300 words a day

“Be like God. Love your enemies.” That’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:43-48. It sounds like an impossible standard. Jesus starts by talking about God’s treatment of enemies. In an arid country, rain is life. And when it rains, it rains on everyone. Though we wish there were little clouds that followed some people […]

We make promises all the time. They often come in a series. Kind of like this: When Jesus started talking about oaths and about swearing he wasn’t talking about the #@%&* kind of swearing. He was talking about people who couldn’t be trusted. He was talking about people who had broken their word and had […]

Rich Dixon is looking away from the easy thing: +++ Jon’s been writing about The Sermon on the Mount – feels like, if I took Jesus at his word, it’s an invitation to do difficult things. As Bob Goff says, we ought to be content in our circumstances, but that’s not a hall pass for […]

If you are taking your sacrifice to the temple, Jesus says, and you remember that someone is angry at you, go to them and make it right. Then come back and offer your sacrifice, give your gift, fulfill your obligation. We read that and we want to start a conversation with him. But Jesus, what […]

And now Jesus begins to illustrate what he means by not measuring up. He’s going to take what everyone had thought of as spiritually sufficient and change the routine. He starts in a way that is very familiar to all of us who like to attack the status quo: “You have heard it said that, […]