Notice how casually Jesus slips in the word evil. He offers no argument for it; He simply assumes it. If you then, who are evil. The solidarity of the human race in sin is so basic to Jesus that He states it in passing while making a point about something else. This...
Jesus knows that some of us will hear the promise of verse 8 and still pull back, so He does what He so often does: He paints a picture. In Galilee, the small round loaves of bread looked remarkably like the smooth stones along the shore, and some of the fish in the...
Look carefully at the grammar of the promise. It will be given. It will be opened. Theologians call these divine passives, and they carry a quiet but massive point: the weight of the promise does not rest on the one praying. It rests on the God who answers. Jesus does...
Jesus does not drop this invitation into the Sermon on the Mount at random. For two chapters He has been raising the bar on anger, lust, truth telling, revenge, love for enemies, worry, and judgment. Any honest listener eventually asks, who can live like this? And...
Pull back now and look at the whole passage as one unit. Malachi begins with one Father and one God, who bind his people together in covenant. He exposes a remnant repeating Solomon’s ancient failure of divided allegiance. He unmasks a people weeping at an altar...
