’s rule is acknowledged and followed, the kingdom of God is present. The kingdom of God is growing and spreading, and we help to spread it and help it grow by our actions and words. There are other interpretations of verse 28. Some scholars see it as a reference to Jesus’s transfiguration, which happens in the next passage, but there are no angels in the transfiguration story. (There are angels present in the resurrection story). Some scholars argue that there is a difference between the coming of the Son of Man and the coming of the Son of God (Brown, p. 190), and that we are in the era of the kingdom of the Son of Man now, whereas we will see the coming of the kingdom of God when Jesus returns in glory at the end of time. Another interpretation focuses on the fact that Mark phrases this sentence differently. In Mark 9:1, Jesus says that some people will not die until “they see the kingdom of God coming with power,” which could be referring to when the Holy Spirit comes, at Pentecost and in the later life of the Church. Take a step back and consider this: Up until this point, it must have been wonderful being a disciple of Jesus: there had been some modest opposition but Jesus had handled it easily, and Jesus had been doing exciting and powerful things that they got to witness and sometimes participate in. But now, things have suddenly turned darker. Jesus has started saying that he will suffer and be killed. How could the one who had the power to command even the wind and the waves, who could walk on water, who could heal any disease brought before him – how could he possibly encounter any opposition that he couldn’t stop with a simple command? And when Peter challenged what he said, Jesus had responded with the sharpest rebuke they had ever heard from him, followed by a stern teaching they didn’t entirely understand but that didn’t sound fun: that they needed to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. Follow him? They understood that part. But deny themselves and take up their cross? What did that mean? Those of us who were raised in the faith might have had a similar journey. When we are children, most parents and teachers don’t dwell on the “deny yourself and take up your cross” part of the faith. And it might be downplayed to adults who are exploring the faith for the first time, for fear that they will be put off by it. Yet it is central to the Christian faith. How do we deal with the truth that Christianity calls us to self-sacrifice? When you are telling people about what you believe, is the part about denying yourself and taking up your cross part of the story you tell? Why or why not? How important is this teaching to a full and mature understanding of the faith? How can you not only follow this teaching but explain it to others in a way that communicates the beauty and the joy of giving your whole self to Jesus? And is that something you need to work on for yourself? If so, how? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Allow Jesus to heal you, open your eyes, loosen your tongue. Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 9:18-34 Allow Jesus to heal you, open your eyes, loosen your tongue. Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti August 8, 2024 Before we read our next passage, consider this question: In the next passage, Matthew tells us about more of Jesus’s miracles. In the previous passages, we have seen a progression of miracles that show Jesus’s authority over increasingly daunting challenges that humans face: illnesses, storms, demons, and sin. What is left? I.e.: What is the greatest challenge that every human must ultimately face? What is the greatest thing that Jesus could work a miracle to overcome? Matthew 9:18-26 restoring a dead girl to life, while healing a woman with hemorrhages What two miracles take place in this pair of stories? Let’s look at the synagogue official and his daughter first (verses 18-19 and 23-26): Matthew’s telling of the story of the girl has small differences from Mark’s version of the same story: in Matthew, the girl is already dead and the synagogue official knows she is already dead when he approaches Jesus and ask him to save her. Matthew just calls him a “ruler”; Mark specifies that he is a leader or official in the synagogue (Mark 5:22). The synagogue official asks Jesus to heal his daughter after she is already dead. What does this tell you about his faith? Matthew keeps showing us people who are in positions of leadership but take the position of a faith-filled supplicant, even as other leaders are moving more and more toward opposition to Jesus. You can imagine the tense conversation that might have occurred between this synagogue official and the scribes and Pharisees we saw challenging Jesus in the previous passages. If you were the synagogue official, how would you explain your actions to the scribes and Pharisees who were challenging Jesus? They would have been people of your social class. How would you explain why you were humbling yourself to seek out this controversial man Jesus? What does this political backdrop tell you about the social context in which Jesus conducted his ministry? What does the political backdrop tell you about faith? What does it tell you about following Jesus? We are called to do the work of God regardless of whether political leaders support us. We should be welcoming to all of them, just as Jesus was. What does this healing of the girl tell us about Jesus? About God? What does this healing of the girl tell us about faith? About ourselves? Among other things, this healing shows that the faith of another person can make a difference in your life, which means that your faith can make a difference in the lives of others. Now let us focus on the story of the woman. As someone who suffers from constant bleeding (hemorrhages), which would make her be considered ritually unclean, she is probably a social outcast. The “tassel” or “fringe” was a knotted string that Jews attached to the four corners of their outer garments in obedience to the Law of Moses (Numbers 15:37–39; Deut. 22:12) to remind them to obey the commandments of the Law. Notice that Jesus wore such a garment. He would have been dressed like any Jew of his time, not in modern robes. What is the significance of the fact that the woman touched the tassel of Jesus’s cloak? In general, it would not have been socially appropriate for a woman to touch a man in that culture. But in addition to that, with an issue of blood she would have been considered unclean. When the woman touched Jesus’s garment, Jesus immediately turned and looked to see who had touched him. If we were reading the story of a Greek god or goddess, then when in verse 22 it says that Jesus turned and saw her, we might fear that the next sentence would be that he blasted her in some way. But Jesus is not that kind of god. How does he respond to her in verse 22? How does Jesus affirm her decision not to be timid in reaching out to him? How might you benefit from being less timid in your faith? To what does Jesus ascribe the woman’s healing? What is the role of faith in living out our live with Jesus? How is this woman a role model for us? How is Jesus in this entire pair of stories a role model for us? The moment the woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s outer garment, she had his total and undivided attention. As people made in the image of God and called to be like Christ to those around us, what does this tell us about how we should be aware of and respond to others? Returning to the story of the girl, what is the crowd’s reaction when Jesus says she is not dead? How are we at risk of being like that crowd? While Matthew has begun this third sets of miracles with a climactic demonstration of Jesus’s power over even death, he is also making another point by telling us when a miracle occurred in response to a person’s faith – here, the synagogue official and the woman with the hemorrhages. The next miracle also emphasizes the faith of the recipient. Matthew 9:27-31 the healing of two blind men What do the two blind men ask for? What does Jesus ask them in response? Why do you suppose Jesus asked this question rather than just granting their request? Does God ask us the same question (“Do you believe that I am able to do this”)? In what way does he pose this question to us? To what does Jesus ascribe their healing? Do you believe that Jesus will help you when you ask him? Jesus’s healing of blind people is metaphorical as well as physical. What is the metaphorical or spiritual point for us? In verse 30, why do you think Jesus told the formerly blind men not to tell anyone what Jesus had done? What did the formerly blind men do? Was Jesus’s request a realistic request? After all, they were previously blind and now they were not blind. What do you think he expected to happen? Matthew 9:31-34 the healing of a person who is mute In this healing, we are told that “the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed” (Matthew 9:33, NRSV). How does the fact that the man spoke relate to the statement about the crowd’s reaction? Just as we might think about the healing of the blind men metaphorically, we might also think about how sometimes our voices are silent, metaphorically, and Jesus heals that. How might it be said of you – at some time in your past, present, or future – that “the one who had been silent spoke”? How do the Pharisees who lack faith react to this healing of a person who was thought to be possessed by a demon? What do they accuse Jesus of? How does the level of faith of the blind men versus the Pharisees illustrate the timeless choice about how to respond to Jesus? What does this set of stories about people’s reactions to Jesus’s miracle-working power say to you about your life? In this chapter 9, Matthew has presented some of the key criticisms of Jesus that will lead to his execution. What things has Jesus been attacked or challenged for? Blasphemy (Matt. 9:3), for claiming to be able to forgive sins. Association with immoral people (Matt. 9:11), for eating with sinners. Inadequate attention to the rituals of the faith (Matt. 9:14), for not having his disciples fast. Being a tool of the devil (Matt. 9:34), an illogical conclusion that did acknowledge the fact that he could drive out demons. Jesus is not someone to be neutral about. As C. S. Lewis said, “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God” ( Mere Christianity , p. 56). People are beginning to take sides. If you were watching all of this happen, how would you have responded to the Pharisees? Take a step back and consider this: These stories of the woman with the hemorrhage, the synagogue official, the blind men, and the man who could not speak call us to have faith in Jesus. They show us that Jesus does not want us to be timid, blind, or silent. Matthew is telling us: Don’t be afraid to approach Jesus even if the world thinks you are not worthy to do so. Don’t be afraid to approach Jesus even if it goes against what other people of your social class are saying. Don’t be afraid to admit that there are things you just can’t see on your own, but that in Jesus you can see with new eyes. Don’t be afraid to let Jesus loosen your tongue so that you are silent no longer and can speak about what matters in your life. Are there ways you feel unworthy to approach Jesus about your needs? Are there ways you feel pressured to keep your faith private? Are there ways you think maybe you are missing something and need Jesus to open your eyes in a new way? Are there ways you feel like you need Jesus to loosen your tongue so that you can speak edifying words that would benefit others? What would Jesus say to you if you were in front of him right now? How can you reach out in faith and touch the tassel of Jesus’s cloak, and allow him to do a new work in your life? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Responding to difficult questions and dealing with politics. Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 21:23-27 Responding to difficult questions and dealing with politics. Image by Buddha Elemental 3D, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti August 5, 2025 Matthew 21:23-27 The chief priests and elders challenge Jesus’s authority The locus of opposition to Jesus has been shifting from the Pharisees and scribes to the chief priests and scribes and now to the chief priests and elders. The Pharisees were members of might be thought of as a religious society that was mostly trying to live a devoted life to God. The scribes were the lawyers (or theologians of our day) who knew the details of God’s Law and the Scriptures and might be aligned with the Pharisees or the chief priests. But the elders, which included many of the chief priests, were the power brokers of Jerusalem. The chief priests and elders, together, were a potent force: The chief priests ran the Temple, and the elders made the political decisions that affected the whole city of Jerusalem. Recall that Jesus has entered the city in a very disruptive way, kicked people out of the Temple precincts, healed people in the Temple precincts, and now was back, teaching the people right there on the Temple grounds. What do the chief priests and elders ask Jesus? Why do you think they ask him this question? Not everyone who claims to be from God actually is. Is it reasonable to ask where a person’s authority comes from when they are shaking things up? How can we judge whether someone who is shaking things up is coming from God or not? Notice that Jesus does not answer their question. Is there a lesson for us in choosing when to defend ourselves and when to let a challenge pass without an answer? If Jesus had chosen to answer the question, what would his answer have been? Jesus chooses to counter with a question, to either establish their sincerity or spotlight their spiritual bankruptcy. What question does Jesus ask them (verse 25)? Why is this a hard question for them to answer? What would be the right answer to Jesus’s question? Notice that the right answer to Jesus’s question is also the right answer to the question the leaders asked Jesus: John and Jesus were both operating based on authority given to them by God. How does their inability (or unwillingness) to answer Jesus’s question expose how badly they are out of touch with what the people can see that God is doing? What can we learn from this story for ourselves? My Bible Study group saw many things they could learn from this story. For example: Ask questions. Don’t feel the need to defend yourself or answer every question from others. Jesus often doesn’t dictate answers to people; he lets them reach their own conclusions – perhaps we should too. Instead of getting caught up in verbal battles with others, pay attention to what God is doing. Why does Jesus allow people to think things that are wrong rather than trying to prove to them what is right? Jesus is building hearts and minds, not robotic teleprompters or answering machines. He wants to develop people who can think like God thinks and act like Jesus would. If he forces us to think a certain way, we can never develop hearts and minds that follow him by our own free will. Jesus’s approach to other people, even those who oppose him, always honors the importance of free will. How can we use our free will well? God always hopes that we will use the free will he has given to us to respond to what he has revealed give our lives freely in service to him and others. Take a step back and consider this: Some people would see the chief priests and elders as master politicians: They are very aware of the ways that the people don’t agree with them, and very savvy about how to manage that problem so that they don’t get on the bad side of the people. However, in the process, they have lost a bit of themselves and their integrity. They are playing for power, rather than for working for truth, or justice, or goodness. If they were working for truth, they would make their case and try to show the people why they are wrong. That might appear difficult with so much evidence on the other side; but if they genuinely believed they were right then they would be willing to stand up for their beliefs and make their best case, whether others agreed or not. But that is if they were working for truth, not playing for power. If they were working for justice, or goodness, or any other good motive, they similarly would make the case for what they believe in. Only the coward or the person playing politics would back down when asked a question and not even try to offer an answer. Politics is not inherently bad. Some people are called to the difficult work of trying to manage disagreements in a society or community and find solutions or approaches that address a wide range of concerns and hold the community together even though many people can’t have all they want. But that is when they are doing the hard work of politics, not playing politics for their own benefit. How can a politician do the hard work of politics and still act like a Christian? In a democracy, Christians are called to get involved in politics, at least to the extent of voting and perhaps in other ways, in order to exercise their responsibilities as citizens to promote the good of all. Beyond that, almost everyone is involved in politics in other ways – the politics of the office, the give-and-take and negotiating that goes on in families, and even the managing of different groupings in a church. We are called to be like Jesus in all situations, even in those places. How can we do the work of politics well in our everyday lives? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Jesus tells us to be ready for his return. What are you doing to be ready for that day (whether it is the Second Coming or your death)? Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 24:32-44 Jesus tells us to be ready for his return. What are you doing to be ready for that day (whether it is the Second Coming or your death)? Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti September 7, 2025 Matthew 24:32-35 No one knows when Jesus will return, so be ready for whatever God does In verses 32-33, Jesus shifts from apocalyptic language to an image from the garden that most people can identify with and understand. What does he say about fig trees to help us understand that we will know he has come when he comes? Verse 34 is confusing even to scholars. We aren’t sure what Jesus meant when he said that “this generation” will not pass away until “all these things” have taken place. Obviously, the people who lived at the time of Jesus have passed away, but he has not returned. What could it mean? Some people interpret “this generation” to mean “this age” – i.e., this era in human history – but the word is not elsewhere translated in that way. Jesus could be saying that his death and resurrection will occur before that generation dies (similar to what he said in Matthew 16:28). Or he might be referring to the destruction of Jerusalem. However, neither of those events amounts to “all these things,” since Jesus has just discussed his Second Coming; so this is not a sufficient interpretation. It is not uncommon for prophetic and apocalyptic material to have multiple layers, so in different places Jesus could be referring to different events or even multiple events that occur at separate times. However, it would be unwise to argue that none of what Jesus has talked about refers to the Second Coming. Matthew often gathers different sayings of Jesus and presents them together in one place, so perhaps this sentence really belongs with the things Jesus said about the destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 24:15-22. The Greek word used for “generation” – genea – was also sometimes used by Greeks to mean a family or race (Liddell and Scott), so perhaps Jesus was saying that the Jewish people would not be wiped out before the Second Coming. This would mean that Jesus is using a different meaning for the word here than when he used the same word in Matthew 11:16 and 12:41. That is not an extraordinary thing to do, but some people reject this option for that reason. Although some scholars argue that the whole chapter is mainly about the destruction of the Temple, and others argue that the whole chapter is about the Second Coming, this study takes a more balanced approach that is consistent with the broad mainstream of scholars, including both Catholic scholars such as Harrington (pp. 94-97) and scholars with deep evangelical roots such as H. L. Ellison (1146-1147). In this approach, Matthew 24:4-14 stands as warning to Christians of all time periods, Matthew 24:15-22 is about the destruction of the Temple, and then Jesus makes a shift toward the Second Coming that becomes clear in verses 27-41. Since Matthew is mainly concerned about being ready for the Lord whenever he returns (which is the focus of the next passage) and would not have written an obvious contradiction into his Gospel, the third and fourth explanations above are the most satisfactory: Either Matthew has merged material from various sources and verse 34 is referring to the material in verses 15-22, or “this generation” has a meaning that could still make sense in Matthew’s time, such as that it means “this people” – i.e., the Jewish people. We don’t need to be troubled by the fact that we cannot be sure what verse 34 means. Nothing here is central to our faith, other than the encouragement that Jesus will return and that we should live our lives in a way that is always ready for him. We do not need an exact timeline –in fact, in verse 36 Jesus says that even he doesn’t know the exact timeline. What we do know is that Jesus will be victorious in the end and those who remain watchful and endure will live with him forever. What do you think about Jesus’s confidence that his people will be able to endure through the suffering and that he will come in the end to gather his people to be with him forever? Verse 35 says that Jesus’s words will live on even when the universe is no longer in existence. What does that tell you about Jesus? Does verse 35 make you want to know more of Jesus’s words, since his words will live on forever? If so, why? Would more studying of the Bible help? Matthew 24:36-44 No one knows when Jesus will return, so be ready When Jesus was speaking to them, did he know when the Second Coming will occur? Jesus said he did not know. As the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God knows everything the First Person of the Trinity knows (see, for example, Matt. 11:27, and also John 3:35). But as a human person, Jesus apparently did not know this in his human knowledge, unless he is exaggerating to emphasis the importance of not focusing on timetables but instead on always being ready. Given that Jesus says that neither he nor the angels know when the Son of Man will come, what do you think you should focus on? In verses 37-39, Jesus gives an illustration from Noah’s time to explain the attitude we should have toward the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus is contrasting Noah’s attitude with the attitude of the people around Noah. What is the point of the story? In verses 40-42, Jesus gives some examples where one person is “taken” and one person is “left.” The Left Behind franchise has popularized the idea of the “rapture” as one possible interpretation of these words, but that interpretation reaches far beyond the text of what Jesus actually says. For an exploration of “rapture” theories, see The Rapture? It’s Not a Pre-Millennial Escape from Tribulation . How does verse 42 explain the point of verses 40-41? Throughout this chapter, Jesus has been speaking metaphorically, so verses 40-41 are probably also metaphorical rather than literal. (The statement applies very well to our own individual deaths.) Obviously, our eternal salvation is not dependent on whether we literally “stay awake” or fall asleep. What is the point Jesus is making? Does this teaching about the Second Coming of Jesus have any relevance in our lives other than if we happen to be alive when the Second Coming occurs? What does Jesus want us to take away from this for our everyday lives? The next analogy Jesus offers involves a homeowner (verses 43-44). What is the point? A homeowner doesn’t know when a thief might be coming. What does that mean a homeowner must do in order to be safe? In verse 44, Jesus tells us to be “ready” (NRSV) or “prepared” (NABRE) for his return, even though we don’t know when he is coming. How can we be ready? How might it be useful to consider these questions in terms of our own death? No one knows when they will die but we all will die someday. What does it look like to live a life that is always ready for the day when we will meet our Maker? What would you do differently if you lived your life with a greater focus on being ready for the day you will meet God face to face? Take a step back and consider this: This passage challenges us – not to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the signs of the Second Coming, but to live a life that is ready for the day when he comes (perhaps in the Second Coming but more likely when we die). My Bible Study group explored the idea that we can get ready for God by living the life now that he has called us to live. This led us to ask: What are the signs that you are living the life God has called you to live? One member pointed out that sometimes she knows God wants her to take a new step to become more like him, because it keeps nagging her. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us to live is that we are talking with God about the ways he wants to change us and allowing him to make us more like himself. Another member described a time when she had to stop trying to make things go her way and just accept that she was called to a season of serving others. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us to live is that we are accepting those times of serving as Jesus would, rather than fighting it. Another member talked about how important it is to keep growing spiritually, and not think we are done growing. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us live is that we are looking for the next small way that God wants to help us be more like him. What are the signs that you are living the life God has called you to live? What do you need to do to get ready? It is a blessing that we can leave to God the timing of the Second Coming and don’t have to try to figure out obscure signs. We can focus on the interior signs that indicate we are ready for Jesus right now, and not be distracted by a focus on exterior signs of some future event. Matthew has been very clear about what Jesus is telling us to do right now, in the present. Here are some examples: Be pure in spirit and pure of heart; be peacemakers; don’t respond to others with anger, but love even your enemies; love God with your whole heart; love your neighbor as much as you love yourself; and, in the next chapter, use the talents God has given you to serve him, not to serve yourself; feed the hungry; welcome the stranger; take care of the sick; etc. Those are the concerns Jesus asks us to keep our eyes on, not an obscure timetable for his return. What is one thing you can do in the next week to keep your focus more on what Jesus is calling you to do right now, while you wait for his return? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Is your faith built on rock? Is the Sermon on the Mount a central part of your faith? Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 7:24-29 Is your faith built on rock? Is the Sermon on the Mount a central part of your faith? Image by Nenad Radojčić, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti June 7, 2024 Matthew 7:24-27 The house built on rock What are the two things Jesus says a person must do to be like the wise man? What does it mean to truly “hear” God’s word? What does it mean to “act on” these words? Jesus uses the metaphor of building a house. What does the “house” stand for in our lives? There are many possible answers, including: your faith, your principles, your worldview, your habits, your character, your life choices, etc. How does a “wise” person built this kind of house? What is the “rock” on which your life stands? And how does it operate as a “rock” for you? What might be some examples of “sand” that are not solid things on which to build your life? What are the rain, floods, and winds that will test the “house” you have built? Why does Jesus contrast “hearing and doing” vs. “hearing and not doing”? What does this tell us about the role of obedience and action in our lives? What is something you might consider doing that might help ground your life more fully on the rock rather than on shifting sands? Matthew 7:28-29 The effect of Jesus’s teaching Matthew ends the Sermon on the Mount by saying of Jesus, “he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:29, NRSV and NABRE). What does this mean? Among other things, the scribes only explained and interpreted what the Law said; they did not add to it. Jesus is speaking as one who has the authority to create new teachings for people to follow. In what ways do you see the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount as manifesting Jesus’s authority? The fact that Jesus is acting like he has the authority not just to interpret but to re-think and expand upon the law, and to do other things that mere scribes cannot do, will soon get him in trouble with the religious leaders. Stay tuned by continuing the study of Matthew. Conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount Skim back over the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7). Which of Jesus’s teachings strikes you as being most uniquely Christian – that is, which of the teachings of Jesus seems to be most distinct from the teachings of other religions or ethical systems? What does this uniquely Christian message tell you about God or people or God’s desires for us? How important is the Sermon on the Mount in your understanding of your faith? What passage or teaching from the Sermon on the Mount do you think God is calling you to give special attention to right now in your life? What is one concrete step you can take to live out that teaching more faithfully? Take a step back and consider this: We know that Christians are not perfect. We don’t live up to the fullness of the gospel as presented by Jesus. As Peter said to Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” (Matt. 19:25, NABRE). Jesus’s answer – “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26, NABRE) – is a comfort to modern Christians, who believe that God will indeed save them. It is sad, however, that many Christians, when they study the Sermon on the Mount as we have, are surprised to learn these details of the kind of life Jesus calls us to live. Perhaps too many people have not been effectively taught the full gospel, or even the full Sermon on the Mount. (And, of course, too often, we hear but don’t act on what we hear.) A detailed study of the Sermon on the Mount prompts many Christians to embrace new habits. That’s a good thing. But there is a danger. It would be easy to turn every teaching in the Sermon on the Mount into a new law. We could add to the Ten Commandments another 10 or 20 laws to follow, just from these three chapters. The risk is that we might turn into modern-day Pharisees, focused on the laws as ends in themselves rather than living in a vital relationship with the God behind the teachings. Without that relationship, the Sermon on the Mount will seem like an impossibly difficult, ever-expanding work list. But with a relationship with God, the Sermon on the Mount is a continual invitation to keep become more like Jesus, to keep being empowered by the Holy Spirit to respond to ever-new opportunities to bring God’s love and grace to the world. How can we encourage ourselves and our fellow believers to embrace the full Sermon on the Mount, but do so in ways that avoid turning it into another soul-deadening Law? How can we find joy in our relationship with God in responding to the dos and don’ts of Jesus’s teachings? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Adultery, lust, and divorce start in the heart. Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 5:27-32 Adultery, lust, and divorce start in the heart. Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti May 2, 2024 Matthew 5:27-30 Adultery and lust What does the Old Testament say in Exodus 20:14 and Deut. 5:18? What is lust? Why would Jesus say a person who lusts has already committed adultery in their heart? Is there a difference between committing adultery “in your heart” and committing physical adultery? What is Jesus prohibiting here? Jesus prohibits not only the action but the intense thoughts that underlie or can lead to the action. While Jesus is telling us to reject the thoughts that can lead to the action, we need to make a distinction between uninvited thoughts and the thoughts we nurture. Thoughts pop into our minds all the time. When uninvited, instinctual desires pop into our mind unbidden, that is not, in itself, a sin. When we intentionally nurture those thoughts and enjoy the fact that they are arousing our sexual passions, that is when we are embracing the lust that Jesus is telling his followers to reject. We cannot help looking at people, and our bodies sometimes react to what we see. But when we allow our eyes to linger so that our desires can be fed, then we have crossed the line. Why does he prohibit even entertaining the thought of adultery? What difference does a thought make? Actions begin with thoughts. Choosing to entertain the thought of lust means imagining that you are relating sexually with someone who is not your spouse. To choose to desire something which would violate the marriage commitment, Jesus says, is already a violation of that commitment to have only your spouse. When we look at another person as someone to have sex with, we are looking at them primarily as a body rather than as a whole person. We are called to treat all people as being made in the image of God, to treat them as people carrying infinite human dignity. In what ways does looking at someone with lust violate this principle of human dignity? In verses 29-30, do you think Jesus is actually recommending that people pluck out an eye or cut off a hand to avoid lust? (Would that actually solve the problem of lust, or could a one-handed person still lust?) What is Jesus’s point? Jesus is not speaking literally here. He is using the traditional Jewish technique of exaggeration or hyperbole to emphasize the importance of what he is saying. He is telling us to take our thought life seriously and not to allow our thoughts to linger in places they do not belong. Jesus clearly takes our inner thought life very seriously. Daniel J. Harrington tries to explain the thinking behind what Jesus is saying in this way: “The salvation of the whole person is of more value than the preservation of any one part that may lead to sin” ( The Gospel According to Matthew , p. 29). Myron S. Augsburger says, “We should understand these statements attitudinally, just as the previous injunction is addressed to our thoughts and attitudes. This means taking literally the basic intent of the passage, rather than physically removing the eye. The loss of one eye or one hand cannot in itself prevent a lustful look or thought. The word-picture is to emphasize deliberate, decisive action in dealing with our propensity to sin” ( Matthew , p. 74). Does our culture take our thought life as seriously as Jesus does? What is the prevailing attitude regarding thinking about things that would be sinful if acted upon? Do you take your thought life as seriously as Jesus does? The word translated “hell” in this passage is literally the Greek word Gehenna , which Jesus also uses in verse 22. Gehenna was the valley of Hinnom, a valley running along the south and southwest side of Jerusalem that had an ugly history. More than 700 years before Christ (in the 700s B.C.), it was a place where children were burned in sacrifice to the god Moloch (see 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31-33; and Jeremiah 32:35). That location later came to be known as a garbage dump where refuse was burned, leading to its being used as a metaphor for hell. How can we avoid or fight lust and sins that involve our thoughts? It is a well-known principle that you can’t banish a thought by saying you won't think about it The more you try to “not think" it, the more you tend to focus on it. The only ways to get one thought out of your mind is by replacing it with another thought. So in this case, we need to replace the lustful thoughts with thoughts about good things. Barclay also suggests that a life of action helps. He says of the person struggling with sinful thoughts, “[H]e will certainly never defeat the evil things by withdrawing from life and saying, I will not think of these things. He can only do so by plunging into Christian action and Christian thought. He will never do it by trying to save his own life; he can only do it by flinging his life away for others” (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 , p. 147). A life filled with good actions and good thoughts has less room for lust. Matthew 5:31-32 Divorce Read Deuteronomy 24:1-4. According to Deuteronomy 24:1, for what reasons might a man give his wife a certificate of divorce? There were two great Jewish scholars in the years before Jesus’s time – Hillel and Shammai – who launched two primary “houses” or schools of thought. The school of Hillel believed in marriage but interpreted Deut. 24:1 so loosely that a man could divorce his wife for any reason, while a woman could never divorce her husband without his consent. The school of Shammai was far less lenient about divorce. In contrast, the Greeks and Romans of Jesus’s time had an extremely low regard for marriage and little disapproval of sexual relationships outside of marriage. Having concubines and lovers other than your spouse was a normal part of society. In all of these cultures, obtaining a divorce was simple. In Israel and Rome, a man could have a divorce by simply writing a statement of divorce witnessed by two people. The Greeks didn’t even require a written statement; a man could simply dismiss his wife in the presence of two witnesses, although the woman at least got her dowry back (Barclay, Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 , p. 148-155). How might Deut. 24:1 have been interpreted more permissively or less permissively? What impact would the permissive practices of these cultures have had on the security of women? How does Jesus redefine the law of divorce? How does this transform the thinking about divorce? Note: Matthew allows an exception in 5:32, which is translated in the NRSV as: “except on the ground of unchastity.” Older translations of the New American Bible said, “lewd conduct is a separate case,” but the current NABRE retranslates it in a way that more clearly upholds Catholic Church teaching on divorce: “unless the marriage is unlawful.” The Greek word that is here is porneia , which was used to describe a range of illicit/unlawful sexual activity and might refer to adultery or might refer to other unlawful situations such as incest. Most Protestant denominations interpret it to refer to adultery and allow divorce in cases of adultery. Catholic scholars argue that if Jesus had meant “adultery” rather than other kinds of “unlawful” situations, he would have used the more common word for adultery, which he uses later in the same sentence. In practice, the Catholic Church offers an annulment process for marriages, allowing annulments in situations where the marriage was founded on a misunderstanding of true marriage, and that misunderstanding of true marriage in some cases might be demonstrated in part by an unwillingness of a spouse to be committed to the sexual exclusivity of Christian marriage. We will hear more about marriage in Matthew 19:3-9. The New Testament also includes Ephesians 5:21-33, which sees the marriage covenant between husband and wife as an image of Christ’s covenant with his people, the church. How does Jesus’s new law on divorce change the status of marriage? How does Jesus’s new law on divorce affect the status of women? Where does our society today fit on the scale of possible views of marriage and divorce? How does it compare to the teaching of Jesus on marriage and divorce? What difference does it make how our society views divorce? What can we do to encourage strong marriages? Take a step back and consider this: Although Jesus’s teachings about adultery, lust, and divorce here could be seen as simply a series of “don’ts,” in the broader context of the Sermon on the Mount these teachings might be better seen as calling for a transformation in a married couple’s thoughts and attitudes toward each other. In marriage as Jesus sees it, husbands and wives are committed to each other. They aren’t thinking about having sex with anyone else. They aren’t looking for a way to get out of their marriage commitments. They are committed to finding their fulfillment in each other. What might we say or do to help reclaim the vision of marriage as a union of committed love where the desire to stray is never nurtured because the commitment to mutual fulfillment is paramount? How can we help married couples to keep their eyes on their mutual commitment to love each other, when the marriage is tested and the temptation to “look at another with lust” arises? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Pre-tribulation theories contradict Jesus and Paul. What does the Bible actually say? Previous Christian Faith Next The Rapture? It’s Not a Pre-Millennial Escape from Tribulation Pre-tribulation theories contradict Jesus and Paul. What does the Bible actually say? Image by CHUTTERSNAP, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti December 13, 2024 In 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18, the apostle Paul refers to the “rapture” while he is discussing the end times when Christ will return. The word “rapture” comes from the Latin word that translates the Greek word in verse 17 where Paul says that we will be “caught up” (literally, “snatched”) to meet the Lord in the air. Authors Tim LaHaye of the Left Behind series and Hal Lindsey of The Late Great Planet Earth fame have popularized an approach to interpreting what the Scriptures say about the end times that leans heavily on a modern interpretation of Paul’s “rapture.” These authors (and others, who don’t always agree among themselves) combine their interpretation of the rapture with their interpretation of the “1000 years” mentioned in Revelation 20:2-3 and other Bible passages to produce an entire timeline of the end times that is not consistent with the historic understanding of the Scriptures. Their views are based on ideas that mostly did not spread until the 19th century. Most of Christendom from the time of Augustine in the 5th century until the 19th century has taken a very different approach to interpreting the Bible’s end-times passages. Currently, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and many Protestant denominations – including the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist Churches and others – reject that interpretation of the end times. This summary of the problem is drawn from a variety of sources, in an attempt to identify the commonalities in Catholic and Protestant thinking about the subject. In addition to the sources used in my 1 Thessalonians study, it also considers Trent Horn (Catholic), Karlo Broussard (Catholic), Alan S. Bandy (Reformed), the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (Lutheran), and “Where does the Rapture fit into UM beliefs?” (United Methodist). The historic churches and denominations have much in common in their understanding of the end times. The main divide on this topic is not between Protestants and Catholics. The main divide is between a fundamentalist segment of modern Christianity and the rest of Christianity. Frameworks for thinking about the end times There are roughly 6 common frameworks for thinking about the rapture, the tribulation, and the 1000-year “millennial” reign mentioned in Revelation 20:2-3: The first three approaches all revolve around the idea that the rapture will precede a 1000-year millennium of peace and righteousness on earth. However, the pre-millennialists don’t agree on whether the rapture will happen before, during, or after the tribulation that precedes the end: Pre-tribulation, pre-millennial: Christ will come and take the Christians who are alive to heaven (the “rapture”) before the tribulation. Then the tribulation will come, in a world devoid of Christians. Then Christ will come again with the church (which sounds like a second Second Coming, since he already came to rapture people). Then Christ will reign for 1000 years, and then there will be the final judgment (which sounds like a third Second Coming). This is the view of the people like Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey who have fed the “rapture” industry. Mid-tribulation, pre-millennial: This approach is similar to the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial approach, except that the rapture will happen in the middle of the tribulation (i.e., halfway through the 7-year tribulation), not before it begins. Therefore, Christians will experience some of the tribulation and not be fully spared. Post-tribulation, pre-millennial: This approach says that Christians will not be spared the tribulation at all. Christians will not join Christ until he comes in his Second Coming at the end of the tribulation. Then Christ will reign for 1000 years, and then the final judgment will come. These approaches all separate the Second Coming of Christ from the final judgment. Jesus never suggests such a separation, nor does Paul. They both describe one decisive event when Jesus comes, takes believers to himself, and presides over the final judgment. Amillennial: This view rejects the separation of the “rapture” from the final judgment and the entire pre-millennial framework. In this view, we are in the 1000-year reign of Christ, which began when Christ broke the power of sin by his death and resurrection and ascended into heaven. The reference to “1000” years in the Book of Revelation is symbolic, not literal: “1000” means a large number and “1000 years” means “a very long time.” Revelation 20 says that in this millennial time, the devil is being restrained. God is giving us time so that the gospel can be spread around the world. After the period we are now in, which includes its own times of smaller tribulation, Satan will be allowed to try to turn people away from Christ and the great, final tribulation will come. The Christians and non-Christians suffer now, and both the church and non-believers will suffer during the final tribulation, as Jesus warned from the beginning (see, for example, Matthew 24:29-31, where the tribulation precedes the gathering of the elect to Christ). After that period of tribulation, the final judgment will begin with Christians being caught up with those who have risen from the dead to meet Christ when he returns (1 Thess. 4:17; also referred to by Paul in 2 Thess. 2:1 as our “assembling” with the Lord). That event is not a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial escape from suffering; it is part of the Second Coming and final judgment exercised by Christ. This more traditional approach to interpreting the end-times Scriptures was the generally accepted view throughout the church from the time of Augustine in the 5th century, through the Protestant Reformation, and all the way until the 19th century. It is more faithful to the Scriptures, and it is followed by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and a variety of current Protestant denominations, including the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist Churches and others. Although scholars call this approach the “amillennial” approach, that term is not necessarily used by these churches. All of those churches reject the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial approach that was popularized in the decades before and after the year 2000. There are two other views worth mentioning, for the sake of completeness (and there are many other sub-categories and branches dividing all of the approaches). Postmillennial: In this view, first there will be a (literal or symbolic) 1000-year golden age of prosperity and minimal suffering on Earth, during which most people will be converted to Christ and live in righteousness. The devil will be bound during that time but will be loosed at the end of the 1000 years. After that 1000 years of relative peace, there will be a time of tribulation followed by the Second Coming (when believers will be called up to heaven) and the final judgment. This view was popular in the 19th century (the 1800s), until the World Wars of the 20th century made people rethink whether the world could reach such a golden age of righteousness. Metaphorical: In this view, most of the end-times references in the Bible are metaphorical and should not be interpreted literally. There will not be a literal trumpet, a literal 1000-year reign, a literal meeting of Christ in the sky, etc. God has used figurative language and metaphors to help us understand things that are beyond us. All of the key points of Scripture will be fulfilled: Christ will return and judge the world, the dead will be raised, there will be a final judgment, the devil and death will be defeated, and Christians will live with Christ forever. But the details of what it will look like are not for us to worry about. Problems with the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture idea The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture theory is inconsistent with Scripture in several ways: The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture violates the claim in Acts 1:11 that Jesus will return in the same visible way he left, since the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial story creates a scenario where Jesus remains hidden except to believers. The theory claims that Jesus doesn’t stay on Earth after the rapture and only returning visibly 1000 years later. The word Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 for the “coming” of the Lord (the Greek word parousia ) in was used by the Greeks before Christ to refer to the ceremonial arrival of a king or ruler. Pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture proponents argue that in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Christ only comes partly back, gathers the raptured people, and returns to heaven. However, Paul does not say Jesus immediately returns to heaven with them; he only says that those who are caught up to meet him in the air will be with him forever. The word for “meet” in verse 17 is a Greek word used to describe the situation where people go out from their town to meet a visiting official or king and escort that official into their city (in response to the “coming” in verse 15). Paul is saying that when Christ comes to Earth and the risen Christians and the still-alive Christians join him, they will stay with him as he comes to the Earth and does his work of final judgment. The idea that Christ aborts his “coming” and returns to heaven, only to return later, has been added by the pre-tribulation advocates without justification or good evidence. The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture theory that Jesus’s coming to gather the elect is separated from his final judgment by 1000 years contradicts Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Christ’s Second Coming will be announced with an archangel’s voice and the sound of a trumpet, at which point the dead will be raised. 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 also links the trumpet to the raising of the dead. In Matthew 24:29-31, Jesus links his coming in power and glory (verse 30) with the angels (verse 31), the sound of the trumpet (verse 31), and the gathering of the elect (verse 31). In Matthew 25:31-33, Jesus links his coming in glory (verse 31) with the final judgment (verses 32-33ff). These events are all connected and happen together. The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial approach contradicts Jesus by separating the raising of the dead from the final judgment by 1000 years. In Matthew 24:29, Jesus says that these events happen right after the tribulation (verse 29). The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial advocates seek to escape the tribulation that Jesus clearly foretells. The pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture violates Jesus’s statement in Matthew 16:27 that when he comes with his angels, he will repay people according to their deeds (i.e., the Second Coming with the final judgment). Again, Jesus does not teach any separation between these events. Note: Some rapture fans also interpret Luke 17:34-37 as referring to the rapture. In that passage, Jesus says that one person will be taken and another will be left. However, when you read that verse in context, starting at verse 26, you see that people are being “taken” in judgment. They are not being taken to heaven. They are not being raptured away to be saved from tribulation. Conclusion: The popular theory is wrong, but the Lord will be with us forever. In summary, the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture story created in the 19th century and popularized as Americans endured the Cold War and approached the millennial year 2000 does not have a sound basis in Scripture. The Book of Revelation is filled with symbolic language. There is no reason to distort the teachings of Jesus and Paul in order to interpret Revelation’s round number of 1000 years as a literal 1000 years. It is symbolic for the long period of time we are in before the Lord returns. And Jesus and Paul are very clear that Christians will endure the tribulation before they are united with Christ in his return. We must reject the distortions of their words that are central to every pre-tribulation rapture theory. This also means that no one escapes the tribulation except by dying. What else is true? The Scriptures tell us clearly: Christ will return. The dead will be raised. Christians (both those who have died and those who are still alive) will be united with Christ and live with him forever. Christ will judge the living and the dead and ask them how they treated “the least of these” among us. Fortunately, that’s all we really need to know about the end times. Copyright © 2024, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Christian Faith Next

Murder, anger, insulting others – how are they related, and what can we do about them? Previous Matthew Index Next Matthew 5:21-26 Murder, anger, insulting others – how are they related, and what can we do about them? Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti April 26, 2024 Matthew 5:21-26 Anger Jesus here begins a series of six teachings, in Matthew 5:21-48, where he states a Jewish law and then provides his own teaching. Each teaching begins with, “You have heard it said . . . but I say. . . .” They are sometimes called the “six antitheses” because some scholars see them as presenting the opposite (anti-) of a principle taught in the Old Testament (thesis). However, they usually go beyond rather than directly rejecting the Old Testament principle, so “antithesis” is not a good term for them. Some scholars call them the six “hypertheses,” because the prefix “hyper” can signify going beyond the thesis or principle that has previously been stated. In each case, Jesus re-interprets and expands on or transforms the Old Testament injunction. Often, he prohibits not only the action but also the thought that underlies the action or leads to the action. In verse 21, what is the Old Testament law Jesus cites? In verse 22, Jesus takes the principle much further in three ways. What does he say about anger? Still in verse 22, what does he say about using abusive or insulting language? In the third part of verse 22, some translations give us the Aramaic word Jesus uses – “Raqa” or “Raca” – which was a term of contempt used to call someone a fool or empty-headed or an idiot. What does Jesus say about using this kind of especially contemptuous language toward another person? Notice that each sin incurs a more serious consequence than the previous one, moving from being liable to judgment , which invokes an image of being brought before a local court of village elders; to being liable to the Council or Sanhedrin , which invokes an image of being brought before the highest court; to being liable to the fires of Gehenna , a word of Hebrew origin that is often translated as “hell’ but actually refers to the Valley of Hinnom southwest of Jerusalem, where there was a garbage dump that was thought of as always having a fire burning. In what ways are these three steps progressively worse – from anger, to insult, to contempt? How are these things related to murder? In what ways do they all start from the same place? When Jesus says that if we do these things we will be “liable” to these kinds of judgment, what do you think he means? Is he speaking literally (about courts and Gehenna) or metaphorically? And if metaphorically, what is he trying to tell us? Why is anger such a serious matter? Is anger always wrong? Is there an appropriate time for anger – what people sometimes call “holy anger”? Mark describes Jesus as being angry once, when Pharisees resisted the idea of a person being healed on the Sabbath (Mark 3:5), and Jesus certainly appears to be angry when he clears the Temple of the moneychangers (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-17). St. Paul says, “Be angry and do not sin” (Eph. 4:26), which indicates that anger is not necessarily sinful. Anger often arises as a physiological response to situations; it’s what we do with it that determines whether it is a sin. How can we stay open to the kind of “holy anger” that pushes back against injustice, yet avoid the kind of anger that Jesus is telling us to avoid? Why is abusive language such a serious matter? Abusive language has become such an embedded part of our culture – a standard part of television shows, comedy acts, etc. – that we might not even realize we are echoing or imitating it. How can we control our own language, the things we personally say? What are some examples of people in our time using the kind of contemptuous, dehumanizing language Jesus is talking about when he uses the word “Raqa”? The principle of human dignity calls us to recognize that every person has an inalienable dignity given to them by God – even the people who may be seen as our enemies. How is this kind of contemptuous language a violation of human dignity? Why is this kind of dehumanizing language so dangerous? What kinds of things can it lead to? Oppression, murder, discrimination, and even genocide sometimes starts with this kind of language, from the dehumanization of Black people in the history of the American South, to the dehumanization of Dalits in Indian history, to the use of the word “cockroaches” that preceded the Rwandan genocide. A brief look through history can bring forth many similar examples, and they continue in our time. Politicians in many countries are using dehumanizing language to delegitimize people they do not like – often with deadly results. Where is the part of this discussion that might make you uncomfortable? Where might you need to adjust how you manage your anger or your language, in order to be more like Christ? In verses 23-26, Jesus shifts the focus slightly. In verses 23-24, what does he tell us to do? Why would God say that reconciling with a brother or sister is more important than making an offering to God? In verses 25-26, Jesus broadens the idea of reconciliation by moving from a religious context to a legal context. What does he say? How is an openness to reconciliation important for avoiding bad court judgments? How might our society be a better place if there was more focus on reconciliation between offenders and those they have harmed? Both of the examples in verses 23-26 presume that we are at fault. We are often not very good at recognizing our own faults. How can you become the kind of person who recognizes when you are at fault? Looking at this whole passage, what is the most important point for you in what Jesus says about murder, anger, abusive language, contempt, and reconciliation? Take a step back and consider this: In the United States and many other countries, there has been a coarsening of social discourse and political discourse. Many social media voices and political leaders treat those who disagree with them with disrespect and contempt and blatantly distort their views – and rack up millions of views, “likes,” and reposts in the process. Christians might consider ways to push back against this ungodly trend. For example, we might decide that we will never forward or “share” a post that uses disrespectful language about another human being. We can find other articles that express the same views more respectfully. Many of us remember being told by a parent, “If you can’t say something good, don’t say anything at all.” While there is a place for criticizing the views of others, we should be able to accurately state the other side’s claims before showing why we think they are wrong, and our arguments for why they are wrong should be based on facts and evidence, not based on distortion and innuendo. If we can’t do that, we aren’t treating them as people made in the image of God. We might consider a 21st century version of our parents’ maxim: “If you can’t say something that respects the humanity of the other person, don’t say anything at all.” Or perhaps: “If you can’t state your opponent’s position in a way that would allow them to say, ‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying,’ then you shouldn’t try to characterize their views at all.” How can you contribute to a more civil public discourse in your country’s social and political life? And what about anger? Anger sometimes comes unbidden – a visceral reaction that arises from the physiology of our humanity. But we can choose whether to nurture that anger and help it grow, or tame it and give it the perspective it needs to be harnessed for good. What do you need to do to tame or harness your anger so that it is serves the good rather than becoming a trigger that leads to sin? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew Index Next

Matthew does not support the idea that a sinner’s prayer is a simple ticket to heaven. In his Gospel, Jesus calls us to much more than that. Previous Christian Faith Next Faith Versus Works: What Does the Gospel of Matthew Say Matthew does not support the idea that a sinner’s prayer is a simple ticket to heaven. In his Gospel, Jesus calls us to much more than that. Image by Brett Jordan, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti September 5, 2025 I have been studying the Gospel of Matthew for 3 years, and I have discovered that the Gospel of Matthew does not support a popular version of “Christianity” that requires only “faith” and not “works” to go to heaven. I would like to unpack these misunderstood words. Jesus doesn’t talk much about “going to heaven,” but he talks a lot about what it means to be part of the kingdom of God. His gospel is much more challenging than just a simple call to faith. It's a call to action – to works. According to the Gospel of Matthew, what does God expect of those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven? There is nothing in the entire Gospel of Matthew that would support the idea that all you need to do to “go to heaven” is to say a few words or a “sinner’s prayer” to signal that you “believe,” and you will be saved. That simplistic and distorted version of Christianity cannot be found in the Gospel of Matthew. Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus describes an entire change of outlook and lifestyle that he expects to see in those who claim to follow him. He expects faith to be put into action. A sinner’s prayer might be a first step, but it is not the ultimate sign of a true believer in Jesus. Here are some of the things Jesus tells his followers to do: In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), Jesus says: Be pure in spirit and pure of heart; be peacemakers, etc., from the Beatitudes; don’t speak angrily to others; don’t commit adultery; love your enemies; be perfect; don’t make a public show of your almsgiving, praying, and fasting; don’t serve money; put you trust in your heavenly Father; don’t judge others; do to others what you would like them to do to you; etc. In Matthew 16:24-28, Jesus says: Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. In Matthew 18:1-5, he says: Humble yourself like a child. In Matthew 22:34-40, he lays down two Great Commandments: to love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. In Matthew 25, he tells us to be responsible and fruitful with what God gives us; and to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, care for those who are sick or in prison, etc. If we aren’t doing these things, Jesus hasn’t given us any reason to think that we will be counted among the ”elect” (Matt. 24:31), enter into his kingdom (Matt. 25:34), and receive eternal life (Matt. 25:46). Faith is demonstrated by our actions Some may ask: Are you preaching that we are saved by our works? Absolutely not! We are saved by faith. But “faith” is not just a bunch of words that come out of our mouth. Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:21 that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ones who do the Father’s will. James says that even the demons believe that there is one God, but they shudder (James 2:18-19). Claiming to believe in Jesus is easy. Our calling is to not just make the claim but to actually live our lives for him. If we do that, it will show in our actions. If our actions do not back up our alleged faith, our claim that we are followers of Jesus is hollow. Grace is necessary Some may respond: That’s a high bar you are asking us to reach. Actually, it’s a high bar that Jesus is asking us to strive for. He wants nothing less than our whole selves. This forces us to confront a problem: We fall short of Jesus’s high bar. Yes, we do! Even if we try to live our lives according to his teachings, most of us reach a point where we realize that, while we may do many things right, we still fall short and don’t give our lives fully to him. But God doesn’t leave us there. When we fall short, we need to recall what Jesus said about who can be saved. Remember when he said it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? The disciples responded, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus’s answer remains true today and applies to us: “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26, NABRE). That’s what gives us hope – not our pious words, not even our most impressive actions, but God’s grace. We are saved only by the grace of God. The grace of God reaches deep into our sinful souls to heal us. It reaches out to us even when we stray. Jesus showed God’s love by putting it into action – healing, teaching, and feeding people, and giving his life for us on the Cross. He told parables of God’s love. He described God as being like a shepherd who searches for the one stray sheep even when he already has the 99 (Matt. 18:10-14), like an employer who ensures that every worker receives enough to live on even if they don’t find their way to the master’s vineyard until late in the day (Matt. 20:1-16), like a king who invites everyone to his son’s wedding feast (Matt. 22:1-14). Jesus does not offer cheap grace But the grace Jesus offers is not cheap grace. We must never forget that we are being called to line up our will with God’s will and conform our actions with Jesus’s teachings and example – to give and serve, not just mouth the words. We must not think that merely professing a few verses of Scripture will open up an easy door to eternal life with Jesus. That’s not what Jesus teaches in the Gospel of Matthew. He says the road is narrow that leads to life (Matt. 7:13-14). Saying a few magic words doesn’t suddenly open the door for people who have no intention of living the life Jesus calls us to live. Jesus helps us be more than we think we can be But we are not on our own in trying to be like Jesus. He is with us. He has sent his Spirit to empower us and purify us (Matt. 3:16), and his Spirit lives in us and works in and through us (Matt. 10:20). He understands our nature and is not scared off when we fall short. On the contrary, he is right there beside us, continuing to love us and gently calling us to take up his yoke (Matt. 11:29-30) – to truly let him be the Lord and Master of our life. The more we do that – the more we put our faith into action and let him work his character into our lives – the easier it is to enter into his rest (Matt. 11:28-29). In summary, the Gospel of Matthew calls us to embrace the challenge of living fully for Jesus and loving everyone around us in concrete, tangible ways, with the assurance that he will help us be what we are called to be and that he will never give up on us. It’s not a call to faith versus works; it’s a call to faith exemplified by works, a call to believe in Jesus and put that faith into action doing the works of Jesus. Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Christian Faith Next