Exploring My Strange Bible

This teaching is actually kind of a replay and development of a teaching that I gave numerous times about the Messianic Passover. As we retell the story of Passover year after year, we can see that the story is forward-pointing as it represents liberation. What Jesus does with this meal and how he takes its meaning and tweaks it is really interesting. We address all of this and more about the Passover Meal in this episode.

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Today we ponder a pretty well-known peril of Jesus that has been misused and abused in unfortunate ways when it is read out of context.

This story is about a landowner who gives different sized investments to his servants and then expects them to produce something with the investments. Then based on what they have done with the investment, the landowner rewards or punishes different people.

As you can see, this is one of those stories where if you take it out of context, you can just do terrible things with it.BUT when you locate this parable as a warning or challenge that Jesus gives to the leaders of Jerusalem, all kinds of parts of this parable pop out in new ways.

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We go over Matthew Chapter 24 today, which in modern, especially American Protestantism, has become a very controversial text related to biblical discussions about “the end times”.

The longer I’ve gone on to learn more about the bible and how symbolism works and apocalyptic texts in Jewish writing, my understanding has really depended. That being said, they still remain controversial because of the symbolism.

Let's dive in together.

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We are in the “passion” week during Jesus’ stay in Jerusalem for Passover, and there are a series of controversies. Today we explore a controversy that Jesus has with some priests. They try to trap Jesus in a scripture-type puzzle, but he really doesn’t fall for it.

We watch Jesus deal with controversy, the future, resurrection, and more in this episode.

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We look at a story from a controversy that Jesus was involved in in this episode. During his final week in Jerusalem for Passover, he ends up telling this famous story of God’s covenant with Israel leading up to Jesus. He tells it through a story about a landowner who owns a vineyard and then has some hired hands who end up hijacking the farm and getting violent about it.

Jesus really confronts his contemporaries with the squandered opportunity of Israel’s history. This teaching of Jesus shows a level of challenge for all generations of his followers as Jesus can get under our skin and bother us sometimes.

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In this teaching, we take apart Matthew Chapter 21 and the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem during the week of Passover, and he creates a storm. He literally storms into the temple and turns over tables and stages a protest.

Immediately following that, there is a story about Jesus and a fig tree. Get ready for Hebrew word plays, prophetic poetry, and more in this episode.

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We slow down on Matthew Chapter 18 and address Jesus’ aside road trip in this teaching. He is trying to give his staff and disciples an idea of what it is like to live in the upside-down value system of the kingdom in our personal conflicts and relationships.

He particularly addresses forgiveness because, for Jesus, forgiveness was the quintessential feature of what it means to follow him. We explore forgiveness and reconciliation in this episode.

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This episode takes us into Matthew Chapter 18. Jesus was taking a road trip, and then he decided to go on a solo march towards Jerusalem for Passover. He had been trying to invite his disciples specifically (his closest followers). This chapter focuses on resolving conflicts and relational problems within the kingdom of Jesus.

It is full of practical teachings about what the kingdom of God looks like on the personal, individual relationship level. It starts here, with Jesus urging his disciples to become a student of their own character flaws and how they hurt others without knowing it. It invites followers of Jesus into a journey of self-learning.

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At this point, we take a look at Matthew Chapter 17 about taxes and death. This isn't the most famous story about taxes in the Bible, but it is one of the first. It is about how Jesus relates to power and the Jewish institutions within religious people. This is an interesting story to show how Jesus related to these powers that he believed were corrupt but still submitted to them, and it also sheds light on what it means for Jesus and his followers to relate to the power structures that they happen to live under.

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At this point, we look at Matthew Chapter 15. It is a story about a woman who approaches Jesus and asks him to heal her child, and Jesus HESITATES (which is totally bizarre because it doesn’t fit the portrait of Jesus, right?). The backstory of this woman and her history in the scriptures is really interesting, and it really helps us frame why Matthew has included this odd story in the first place.

It has to do with Jesus’ mission to the people of Israel and God. Listen in to learn more.

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