Modern students of Scripture dumb down the power of the New Testament by dealing with the Old Testament as a kind of antiquated fortune cookie. They see a connection between Matthew and Jeremiah, and exclaim, “You see! Jeremiah predicts Matthew!” Even if we suspend reality for a moment (and ignore the fact that Matthew had…
Category: Matthew
The Liberation of Egypt
In secular ideology, we tend to depict everything as a struggle between bad actors and (so-called) good actors; between victims and oppressors. Thankfully, this self-righteous view of the world is dismantled in the Bible, which assumes that all humans are bad actors. In Scripture, all peoples come face-to-face with God’s wrath through a functional judgment…
Rejoice, O Unwedded Bride
The most difficult part of following the Bible is accepting the factuality of our powerlessness. Human beings repeatedly invent ways to sustain the illusion of control and self-importance, scheming tirelessly to defend and secure the passing fallacy of our place in the world. According to (more accurately, as evidenced by) the written Gospel of Matthew,…
And You, Bethlehem
Everyone emphasizes Jerusalem. It’s the big city, the important city, and the object of David’s kingly ambitions—but it’s not the city from which (or to which) David was called. On the contrary, it is Jerusalem’s little sister, the city of Bethlehem, that is set apart as the fruit-bearing house of the bread of God’s instruction….
The People’s Hero
People read religious and philosophical symbols into the Bible all the time. They study other traditions or the symbols of ancient mythologies and jump to conclusions, reading biblical metaphor against a non-biblical context. Worse, they make horrific assumptions about the supposed continuity between these traditions and the biblical tradition. God forbid. When the Bible employs…
Not From Men
When we talk about children, spouses, siblings, parents, family, or even friends, we can’t help but refer to them as our posession: “My” son, “my” wife, “my” family–we arrogantly refer to individuals the same way that we refer to property. In the biblical tradition, nothing belongs to human beings: not the land, none of the…
The Last Generation
In the book of Leviticus, the Jubilee year is a time when everyone—even slaves—are restored to their families, their land, and their original homes. With this in mind, it is striking that Matthew draws a connection between the generation of Jesus Christ—the seventh generation in a genealogy built around multiples of seven—as the last generation…
God Will Establish
In the first section of the genealogy in Matthew, the story behind the names helps readers piece together the puzzle of the book’s teaching; but what about the last section? What can be understood from a list of names with no backstory? If you think of names personally, yes, they are useless. On the other…
Perpetual Decline
When human beings discuss society and culture, we do so with an unstated premise: that there is such a thing as a correct society and that such a society is attainable through correct ideas or actions. Unfortunately—and far from its own ideal—this assumption bolsters self-righteousness, perpetuates societal ills, and amplifies suffering in the world. The…
The Intent of Man’s Heart
When a person does something questionable, almost always, defenders step forward to say, “he’s a good man,” or “she has good intentions,” as if either statement can erase the outcome of a person’s mistakes. Even worse, both statements openly contradict Scripture. In the biblical tradition, no one is righteous but God, and our intentions (no…