89 chapter project: Matthew

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Pavlos Maros said:
Yet most christians are unable to follow such a simple idea.
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Agreed that this is a simple idea but is it easy to put into practice?

Are you saying you find Christians to be more guilty of "judging" than others you know?

Pavlos Maros said:
But this is a lie. How do you get past that.
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Let's look at the whole section rather than my very brief summary.

Matthew 7:7-12 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Ask, Search, Knock
7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The Golden Rule
12 “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

What good things are being referred to, would you say? Material things, gifts of the spirit? Something else?

My position is not to assume the bible is lying to us. So I don't personally see anything I need to "get past" in this passage.

You might view this very differently than I do, of course, so I hope you will expand on your ideas.
 
Throughout my life, I have seen God answering my prayers and taking care of me as Saint Augustine and Martin Luther say when they comment Psalm 40.
Sometimes it is not as straightforward as we might want, but when things are past I often have been able to see God's answer was better than what I originally asked for.
 
To Get answered Prayer there are regulations to follow and the Bible tells you what you must do ---------Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light ---2 Corinthians 11-14tells us that
 
Have been pondering the "kingdom of heaven". Or "God's imperial rule" as some translations express it.

What do you think this means? It could be the afterlife, it could be the fullness of life here on this earth or it could refer to end times.

What is your take?
 
unsafe said:
To Get answered Prayer there are regulations to follow and the Bible tells you what you must do ---------Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light ---2 Corinthians 11-14tells us that
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I am actually not all that big on Satan as an entity but I can see this.
 
paradox3 said:
Have been pondering the "kingdom of heaven". Or "God's imperial rule" as some translations express it.

What do you think this means? It could be the afterlife, it could be the fullness of life here on this earth or it could refer to end times.

What is your take?
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I love Robert Farrar Capon's take when explaining the Leavening parable.
The Kingdom is the yeast in the dough. It is action since the beginning through the Breath of God, the Word (who incarnated in Jesus Christ). There was never world without the Kingdom, and the Kingdom, as the yeast, keep doing its work of warming things up.
Capon says:
"All we need to do, and all we can do, is simply trust that the leaven is, was and always will be entirely mixed into the lump of our existence - and that it will infallibly lighten every last one of us. The job is already, if mysteriously, done: by the power of the Word who breathed out his life for us on the cross - by the might of him who, in the glory of his resurrection, forever whispers our reconciled names into his Father's ear - we are as good as baked to perfection right now. We have been accepted in the Beloved; the only real development left for us to experience is the final accolade to be spoken over us by the divine Woman Baker: 'Now that's what I call a real loaf of bread.' "
 
paradox3 said:
Have been pondering the "kingdom of heaven". Or "God's imperial rule" as some translations express it.

What do you think this means? It could be the afterlife, it could be the fullness of life here on this earth or it could refer to end times.

What is your take?
Click to expand...

I appreciate these words of Craig van Gelder... "In understanding the missio Dei, we find that God as a creating God also creates the church through the Spirit, who calls, gathers, and sends the church into the world to participate in God’s mission. This participation is based on the redemption that God accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a redemption that was announced by Jesus as the “kingdom of God” (which I prefer to reframe as the “redemptive reign of God in Christ”).10 This redemptive reign of God in Christ is inherently connected to the missio Dei, which means that God is seeking to bring back into right relationship all of creation. Or as Paul put it in 2 Corinthians, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (5:19). The Spirit-led, missional church is responsible to participate in this reconciling work by bearing witness to the redemptive reign of God in Christ as good news, and through inviting everyone everywhere to become reconciled to the living and true God."
 
Summary: Matthew 8: 1 - 34

Jesus comes down from the mountain, the multitudes follow him and his healing ministry continues.

1. A leper is cleansed and instructed to tell no one. The leper is told, however, to show himself to the priest and do as Moses commanded.

2. A centurion's servant is healed of his paralysis and pain. The centurion is commended for his faith.

3. Peter's mother-in-law is cured of a fever.

4. In the evening, many more sick people are healed. Spirits are cast out of the demon-possessed.

5. Discipleship will be costly. A scribe is told that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Another disciple is told to let the dead bury their own dead.

6. Jesus falls asleep in a boat when great waves come up. The disciples waken Him and He calms the winds and the sea.

7. Two demon-possessed men present themselves to Jesus. The demons beg to be released and go away into a herd of swine. They come out, go into the swine and the whole herd runs down a steep place into the sea. The whole city comes out to see Jesus and begs him to depart.
 
Pavlos Maros said:
Yet most christians are unable to follow such a simple idea.

But this is a lie. How do you get past that.
Click to expand...

Moor lyers out there ... some believe in power of numbers and less quality in essence ...

The world of dark frothy dreams can provide ... substitution of reality!

That's the essence ... farcide wisdom? The stoics roues against going that distance ... tis ultimate virtue! Humanity is a joke ... hear!
 
Paradox, do you believe that Jesus preached the entire sermon of the on the Mount at one time in one place, or
do you think it possible that Jesus preached some of these the phrases or short stories at various places and times and that his teachings were gathered together, pressed orally or written, and only put together as one long sermon at the time that this book was compiled by the community or church, and written down as the Gospel according to Matthew?

Does it matter in our understanding of the sermon?
 
Reflection: Matthew 8: 1 - 34

The gospel writer continues in his persuasive style. Not only is Jesus a great moral teacher (and perhaps a pacifist) he is a miraculous healer. Once again, this is a fulfillment of prophecy.

It is interesting that the demons themselves begged for release rather than the demon-possessed men. Perhaps this is suggesting we hold on to our "demons" unnecessarily at times. The image of the swine rushing down into the sea is curious.

This chapter reminds me of a time when my youngest daughter was about 9. She came home from school for lunch and announced, "I don't believe Jesus did any of that magic stuff." She went on to say "I don't believe in angels either. Do you?"
 
Seeler said:
Paradox, do you believe that Jesus preached the entire sermon of the on the Mount at one time in one place, or
do you think it possible that Jesus preached some of these the phrases or short stories at various places and times and that his teachings were gathered together, pressed orally or written, and only put together as one long sermon at the time that this book was compiled by the community or church, and written down as the Gospel according to Matthew?

Does it matter in our understanding of the sermon?
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It is probably a compilation of the teachings of Jesus over time, IMO. It might be presented this way for dramatic effect.

Making that trek up the mountain worthwhile for everyone. :)

Not sure if it matters to our understanding of the sermon. Will think this one over.
 
paradox3 said:
It is probably a compilation of the teachings of Jesus over time, IMO. It might be presented this way for dramatic effect.

Making that trek up the mountain worthwhile for everyone. :)

Not sure if it matters to our understanding of the sermon. Will think this one over.
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I think that Jesus, being the Son of God, was quite capable of preaching a sermon.
 
I do believe Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit both when it was written.and translated and when it was assembled together as a Canon.
Thus, for me it isn't important, for example, if the sermon of the mount was one big sermon or various sermons. What matters is that the Spirit wants us to take as one great sermon, because this is the way it made up to the Canon.
 
Jae said:
I think that Jesus, being the Son of God, was quite capable of preaching a sermon.
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OTOH, authors compiling a teacher's sayings into a "sermon" is a time-honoured tradition. Plato almost certainly did it with Socrates at times and it seems to be the case with some of the collections we have of Confucious and The Buddha. So, yes, he was quite capable of preaching a sermon, but whether he preached this exact, specific sermon or whether it's a compilation of his sermons and sayings, is indeterminate. I am quite certain he preached more than one sermon given that his ministry lasted something like three years by most reckoning. It unlikely they were all the same (he was extemporizing, after all, rather than reading a script) so perhaps Matthew assembled a generic "Jesus sermon" from the all the best bits of the ones he preached over the years. All we can say is that the sermon and its contents are attributed to him.

Which leads us to this:

GiancarloZ said:
Thus, for me it isn't important, for example, if the sermon of the mount was one big sermon or various sermons. What matters is that the Spirit wants us to take as one great sermon, because this is the way it made up to the Canon.
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(y) though I would say, "What matters is that tradition takes it..." since I don't believe there is actually a Spirit involved.
 
Mendalla said:
OTOH, authors compiling a teacher's sayings into a "sermon" is a time-honoured tradition. Plato almost certainly did it with Socrates at times and it seems to be the case with some of the collections we have of Confucious and The Buddha. So, yes, he was quite capable of preaching a sermon, but whether he preached this exact, specific sermon or whether it's a compilation of his sermons and sayings, is indeterminate. I am quite certain he preached more than one sermon given that his ministry lasted something like three years by most reckoning. It unlikely they were all the same (he was extemporizing, after all, rather than reading a script) so perhaps Matthew assembled a generic "Jesus sermon" from the all the best bits of the ones he preached over the years. All we can say is that the sermon and its contents are attributed to him.
Click to expand...

The canon says Jesus preached this sermon. I believe Jesus preached this sermon. You're free to believe as you may.
 
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