There is a single word in this verse that should stop us cold. The word is “received.” In the Greek, this is a commercial term, the language of a paid receipt. Leon Morris and Robert Mounce both observe that it carries the force of “paid in...
After describing the character of the kingdom in the Beatitudes and the call to be salt and light in Matthew 5, Jesus pivots in chapter six to the practice of the kingdom. He does not begin with a new command. He begins with a warning about motive. The verb translated...
Most of us read verse 48 and feel the sermon collapse on top of us. Perfect? That settles it. I am out. But the commentators are unified here. The Greek teleos does not mean sinless. It means whole, complete, mature, undivided. France traces it back to the Hebrew...
The medieval church pictured love as a four-petaled flower on a single stem: love of God, love of self, love of neighbor, love of enemy. The same sap runs through every petal. Doriani notes that Jesus’ radical command in verse 44 is not a new petal grafted onto...
Read this verse flat and you will be bankrupt by Tuesday. Augustine, with characteristic precision, said it best: “The text says give to everyone who asks. It does not say give everything to everyone who asks.” J. Adams, in his blunt counseling style, adds...
