The kingly royalty Jesus describes in Matthew’s Gospel is of another order entirely. It describes homeless Jesus. Sick Jesus. Imprisoned Jesus. Hungry Jesus. Naked Jesus. It is, in the words of theologian Fleming Rutledge, the “royalty that stoops” … [To read more, click on title]
Author Archives: St Francis Webguy
Three Churches
[The Parable of the Talents] implies God is the master who endows and rewards the clever use of talents, but casts out the fearful and so called worthless one to a fate worse than death. [It] is quite familiar … and often associated with church stewardship campaigns; but now I’m having trouble putting that persona on God. Can this be the God who Jesus called “Abba”, who blesses the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful? [To read more, click on title]
Taxing
Why did the Romans collect taxes? To pay their army that kept their huge empire, that covered Europe, the Middle East and the northern coast of Africa, at peace. An army whose legionnaires came from all corners of Europe … And for those legionnaires, the army was their family. Those Roman legionnaires, in Jesus’s time, may have found keeping the peace in Israel a little irritating: the Jews tended to be argumentative. They were a ‘stiff necked’ people … [To read more, click on title]
Come to the Banquet!
Bible scholars have counted between thirty and fifty Gospel parables (depending on the definition of a parable they have used). Jesus did explain that even though they were simple stories they would be incomprehensible to those who chose not to believe … [To read more, click on title]
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