This verse is startling. God expresses a wish that someone would simply close the temple doors and stop the whole operation. It would be better, he says, for the fires to go out entirely than to keep burning in vain. This is not a small statement. The temple was the...
God moves from naming the problem to exposing its specific shape. The priests were accepting blind, lame, and sick animals as sacrificial offerings. Under the Mosaic law, this was explicitly forbidden. Leviticus 22:20 states plainly that anything with a blemish was...
Malachi 1:6 opens with an argument from the ordinary. Everyone in Malachi’s world understood what it meant for a son to honor his father or a servant to respect his master. The basic fabric of society depended on it. The Code of Hammurabi, the great Babylonian...
Jesus connects the shining of the light not to great speeches, theological arguments, or culture war victories. He connects it to good works. A lifestyle of goodness that consistently helps others and demonstrates the love and concern of God for them. This is not a...
There are two images in this passage, and they operate at different scales. The city on a hill is a corporate image. The lamp in a house is a personal one. Jesus gives the corporate image first, and that sequence is intentional. The primary witness of the light is not...
