Losing Our First Love

What event prompted the Pharisees to ambush Jesus and his disciples? According to Matthew’s chronology, the only recorded event involving food that they could be referring to was the feeding of the 5,000. Their response to one of Jesus’ most astounding miracles was an accusation related to meal etiquette.

How did they get it so wrong?

Blind Guides

How can someone who works so hard at his scholarship, studying the Word of God, become a blind guide? I don’t know about you, but that’s a terrifying thought for someone in leadership. Recall the stern admonition from James 3:1 that teachers will be judged more strictly. Jesus adds in Luke 11:52, “You teachers of the Law of Moses are really in for trouble! You carry the keys to the door of knowledge about God. But you never go in, and you keep others from going in.”

Read More humility, leadership, blindness, learner

Amazing Faith

The disciples are often amazed at Jesus, both by the wow factor of his miracles as well as his tendency to challenge the establishment and cultural norms. But what amazes Jesus? It’s always faith – faith that shows up in unexpected places (Matthew 8:10) or faith absent when it should be expected (Mark 6:6). So what is it about this Canaanite woman that causes him to cry out, “Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith!”?

Minuscule Faith

As you read about the feeding of the 4,000, put yourself in the scene. Do you think the men and women, sitting in groups of 50, knew where their bread was coming from? Now put yourself in the disciples’ shoes. What was it like for Jesus’ inner circle to witness the astounding miracle of the expanding bread?

As usual, Jesus has a bigger agenda than feeding the hungry masses.

Missing the Point

How can those who spend the most time in the Scriptures or with Jesus miss God’s point altogether? Take the disciples, for instance. Jesus is giving them another lesson about yeast and bread and, not understanding him, they immediately jump to the conclusion that he must be talking in some oblique way about the bread they had forgotten to take with them.

The problem is that they’ve been missing the point all along the way.

Plumb Line

When people don’t know the Word of God well, they fill the pages with foolishness that sounds biblical. Perhaps you’ve heard some of these before: God helps those who help themselves. God wants me to be healthy and prosperous. Don’t eat food with hands that haven’t been ceremonially cleaned.

The Pharisees were citing oral law here. Tradition taught that filthy hands were an open door for evil spirits to enter the body.

Read More Pharisees, tradition, God’s Word

From the Heart

The problem with the Law was that it was so easily limited to behaviour modification. God’s constant lament against Israel was that they looked religious on the outside while mistreating the weak, the poor and the immigrant among them.

Jesus isn’t concerned with what foods you eat and whether you wash your hands before you touch it.

Read More forgiveness, heart, root, Holy Spirit

Priorities

Since the death of John the Baptist, Jesus has been seeking a place of solitude and rest. Meanwhile, ministry needs have prevailed, to the point where the Twelve don’t even have time to eat (Mark 6:31). This passage opens with Jesus stealing away to a house by the Mediterranean, but even here he’s recognized. A Syrophoenician woman finds him and begs him to heal her daughter.

On first reading, Jesus’ response to the woman seems harsh.

Open Up!

If Jesus performed this miracle in our culture, what might our reaction be? It would certainly draw a lot of attention in the media. Some would turn the miracle into a formula, maybe sell a DVD with a 6-step program for healing. Others might build a cult around Jesus’ saliva. Our human tendency to worship the technique or object rather than our Healer would be evident before long.

Identity Crisis

At times Jesus buries truth in a familiar metaphor or situation, relying on the Holy Spirit to interpret for those who have ears to hear. Bread is a handy metaphor with an audience thoroughly familiar with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:17), the tabernacle showbread (Exodus 25:30) and manna in the desert. Here Jesus appropriates the symbol of manna by claiming to be “the bread that had come down from heaven.”