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Each of us will be judged by our treatment of the hungry, the stranger, the sick, those in prison, etc. What are you doing to find Jesus in those places? Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 25:31-46 Each of us will be judged by our treatment of the hungry, the stranger, the sick, those in prison, etc. What are you doing to find Jesus in those places? Separation of Sheep and Goats . Early 20th century reproduction of a Byzantine mosaic originally dated early 6th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Separation_of_Sheep_and_Goats_MET_cdi24-144-4s1.jpg . Tom Faletti September 14, 2025 Matthew 25:31-46 in the final judgment, Jesus asks if you responded to those in need What is this passage about? Note that this story is not a parable. He is not saying the kingdom of heaven is “like” this. He is saying that this is what is going to happen. The only part of it that is like a parable is the use of the terms sheep and goats to picture Jesus separating people the way a shepherd would separate different creatures. The rest is a direct description of what Jesus says about how the final judgment will go. In verse 31, where is the Son of Man? Jesus has described himself as the “Son of Man” throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Here, for the first time, he takes to himself the title “king” (v. 34). The first title has messianic overtones but emphasizes his humanity. The second title offers a different perspective. What does his use of these two titles – Son of Man and king – tell us about Jesus and his relationship with the human race? Who is gathered before him (v. 32)? All the nations. Who do the sheep and the goats represent? Who is it that gets separated? He is not simply separating the nations for judgment; the language used makes it clear that this is a judgment of individual people – see the footnote below: Are individuals or nations judged? Note that the “sheep” and “goats” are used mainly as an illustration. Jesus isn’t asking us to draw conclusions here based on what we know about sheep and goats. In our day, he might have said: As a veterinarian separates the dogs from the cats. He used the image of separating sheep from goats because that was an image his audience was familiar with, an then he applied it to separating different types of people. In verse 34, what is the blessing given to those on his right hand – the sheep? What do you think it means to “inherit the kingdom”? In verses 35-36, what is it that they did, that led to this blessing? Do they understand what they did, or are they surprised by what he says? Explain. What is the king’s explanation of how they did these things to him? He says that when you did it to/for them, you did it to/for him. Different translations use “to” or “for” because in the Greek, the dative case used here indicates who receives the benefit of an action but does not specify a preposition. The point is that when we do these things, Jesus is the recipient of our actions: You did it to me. How do you think this passage applies to us today? How literally do you think we should take it? Do you think there are people who might be surprised to learn that when they were helping people in need, they were also doing those good things to/for Jesus? Explain. What does their surprise tell you about people who do good things, about God, and/or about our final judgment? It is probably unrealistic for any one person to do all these things with any frequency, so how do you think Jesus would want us to respond to this story? Those among us who like to-do lists (myself included) need to hear this caution: Jesus has not presented himself as the kind of person who would want us to turn this into a checklist and think that if you do each one of these things at least once we have earned salvation. That’s not what this is about. It is probably better to think about it as a way of life: responding to needs habitually and generously whenever needs present themselves. Now let’s look at the “goats.” In verses 41 and 45, what is the ultimate destination of the “goats”? What does the king say they failed to do, that has led to this outcome? Do they understand why they are receiving these consequences, or are they surprised? Explain. How does the king explain what he means by their failing to do these things to him? Note that these are what are called “sins of omission,” not “sins of commission.” It isn’t that they did something bad; it is that they failed to do something good that they could have done and should have done. Do you think there are people who might be surprised to learn that they are failing the test of the final judgment? If so, do you think it would be a situation where they should have known because they knew what Jesus taught in the Bible, and they willfully ignored what they should have known? Or do you think it would be a situation where, once it was pointed out to them, they would be able to say, “Yeah, you’re right; I should have known that and I failed”? Or do you think it would be a situation where they would be legitimately baffled to learn that this was Jesus’s criteria for judgment? Explain. What does their surprise tell you about people who fail to help others in need, about God, and/or about our final judgment? In verse 40, the king tells the first group that they did it to one of the “least” of these brothers of mine, and in verse 45 he tells the second group that they did not do it to one of the “least” of these. Who are these “least” ones? What do you think this passage says to us? As you read this, is there someone or some group of people that you think the Lord might be nudging you to do more for, or some action you feel he is calling you to take? What is this passage saying to you personally? Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, we have seen Jesus’s constant “ downside-up ” approach. Why do you think this is the perspective he has chosen to take: to place such an emphasis on our action to help the “least” among us? Do you count yourself among these “least”? If so, how does this passage make you feel? If you don’t, how do you feel about the fact that Jesus identifies himself with the “least”? Verse 34 is the first time in the Gospels that Jesus is explicitly referred to as a “king.” Why does our King care so much about what happens to the “least” among us? For the most part, people aren’t naked and in need of clothing in our day. But there might be some other needs that would not have made sense to mention in Jesus’s day but that he might have mentioned if he were speaking now. What are some other basic needs that Jesus might add to his list if he were making this point to our society today? There are many possibilities; for example: I was homeless and you helped me find shelter; I was pregnant and you gave me baby clothes and diapers; I was a victim of human trafficking and you rescued me; I was an immigrant and you welcomed me – oh, that one already is on his list when he says: I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. In our more complicated world, some social and economic problems can be addressed by the people collectively in far better ways than we can do individually – for example, helping the homeless, pregnant women, victims of trafficking, people with mental illnesses, etc. Sometimes, Christians and other people of good will take action collectively through nonprofit organizations or governments. Is working to help people through social organizations and governments a reasonable way of trying to respond to what Jesus is calling us to do in this passage? Explain. For people who live in democracies, is it reasonable to try to hold governments accountable to address the needs of the hungry, the sick, etc.? None of us can do it all. But we can work to live our lives with a mindset that the least among us need to be central to our focus. How can you do that better? Take a step back and consider this: Jesus clearly wants us to place a high priority on meeting the needs of the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and others who are the “least” among us. This concern meant so much to him that he equated himself with them when he said: “What you did it to them, you did to me.” How easy is it for you to see Jesus in those who are suffering on the fringes of our society? What can a Christian do to internalize this perspective? How do we grow in our ability to see Jesus in the least among us? If we take this passage seriously, it could lead us to worry about our salvation. Are we doing “enough” to join Jesus in heaven? He clearly wants us to feel challenged. But he does not want us to be afraid of him or to think that we can only make him care for us if we do the right things. He is not creating a new works-based legalism after having spent so much time trying to overcome the legalism of the Pharisees. He also is not offering “works” as an alternative to “faith.” We are saved by him, not by our fulfillment of a specific list of requirements, but our faith should be manifested in actions to help the least among us. See Is Jesus suggesting that we can earn our way to salvation by our works? for more on this how this passage relates to faith. Since we are sinners saved by grace and called to be conformed to Christ, it might be worth thinking about it this way: Can we be comfortable living with Jesus’s priorities and serving him whenever we encounter a person in need around us? That is our challenge. How comfortable are you with Jesus’s “downside-up” view of the world – his close identification with those who have the least? What can you do to become more comfortable with Jesus’s worldview? Mother Teresa of Calcutta said that “the poorest of the poor are . . . Christ under the guise of human suffering” ( Mother Teresa: In My Own Words , p. 24), and that she sought to “comfort Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor” ( Mother Teresa: Where There is Love, There is God , p. 15). If we can find joy in looking to serve Jesus in the least among us, we are on the right path of adopting the priorities and worldview of Jesus. The question is not whether we have fulfilled Matthew 25 perfectly. The question is whether we have embraced Jesus’s worldview. He wants our hearts. If we embrace his priorities, he is both willing and able to mold us into the people he wants us to be, through the power of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. If we allow the Holy Spirit to work his worldview ever more deeply into the fabric of our lives, we will become ever more like Jesus – our character following the mold of his character, our concerns reflecting his concerns, our actions manifesting his love to the world and responding to needs wherever he can be found. Am I willing to let the Holy Spirit mold me so that I take on the heart of Jesus and allow him to work his priorities into my actions? Am I willing to show forth his love to the poorest of the poor? If I’m willing, he is able. May it be so! Notes regarding 2 issues people find in this passage: Are individuals or nations judged? Some theologians claim that the final judgment story is talking about God’s judgment of nations, not individual people. They argue that in Matthew, “the nations” usually refers to nations other than Israel, and “brothers” usually means Christians, so they claim that Jesus is saying that the Gentile nations will be judged by how they treat Christians (see, for example, Father Daniel Harrington, p. 101). Both Catholic and Protestant theologians have rejected this argument. Father Benedict Viviano, O. P., points out ( The New Jerome Biblical Commentary , par. 145, p. 669) that in Matthew 24:9 and 14, and in Matthew 28:19, Jesus uses the term “all nations” in a way that includes Israel, not just the Gentile nations. Furthermore, Matthew often uses the word “brothers” to include all humans, not just Christians – for example, in the Sermon on the Mount. As a result, the idea that this is only a judgment about nations is not well supported. H. L. Ellison uses the grammar of the passage to show that argues that Jesus is talking about individual people, not just nations (Ellison, p. 1148). When Jesus says that the king separates “them” (Matt. 25:32), the Greek word for “them” is masculine, which indicates people. If he was referring to the nations, the neuter form of the word “them” would have been required. So this is an individual judgment, applying to each person. Myron Augsburger adds that, although Jesus uses the word “brothers” in verse 40, he does not use that word in verse 45. There, Jesus says the goats did not help the “least” ones – i.e., the needy in general, not specifically Christians (pp. 283-284). Jesus is warning us about how all individuals should treat all individuals who are in need. Is Jesus suggesting that we can earn our way to salvation by our works? Some people struggle with how to fit this passage into a “faith versus works” framework. Jesus never separated faith from helping others. We can’t save ourselves, but he made it very clear that he expects us to help the hungry, the stranger, the sick, those in prison, etc. If there is a “faith vs. works” contradiction between what Jesus says here and what modern-day preachers preach, we would have to choose Jesus’s own words over modern re-interpretations of the gospel, since Jesus is our Lord and God. However, there is no contradiction. Faith and service to those in need are both central teachings of Christ. See Faith Versus Works: What Does the Gospel of Matthew Say for a discussion of how faith and works come together rather than being in opposition to each other. Regarding this specific passage and the concern that it undermines a commitment to faith, evangelical scholar H. L. Ellison says that this passage “is intended to be a warning to us. Since from His brothers, He [Jesus] will expect more, not less, this can serve as a check on the reality of our profession” (Ellison, p. 1148). In other words, we can test the genuineness of our profession of faith by how we respond to the plain words of Jesus in this passage. On the other end of the spectrum, some people use this passage to argue that faith in Christ is not necessary – that how we treat the poor is all that matters. Catholic scholar Benedict T. Viviano, O.P., responds that the passage “is addressed to Christian disciples, and discipleship is understood, in a very bold way, as identical with care of the needy. This is not a denial of faith; it is of the essence of faith” ( The New Jerome Biblical Commentary , par. 145, p. 669). Jesus is not here rejecting his consistent call to faith; he is showing us one element of what faith looks like in action. If our understanding of the Christian faith does not include an understanding both of the centrality of service to those in need and of the centrality of faith in Christ, we do not understand Jesus as presented to us in the Scriptures upon which our faith is based. This passage presents the Word of God to us. What do you think Jesus would say to those who think the passage contradicts the gospel message about how we are “saved”? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; it’s what comes out of your heart that defiles you. Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 15:1-20 It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; it’s what comes out from your heart that defiles you Image by Nick Fewings, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti June 13, 2025 Matthew 15:1-9 The hypocritical Pharisees In verse 15:1 we see the first mention of Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem . Up until now, Jesus has been dealing with local Pharisees and scribes in Galilee. But he has now caught the attention of the religious leaders in the capital city of Jerusalem, and Pharisees and scribes have come north to check him out and ask him why he is doing what he is doing. What is the specific complaint of these Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem? This is not about hygiene. The Pharisees had developed a long list of traditions to reinforce their attempts to be ritually pure, traditions that were passed down from generation to generation “from the elders.” One of those traditions was to perform a ceremonial or ritual washing of the hands before eating. That rule didn’t come from the Old Testament Torah. The priests were commanded to wash their hands before serving at the altar (Exodus 30:17-21), but that did not apply to Jesus’s disciples. What is Jesus’s response? Jesus tells them that their tradition that allowed resources to be devoted to God even at the expense of taking care of one’s parents violates God’s command to honor one’s parents (in the Ten Commandments). His point is that they were putting tradition above God’s Law. Jesus distinguishes the law of God from the traditions of humans. When is it appropriate to break with traditions that have been handed down from the past, and when should they be upheld? In verses 8-9, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13 (Matthew quotes from the Septuagint version). Looking at the passage Jesus quotes from Isaiah in Matthew 15:8-9, what is the fundamental problem with the Pharisees’ focus on tradition? Jesus is probably speaking in front of a crowd. His harsh language (“hypocrites”) draws a clear distinction between what is right and wrong; what is man-made and what is divinely inspired. In what ways might we find ourselves putting tradition or established rules ahead of what God has told us is right? In what ways might we be at risk of honoring God with our lips while our hearts are not in sync with God’s heart? Jesus’s response to these Pharisees and scribes is very forceful. When is it appropriate to take a strong stand, even if it offends other people? This exchange between Jesus and the delegation from Jerusalem appears to be a key moment in the events that lead to Jesus’s execution. When Jesus challenges their traditions, he is indirectly challenging the powerful people at the top of the social, religious, and political structure. Matthew 15:10-20 It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you but what comes out In this dialogue, Jesus is talking about what “defiles” a person – that is, what makes a person ritually impure or spiritually unclean : what makes them unholy in the sight of God. According to Jesus in verse 11, what defiles a person in the sight of God? How is this view different from what the Pharisees think defiles people? In verses 13-14, Jesus uses two proverbs to describe the Pharisees. What does he say about them? Why is their focus on ritual purity rules misguided? Why can’t what you eat make you impure before God (see verse 17)? In what ways does their focus on external purity make them “blind”? Jesus says that it is what comes out of your mouth that defiles you. In verse 18, he explains why. Where do these things that defile us come from? The heart. In verse 19, what are the specific sins he identifies that come from the heart? Why is it appropriate to say that these things “defile” us? How do they defile us? Would you say that the defilement is already within us before it comes out in sinful actions, or that we are not defiled until we do specific immoral things? Explain. Matthew’s list of the things Jesus names that defile us is shorter than Mark’s list. Matthew sticks to sins that specifically break the Ten Commandments (from the Old Testament). In Mark 7:21-22, Mark includes other vices or sins, such as greed, envy, and arrogance. Which of these sins do you think are especially a problem for people in the Church today? How can you know when you have given in to sin and have become defiled? What can you do when you have given in to sin and become defiled? If you had to summarize this passage in a sentence or two to explain the main point to someone who doesn’t know much about religion, how would you summarize it? In the next story, Matthew shows Jesus putting these words into action and applying this principle to a much bigger issue. Take a step back and consider this: In our day, we don’t think that touching a non-believer, a foreigner, or even a sinner can make us unclean before God. Even so, Christians tend to separate themselves from the world when they can. Sometimes, the reason given for this is that we should not associate ourselves with sin, or that we should not put ourselves in situations where we might be tempted to sin, or that we should build the church or Christian community that God desires and not get mixed up in the aspects of the world that do not reflect God’s desires. However, Jesus did not tell his disciples that they should separate themselves from the world. He told them to avoid sin, but he told them to go out into the world. In his long, final prayer in the Gospel of John, Jesus describes us as being “in the world” (John 17:11) even though we “do not belong to the world” (John 17:14). He then said to the Father, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). We are not meant to be separate from the world. But we are meant to be separated from sin, so that what comes out of our hearts and into our words and actions come from God. In what ways are you maintaining a presence in the world rather than avoiding it, so that you can be a witness for Christ in your words and actions? What challenges or temptations do you face in trying to live out your faith in the world? What can you do to be faithful to Jesus and avoid the defilement of sin while you live your faith in a messy world? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Are you acting like you are ready for the Lord? What would it look like in your life to be the faithful servant, the well-prepared attendant? [Matthew 22:45-51; 24:1-13] Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 24:45-25:13 Are you acting like you are ready for the Lord? What would it look like in your life to be the faithful servant, the well-prepared attendant? Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867). The Parable of Wise and Foolish Virgins (unfinished) . 1813-1816. Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_von_Cornelius_-_The_Parable_of_Wise_and_Foolish_Virgins_(unfinished)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg . Tom Faletti September 7, 2025 Matthew 24:45-51 two servants – one ready and one not ready for the master’s return This is the first of 2 parables about Jesus’s return and the need to be ready. Some translations use the word “servant” and some translations use the word “slave.” In New Testament times, perhaps 20% or more of all the people in the Roman Empire were slaves ( Welch and Hall ; The British Museum ). Slaves performed professional as well as menial jobs, often side by side with freed people. They moved freely around their cities and beyond, were allowed to earn money, and could buy their freedom if their master was willing. Although masters were allowed to abuse their slaves, and some or many did, Roman slavery was not the same as the chattel slavery of the American South. To help us understand the relatively independent, decision-making roles they played in their society, I will use the translation “servant” in this study. That will also help us understand that Jesus wants us to be able to see ourselves in these servants. What happens in this parable? Who do the two servants stand for? Jesus is talking to the disciples now, not the Pharisees or chief priests. Matthew is probably expecting his audience to apply the parable to themselves, in which case it applies equally to us and to all Christians in every age. One member of my Bible Study, when asked who the faithful and unfaithful servants stand for, thoughtfully replied, “It [i.e.,both] could be us at different times.” What is the job of the two servants? What would it look like when these servants were doing their jobs properly? Jesus wants us to see ourselves in these images, so translate this to your life. What would it look like in your life if you are the faithful servant living your life until the master comes? What would you, the faithful servant, be doing in your life? What are the things we might become distracted by, that would leave us caught by surprise when the master comes? Note that this servant is not just distracted, he is wicked: he abuses the other servants. In verse 51, what happens to that wicked servant? Jesus is talking to his followers in this parable, and Matthew is telling the story as a caution to his fellow Christians. Jesus says the wicked servant will be assigned a place with the hypocrites. Why is that a devastating outcome for a Christian? Who has Jesus accused of being a hypocrite, and why would Jesus use that term for “followers” of his who do not live the life of a faithful servant? It was the job of these servants to take care of the household and make sure the other slaves/servants were fed at the proper times. Each of us has a different “job” as we serve God, based on the unique circumstances of our lives. What are the “jobs” God wants to see you doing faithfully right now? Matthew 25:1-13 being ready – a parable of 10 virgins In the second parable, 10 virgins (i.e., unmarried women) are supposed to be ready so that when the bridegroom arrives (probably with the bride he has gone to get from another city) they can welcome him and accompany him to their new home for a week-long celebration ( Ignatius Catholic Study Bible , fn. to 25:1-13, p. 53). In Jesus’s time, travel was unpredictable and the timing of events was often more uncertain than in our day. It might not be clear when the bridegroom would have completed all the necessary steps to bring the bride home. When he was approaching, it was expected that the word would go out ahead of him so that they could be greeted, day or night. In this case, the bridegroom represents Jesus, so the focus in on him. The Greek word can mean “virgin” or “unmarried woman” (what in the past was called a “maiden”). Some translations use the term “bridesmaid.” Most translations use the term “virgin,” so this study uses that word. What happens in the parable? Who do the wise and foolish virgins represent? What is Jesus’s point in this parable? Notice that Jesus calls the virgins who weren’t sufficiently prepared “foolish,” whereas he called the unfaithful servant “wicked.” Are there ways that we might not be “wicked” but could still be foolish (unwise) and therefore not be what Jesus is expecting us to be? How might we be guilty of being, or in danger of being, unwise in our spiritual lives, even though we are not trying to be wicked? What does this tell us about faithfulness in living the Christian life? What happens to those who are not ready when the time comes? Matthew wants us to hear this parable as applying to all of us. What does it say to us? There are aspects of our lives where we can’t wait until the last minute to be ready for Jesus’s coming. What might be some of those things we need to be doing in advance? What might be some things we can’t “borrow” – that we need to already have when Jesus comes? In verse 12, when the foolish women finally show up late to the wedding banquet, the bridegroom says, “I do not know you.” In the context of the story , this makes sense: the groom, perhaps coming from far away, might not know the friends of the woman he is marrying. But what does this say to us about our lives? We would not want Jesus, when we come before him at the end of our lives, to say, “I do not know you.” What do we need to do about that? What does it mean to be known by Jesus? What would you do differently if you lived your life, like the five wise virgins, with a real readiness for the day you will meet God face to face? As with earlier statements by Jesus, this parable can be applied to being ready for the Second Coming of Christ, but it applies equally well to our deaths, for we shall see him then. What does this parable say to you about being ready for your inevitable death? Jesus’s ends by saying, “Stay awake, for you do not know the day or the hour.” What does it look like to, in a spiritual sense, “Stay awake”? Take a step back and consider this: We are always making choices. Sometimes our choices make us more ready for Jesus, and some do not. Some choices help us as we seek to know and be known by Jesus, and some do not. Sometimes we act like we can put off spending time with God or wait until later to do what God wants us to do, and yet still be ready for Jesus when he comes. That approach might make us unready for the Lord when we die. But it also has an impact long before we die. There might be things that God wants to do through us, but if we are not “ready,” he might not be able to open the path for us to serve him or others in that way. Our choices affect not only the endgame of our lives, but also the plays we make every day. To what extent is your life focused on being ready for each next thing that Jesus is showing up for in your life? How can you be more ready for every little thing that he might want to do in you or through you? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Integrity means your words line up with your actions. Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 5:33-37 Integrity means your words line up with your actions. Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti May 2, 2024 Matthew 5:33-37 Oaths: what are you saying? What did the Old Testament Law say about oaths in Leviticus 19:12? What kind of oaths were prohibited? (See also Deuteronomy 23:21-23.) In Jesus’s time, Jews made oaths and vows frequently and casually. William Barclay says they developed arcane rules for which oaths actually had to be honored and which could be ignored without repercussions (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 , p. 157). If you didn’t include God himself in your oath, it didn’t “count.” What does Jesus say about oaths? What are the reasons behind Jesus’s prohibit of these oaths? We do not have control over the heavens, the earth, or even our own bodies, so we have no right to be swearing by them. What do you think about Jesus’s rule, and why? If I leave the heavens, etc., out of my oath is it OK? Or is Jesus making a bigger point? How often do you make promises? How seriously do you take your promises? How do respond when someone says, “Promise me you’ll . . .”? Some people often signal that they are about to say something honest with a phrase such as: “I’m not going to lie to you,” “Frankly,” “To tell the truth,” etc. I sometimes wonder, when such people say other things that are not prefaced by that assurance, whether that means that what they are about to say might not be the truth. How honest are you in your everyday dealings with people? Can others count on what you are saying to be true, or do you have a tendency to shade the truth? Why does Jesus say that anything more than “Yes” or “No” comes from the evil one? Jesus is saying that a truly good person would never need to take an oath because everything he or she says would always be the truth. If a person needs to add an oath to what they are saying, it is a sign that they have already made compromises with untruthfulness that tarnish their honesty. Why do we sometimes want to embellish what we say by adding a promise? What is the purpose of adding a promise? Some reasons might be: to assure, or to impress. What would it look like to live a life where your “Yes” is so solid that no one would ever feel the need to ask you to swear that what you are saying is true? How can we foster a world where the truth is so cherished that people don’t feel the need to make oaths? Take a step back and consider this: Jesus’s words about honesty in speech are not isolated. They appear right after he asked us to squarely confront our thought life to tame lust, and asked us to be true to our marriage commitments no matter what. He is getting at something bigger than just a series of individual character issues or types of sin. He is pointing us toward true integrity. Integrity is the characteristic of a person who is solid through and through – where the inside of the person and the outside of the person match up and demonstrate a consistent morality. When you look at them, what you see on the outside is what they actually are on the inside. What they say is actually true. What they spend their time thinking about is consistent with the ethical principles they profess. What they do is what they say they will do, and what they do is what God has taught them to do. The word “integrity” comes from a Latin word that means whole or complete in the sense of being intact, unbroken, undivided. The person of integrity is undivided. Their whole being is intact. They are one person – the same person inside and out. That is what Jesus is calling us to be. How can you cultivate a character of integrity? How might you consider changing the way you talk and act – the things you say and do – in order to ensure that integrity defines your character? How might you consider changes in your thought life, so that the you on the outside matches the you on the inside and matches what God is calling you to be inside and out? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Get out of the boat: Where are you called to take a step of faith and not be afraid? Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 14:22-36 Get out of the boat: Where are you called to take a step of faith and not be afraid? Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810). Petrus auf dem Meer [Peter on the Sea] . 1806. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philipp_Otto_Runge_-_Pedro_sobre_el_mar.jpg . Tom Faletti June 7, 2025 Matthew is in the middle of telling us about a series of events in Jesus’s life that are living parables: they are stories that have meanings that go far beyond the specifics of the moment in which they occurred. Matthew 14:22-33 Jesus walks on the water Why do you think Jesus sent his disciples on ahead while he stayed back to pray? Why is personal prayer important (in addition to our communal prayers)? Does Jesus’s example here suggest to you that you might need more times of one-to-one prayer with God? The Sea of Galilee is known for its sudden storms that sweep across the lake, often but not always from the west (from the Mediterranean Sea). Verse 25 tells us it is the fourth watch of the night, which is between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. (the Romans divided each 12 hours into 4 watches), so they have been rowing a long time, trying to get to shore. What happened in this incident? What does being able to walk on the water suggest about Jesus? In Job 9:8, God is described as walking on water. Jesus’s ability to walk on water is a sign of his divinity. Why do you think Jesus came to them by walking on the water while they were struggling with wind and waves, rather than just meeting them at their planned destination? Jesus says, “Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matt. 14:27). What is he trying to tell them? We all have times where we need to hear Jesus say, “Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matt. 14:27). How might this statement be important to you? Jesus literally says, “I am,” not “it is I”), invoking God’s I AM name for himself, which further supports the idea that Jesus is in part trying to show that he is God, the God of Israel. What does Peter say to Jesus? Why do you think Peter does this? What does this passage tell you about Peter? How do you think Jesus felt about Peter wanting to come to him on the water? When Jesus says, “Come,” the first thing Peter needs to do is get out of the boat. When Jesus tells us to do something, the first step is often the hardest part: Get out of the boat. What is one area of your life, or one situation you are facing, where Jesus may be telling you, figuratively, that it is OK, or even necessary, to get out of the boat? At first, Peter actually does walk on the water – presumably by the miraculous work of Jesus. According to verse 30, when does Peter become afraid and start to sink? When he focuses his attention on the strong wind. So when Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus and focuses on the challenges around him, he starts to sink. What does this say to us? When Peter starts to sink, what does Jesus do? What does that say to us? Although his faith faltered, Peter did something that was more than anyone else had ever done. When Jesus says to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt. 14:31), what tone of voice do you think Jesus used? Was it a stern reprimand or more encouraging? (Or, to say it another way, did Jesus say this with a stony stare or with a twinkle in his eye?) When you step out in faith rather than standing back in fear, but then you falter, how do you think Jesus responds to you? When Jesus got into the boat, what happened to the storm? What does that tell us? If this story is a living parable illustrating a bigger point for the early church and for us, what do you think that bigger point is? In verse 33, how do the disciples react to what happened? What do they say about Jesus? They declare him to be the Son of God. This is a significant moment, when the disciples declare Jesus to be the Son of God. That phrase is used very rarely in Matthew. Prior to this point, Satan said to Jesus, “ If you are the Son of God . . .” (Matthew 4:3, 6) and a demon had called Jesus the Son of God (8:29). But no human has called Jesus the Son of God – until now. Later, during Jesus’s Passion, the high priest, the bad thief, and the chief priests all use the title “Son of God” in disbelief as they are rejecting him (Matt. 26:63; 27:40; 27:43). But the term “Son of God” is used only 3 times in the Gospel of Matthew by people who believe in Jesus: Here, the disciples say it when they are terrified. (In Mark 6:51, they do not reach this conclusion; they are just astounded.) When Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is (Matt. 16:16), Peter, having had some time to think about it, calls Jesus “the Son of the Living God” as well as the “Messiah.” Finally, after Jesus dies, the Gentile centurion at the foot of the cross says, “Truly, this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:54), which fits with the overall framework of Matthew’s Gospel where he is showing that the gospel is meant to be spread to all nations, i.e., to the Gentiles (Matt. 28:19). The statement in Matthew that Jesus is the Son of God is as significant as the statement in Mark that Jesus is the Messiah (Mark 8:29). And Matthew wastes no time showing us the implications of this truth. As soon as Matthew has established that Jesus is the Son of God, scribes and Pharisees show up from Jerusalem and challenge Jesus (Matt. 15:1), setting up the conflict that will end in his crucifixion. What does it mean to you to say that Jesus is the Son of God? How important is that statement of faith to you? Looking over this whole story, what stands out to you as the most significant thing to apply to your own life right now? Matthew 14:34-36 Many miracles In verse 22, Jesus told the disciples to take the boat to the other side of the lake. They were on the western side of the lake, the Jewish side, and the other side (the eastern side) was Gentile territory. This is spelled out explicitly in Mark 6:45, where Jesus tells them to go across the lake to Bethsaida, which is a major city in Gentile territory. However, after Jesus comes to them on the water, they land at Gennesaret, which is squarely on the western side of the lake, further west than Capernaum. Depending where they began on the western side of the lake, they either made little progress toward Bethsaida or actually moved further away from Gentile territory. Some scholars attribute the failure to reach Bethsaida to the wind that was against them, or suggest that Mark joined independent stories together. However, another possibility is that this incident showed that the disciples were not ready for a move into Gentile territory yet. Jesus makes a move into Gentile territory, but in the opposite direction, in Matthew 15:21. What happens here? Compare this to the reception Jesus received in his hometown (Matt. 13:54-58). How are they different in terms of (a) the reaction of the people, and (b) the number of miracles worked? Look at the role of the people in verse 35 who spread the word. Why was that important? How might we take a lesson from these people who spread the word? If you were going to spread the word about Jesus (in our time), what would you want to tell people about him? Like all Jews of his time, Jesus would have had a tassel sewn onto each corner of his outer garment, in keeping with Numbers 15:37-41 and Deuteronomy 22:12. (Many translations say “fringe,” but “tassel” is more accurate.) What does it tell you about people’s faith, that they would be satisfied just to touch the tassel at the end of his cloak? To be touched by people who were sick risk ritual impurity. Why doesn’t this stop Jesus? Jesus patiently heals all who come to him. What does this tell you about Jesus? Take a step back and consider this: Sometimes, people think they know something that God wants them to do, but it doesn’t happen. This often holds people back from believing that God might do great things if they step out in faith. But sometimes, God doesn’t do great things if we don’t get out of the boat. We need to be attuned to the will of God to know what he is trying to do through us. Jesus’s example of prayer may be one of many things we can do to better know the mind of God, so that we take action when he wants us to. What can you do to better know the mind of God for your life, so that you get out of the boat and take a step of faith that God can use, when he wants you to? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Divorce: What does it mean for two to become one? Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 19:1-12 Divorce: What does it mean for two to become one? Image by Engin Akyurt, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti February 13, 2024 Matthew 19 Introduction before reading the passage Matthew 19:1 tells us that Jesus now moves into Judea, for the first time in his public ministry in Matthew’s Gospel – a step closer to the most vigorous opposition he faces, in the spiritual and secular power center of Jerusalem. This step sets him on the path to Jerusalem and the Cross. The particular route he is taking involves going out of the way, crossing over to the east side of the Jordan River. Jews often did this to avoid going through Samaria. (Jews detested the Samaritans because the Samaritans were in their mind only semi-Jews, since they did not engage in the Temple worship in Jerusalem.) This route allows him to avoid any distractions caused by the disagreements between Jews and Samaritans, and it puts him back in the territory where John the Baptist preached. Read 19:1-12 Marriage and divorce Notice the contrast in verses 2 and 3. There are 3 kinds of people identified here. What are 3 different reasons people come to Jesus here? Some people follow him. They think he is teaching something valuable. Some people want him to cure them. They think he is doing something valuable. But some people want to catch him in error . They think he is misleading people. What is the Pharisees’ question? The Pharisees are thinking about Deut. 24:1-4, where the Law of Moses appears to allow men to divorce their wives for any reason. Different schools of thought in Jesus’s time interpreted this differently – the Hillel school took the words at face value to produce a policy that made it easy for men to divorce their wives for any reason, while the school of Shammai took a strict approach that only allowed a man to divorce his wife if she committed adultery. What is Jesus’s answer? What is Jesus’s scriptural justification for his answer? Gen. 1:27 and 2:24. Marriage is a human institution in every culture, even where it is not considered a divine institution. Jesus interprets the Old Testament to emphasize that God had an original plan for marriage, from the beginning of human history. What do these passages he quotes from Genesis tell us about the meaning of marriage? What is the point of his referring to what was “from the beginning”? Why is that important? Jesus says that “what God has joined together” (19:6, NRSV and NABRE) must not be separated by humans. How can the statement “what God has joined together” guide our thinking about marriage? Members of my Bible Study group offered answers such as: Marriage involves commitment, cohesiveness, a spiritual bond, being a complete unit, sticking to or clinging to each other, following the original template from before the Fall. The Pharisees move right past his explanation and ask why Moses allowed divorce if God doesn’t actually permit it. What is Jesus’s explanation for why Moses had a more lax standard? Their hard-heartedness. What does hard-heartedness mean? What does it look like? Whose perspective is foremost in mind for the Pharisees: the man (husband), the woman (wife), or the couple together? Whose experience do you think God is concerned about? In ancient times, and not only among the Jews, adultery was considered to be an offense against the husband – an offense against men. (See New Oxford Annotated Bible , footnote to Mark 10:1-16, p. 1810.) In reaching back beyond Moses to the “beginning,” Jesus points to a part of the Old Testament that is not so male-centric. In human terms, the Book of Deuteronomy has the flavor of having been codified by men who were writing to men, for men. What difference does Jesus’s teaching make for women? Notice that all the language is egalitarian – the words are identical for the man and the woman. Marriage, in God’s view, is a union of equality and oneness. Does this surprise you? What do you think of this? Now focus on the statement, “the two shall become one flesh” (19:5, NRSV and NABRE). In the context of Genesis, this is often taken almost as though it is primarily about biology: here’s a man, there’s a woman, the man leaves his family, the woman leaves her family, they get married, they have sex, and that’s how the species propagates. In sex, the oneness is physical and temporary. But Jesus says something more profound when he adds, “So they are no longer two” (Matthew 19:6, NRSV and NABRE). He’s not just talking about sex. In Jesus’s profound “before Moses” vision of what marriage is supposed to be, in marriage a husband and wife are “no longer two.” What does it mean for the two to become one? In what ways are they meant to be one? Members of my Bible Study group offered answers such as: They are of one mind. They exercise joint decision making. They give and take, with a commitment to reconciliation when they get it wrong. They act like what happens to you is as important as what happens to me. They are like conjoined twins in the sense that what I do affects you. William Barclay offers several beautiful thoughts here: being one means not just doing one thing (sex) together, but doing all things together; being completed by your partner; sharing all the circumstances of life; knowing each other well; with consideration thinking more of the other than of oneself (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew Volume 2 , pp. 223-226). People often want to marry for love. In Jesus’s time, most marriages were probably arranged and not decided based on love, yet God wanted the two to become one. Love is an act of the will, not a feeling. Now let’s look at the rule for divorce that he lays down in verse 9. What is the standard he establishes? Note that the Catholic Church has chosen to follow Mark’s version, which does not have the exception for unchastity (Mark 10:1-12). Mark’s Gospel was written earlier, so Matthew’s exception clause is often assumed to have been added later. Also, Luke follows Mark’s absolute standard. Why do you think Jesus lands there as the answer to when divorce is allowed? How does this view honor the idea that marriage is a covenant that is supposed to be a true union? It should be like God’s covenant with us. This is the first of several teachings of Jesus that even his own disciples aren’t sure they can live up to – they think it is a hard teaching. How do you interpret Jesus’s answer in verse 11? One way to think about this is that marriage is not for everyone. Some are called to be married and some are called to be celibate. Does that make sense to you? Another way to think about this is that Jesus may be saying that not everyone will be capable of living up to this teaching. It is a teaching given to Christians. Why would Christians be especially enabled, and especially expected, to live up to this teaching? Believers in God have received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to live out the teachings of Jesus. We are not going to dwell on v. 12, which has challenged scholars throughout the Church’s history. The point of verse 12 may be that, when the disciples say maybe it is better not to get married, Jesus says that some people do choose not to be married – for a variety of reasons. Some men (whether from birth or injury) do not have the sexual equipment to have intercourse and cannot fulfill the Jewish expectation that they get married and have children. Some men were castrated, a practice at that time for some jobs in royal palaces and Greek temples but thankfully not practiced now. And some have chosen to be “eunuchs” – probably meant figuratively for those who have chosen a life of celibacy and not meant to be taken literally. Unfortunately, the early church historian Eusebius tells us that Origen, the early Christian scholar who lived from c. 185 AD to 253 or 254 AD, castrated himself, thinking he was making himself a eunuch for the kingdom of God in accordance with Matthew 19:12. This is not what Jesus was saying. What do you think is most insightful in Jesus’s teaching about divorce? What do you find problematic here, if anything, and how do you think Jesus would respond to your concern? What should we do to promote a healthy view of marriage in our society? Take a step back and consider this: Paul had the great insight that the marriage of a man and a woman was an image of the relationship between God and the church (Eph. 5:25-32). Spouses should love each other and lay down their lives for each other as Jesus loved and laid down his life for the church. The husband and wife are not just two separate beings; they are a unity. That is why I should care as much about what happens to my wife as I care about what happens to me, and vice versa. When we live out that calling, we are acting as people made to reflect the image of God to the world around us. When we live out that calling, we are truly being all that God wants us to be. If you are married, how can you lay down your life for your spouse? How can you make sure that your spouse doesn’t feel like she/he is doing all the laying down of their life while you’re not? How can you show that this is a mutual thing where you are a team, together in all things? The relationship between a husband and wife is far more important than just its effect on each other. It also affects their children. Children are the subject of the next passage. Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Prayer in difficult times: Can you learn from Jesus’s example and keep in mind the bigger picture of your life? [Matthew 26:36-46; 26:47-56] Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 26:36-56 Prayer in difficult times: Can you learn from Jesus’s example and keep in mind the bigger picture of your life? Unidentified artist (Flemish, 17th century). The Taking of Christ . Circa 1620. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Public domain, https://collections.mfa.org/download/34311 . Tom Faletti September 17, 2025 Matthew 26:36-46 The agony in the garden of Gethsemane They left the city after singing a hymn (v. 30). In the seder, Psalms 115-118 were sung after the meal. They walked out, across the Kidron Valley, to the Mount of Olives. There, they go to a garden known as the garden of Gethsemane. “Gethsemane” means “oil press,” so perhaps there was an oil press there for gathering oil from the olive trees that grew on the Mount of Olives. Jesus decides to go away from the big group to pray by himself. Who does he ask to come with him? How does Jesus feel? What is Jesus’s first prayer (v. 39)? What is Jesus’s second prayer (v. 42)? How is the second prayer different from the first? The first prayer is more focused on the possibility that “this” might be avoided; the second prayer is more focused on how to deal with it. The first prayer suggests the possibility that Jesus’s desire might conflict with the Father’s will; the second prayer is focused entirely on doing the Father’s will. How can Jesus’s prayer be a model for us when we are facing difficult circumstances? Jesus knows (vv. 45-46) that his betrayal is about to be put into action. How would you describe his state of mind? How do you think God feels about the difficulties you encounter? What is his state of mind as you face difficult circumstances? What does this time in the garden of Gethsemane tell you about your relationship with God? What is Jesus inviting you to do? Matthew 26:47-56 Jesus is arrested, the disciples resist and then desert him Judas’s act of betrayal involved telling the chief priests where they could find Jesus away from the crowds, in order to arrest him without enraging a crowd. How does Judas greet Jesus? How does Jesus greet Judas? What does it tell you about Jesus, that even in the act of being betrayed, he calls Judas “Friend”? In verse 51, how does one of Jesus’s disciples respond? John 18:10 tells us that this disciple was Peter. Considering that Judas came with a crowd armed with swords and clubs, what does this tell you about Peter? How does Jesus respond in verse 52? What does “those who take up the sword die by the sword” mean to you? How might that statement guide you in your life? What does Jesus say about angels in verse 53? In verse 54, Jesus says that the Scriptures say it must happen this way. What does that mean to you? In verse 55, Jesus gets a bit testy with the crowd regarding their method of arresting him. What is he implying about their motives? In verse 56, Jesus repeats that all that is happening is fulfilling the Scriptures. How does it affect your faith, knowing that parts of the Old Testament gave witness to what would happen to Jesus even though the Old Testament authors did not comprehend the fullness of what they were writing? Jesus sees these specific events in his life as part of a bigger picture, the bigger story arc of his life. What can you do to keep in mind the bigger picture of your life when you are facing difficult circumstances? Matthew ends this section by noting that at this point the disciples fled. Jesus has just made it clear that he is not going to resist what is coming. Can you stick with Jesus in your life even in times where God is not going to protect you from suffering or illness or rejection or death? What will you need to do in order to be ready to stick with him, and not run away, when the difficult times come? Take a step back and consider this: It is amazing to think that God guided a variety of prophets over a period of centuries to write down things that had meanings they could not have fully comprehend. Often, they wrote things about their own times that could be seen later as also applying to Jesus. Other times, they wrote things that were directly prophetic in nature, but they had no idea when, how, or through whom those things would come to pass. Yet God honored their unique voices and free will in those books. He did not just turn off their brains, put them in a trance, and dictate words to them. We hear the voices of the authors in the Word of God, even while we hear the Author behind them. God also allows us to make free decisions about what we say and do, and yet when we allow ourselves to be guided by him, he does things that may have implications and impacts we never dreamed of. Where have you seen the hand of God in your own life, guiding you in your present to bring you to your future without dictating your decisions for you? Does this make it easier for you to trust God about your future? Explain. Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Herod seeks to kill Jesus, which is why Jesus ends up as a refugee in Egypt, and then in Nazareth. Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 2:13-23 Herod seeks to kill Jesus, which is why Jesus ends up as a refugee in Egypt, and then in Nazareth. Image by NEOM, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Tom Faletti February 13, 2024 Matthew 2:13-23 Jesus becomes a refugee, avoids a massacre, and ends up in Nazareth Matthew tells this part of the story to help us understand how Jesus could be the Messiah even though he grew up in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem. Why does Joseph take Jesus and Mary to Egypt? When the angel tells Joseph to “flee,” the Greek word for flee is pheuge , which is related to our English words “refuge” and “refugee.” It was common for Jews to hide out in Egypt if they were in trouble or in danger in Judea; there were Jewish communities in a number of Egyptian cities, so they would not have felt totally alone. Still, it was a long way from home. Jesus began his life as a refugee. Fortunately, Joseph and Mary did not have to convince a skeptical government that the family was worthy of asylum status. God was willing to become not only a human, not only a poor person, but a refugee. How does that help us understand the inherent dignity of refugees and the importance of being welcoming to them? The “fulfillment prophecy” that Matthew cites in verse 15 is not actually about Jesus or the Messiah. It was a statement from Hosea 11:1 about the fact that God called his “son,” the people of Israel, out of Egypt, long ago. Matthew repurposes it, perhaps to try to convince Jews that there is a huge amount of evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures pointing to Jesus. Matthew might also be thinking that Jesus’s experience of being brought out of oppression is a foreshadowing of our own experience of being brought out of oppression by Jesus. Matthew’s frequent use of these “fulfillment prophecies” leads some scholars to conclude that Matthew is picking out Old Testament prophecies and then creating stories to fit them. There is no evidence that he is doing that. Rather, it appears that he is organizing the stories he knows about Jesus and then searching the Old Testament to see if it has “prophecies” that might fit with those events. The stories come first; not the prophecies. When the wise men do not return to him, what does Herod do? Bethlehem was not a large town, so scholars think this would have been a slaughter of perhaps 20 or 30 children. While not large in number, all the children killed by Herod would have been deeply mourned by their mothers and fathers. Some scholars think the killing of the innocents is inspired by Pharaoh’s killing of the first-born sons of the Israelites before the exodus from Egypt, but again if Matthew created the story for that purpose he could easily have made the connection explicit and he did not. The “fulfillment prophecy” in verse 18 is from Jeremiah 31:15, where the original verse is about the Israelites being forced into exile by the Babylonians. It is followed by prophecies that the people will return from exile. Ramah was 5 miles north of Jerusalem, so it was 10 miles from Bethlehem. Rachel’s tomb was thought to be in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Matthew puts that all together and sees Jesus. Where do you think God was, as this was happening? God allows humans to do a lot of evil things, without intervening. Why do you think that is? God is guiding us to be people who as fully as possible reflect God’s image. If he intervened every time something bad happened, we would not be able to learn the lessons of our actions and would not grow to spiritual maturity. Also, we might stop trying to be our best selves, figuring that God will make things better if we mess up. Allowing us to do evil is the price that must be paid for giving us the chance to grow and mature and be great: to take on the mind of Jesus, to be the Body of Christ to the world, to live in the power of the Spirit. Jesus escapes from a tyrant by going to Egypt and then returning when the tyrant is gone. How does this connect with Moses’s escape, as an infant, from a pharaoh who was a tyrant in Egypt, and the Israelites’ later escape from a tyrant pharaoh in Egypt? The words “go . . . for those seeking the child’s life are dead” (2:20, NRSV) echo the Lord’s direction to Moses to go back to Egypt because the Pharaoh who wanted to kill him is dead (Exodus 4:19), setting up a possible linkage between Jesus and Moses: Jesus is the new Moses, leading his people out of oppression and giving them a new Law. When Herod dies, why doesn’t Joseph go back to Bethlehem? Joseph is afraid of Herod’s son Archelaus, who is given the southern territory including Jerusalem and Bethlehem by his father. Joseph had good reason to be afraid of Archelaus. Archelaus was so oppressive and hated so much by the Jews that he was eventually deposed from his position by Rome. Recall that Herod’s roots were in Idumea. Archelaus had roots in Idumea and Samaria, so he was even more suspect of not being a real Jew, and he treated the Jews so horribly that this suspicion was confirmed in the people’s minds. For example, Josephus tells us that in one of Archelaus's first official acts, 3,000 Pharisees were killed in response to an uprising protesting his father’s last act of oppression in Jerusalem. Joseph goes north to Galilee, to the town of Nazareth, a place far away from Jerusalem and not under Archelaus’s jurisdiction. Matthew’s final “fulfillment prophecy” in this chapter (verse 23) cannot be found in the Old Testament. Scholars have searched and never found anything that matches. So we don’t know what Matthew had in mind here. The closest thing is a prophecy before Samson is born that Samson will be a “nazirite” (Judges 13:5), but that is not the name of a place. Perhaps Matthew was inviting a connection to the nazirites, which were Israelites, including Samson and Samuel, who consecrated themselves to God, never drank alcohol, and never cut their hair, among other strict practices (Numbers 6). But the connection is flawed, since Jesus didn’t live an ascetic life and refrained from the demonstrations of human strength that Samson excelled at. Other scholars point to a possible word-play as Isaiah 11:1 talks of a “branch” arising from the stump of Jesse, and the Hebrew word for “branch” is netser , which sounds similar to the beginning of the name Nazareth. Since Jesus fulfilled in his own person some prophecies that were addressed to “Israel,” some scholars think this word-play hinting at the branch that arises from Israel is in Matthew’s mind. All of these are nice ideas, but we don’t know what Matthew had in mind; so this suggested quote remains a puzzle. Even if we don’t expect God to communicate to us nowadays through dreams, how is Joseph a role model for seeking guidance from God? When you figure out what God is asking you to do, do it! ; make yourself open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit; trust that God has a way forward for your life; take care of those around you; be aware of what is going on around you in the world, but don’t be paralyzed by it. Joseph settles his family in Nazareth. What do you know about Nazareth as a place to live and work? Joseph might have seen that he could find good work in the area of Nazareth, especially in Sepphoris, 5 miles away. This is explained in Raymond Brown’s one-volume biblical commentary: “Joseph, involved in the building trade, probably settled in in Nazareth, because he could find abundant work in neighboring Sepphoris, which Herod Antipas was rebuilding as his capital at that time” (Benedict T. Viviano, O.P., “The Gospel According to Matthew,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary , par. 15, p. 636). Historians say that Sepphoris, though a Jewish city, did not join the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule in 66 A.D., suggesting that it took a more cosmopolitan rather than strictly Jewish approach to life under Roman occupation. How might this choice of a hometown have affected Jesus as he grew up? Although Nazareth was a small town, it was not a backwater. Besides being just 5 miles from Herod Antipas’s capital at Sepphoris, it was nestled in the fabric of trade routes to faraway places. It was only 15 miles away from the major international north-south Roman highway that ran through Israel along the Mediterranean coast from Syria to Egypt. Nazareth was also the crossroads of two smaller highways that served as trade routes, one starting at Ptolemais on the coast (modern-day Acre, Israel) and running southeast to Samaria, and the other running northeast through Nazareth to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, a city founded by Herod Antipas (see “Palestine in the time of Jesus, 4 B.C. - 30 A.D.: (including the period of Herod, 40 - 4 B.C.),” Library of Congress , https://www.loc.gov/item/2009579463/ ). As a result, Jesus, as a growing child and as a young man, would have been exposed to other cultures and a bigger world even while living in his Jewish village. This is all we get from Matthew for the “Christmas story” – very little compared to what we have from Luke. What important points about the background, birth, and infancy of Jesus are provided to us by Matthew? Jesus is Son of David, son of Abraham, Son of God due to his virgin birth, Emmanuel (“God with us”), perhaps a new Moses, born in Bethlehem, and raised in Nazareth. His birth story shows how the hand of God protects a little one so that he can grow up and save us, and the first people to recognize that this little one is great is a small group of Gentiles, a bit of foreshadowing that continues to play out as Matthew shows that the gospel is for Gentiles as well as Jews. How do you see the hand of God working subtly but decisively to bring good out of evil in these stories? How do you see the hand of God doing the same thing in your life? Do you think Matthew succeeds in making his point that Jesus fulfills the messianic prophecies even though he grew up in Nazareth, not Bethlehem? Explain. What can you take from this story of the wise men, Herod, Joseph, and Jesus to strengthen your faith or your approach to God? Take a step back and consider this: God could have chosen anywhere in the world for his Son to be born as a human. He could have selected a “chosen people” anywhere. He could have chosen any time in history for his coming. God chose this particular people, whose particular history placed them in this particular place in the world at this particular time. At this particular time, the Roman Empire made it easy to spread a message far and wide. Growing up in Nazareth would place Jesus among people who could both nurture him in the monotheistic culture of Judaism and also expose Him to the rest of the world, and living at a minor crossroads could help him tailor his message to speak to both Jews and Gentiles and prepare the way so that his followers could use their location in the midst of the Roman Empire to take the gospel ultimately “to the ends of the earth.” You also live at a particular time, in a particular place, among a particular people, at a crossroads of particular relationships and opportunities. God desires to work through you to share some piece of his good news with some particular people by your words and actions. How is God calling you to use the embedded realities, relationships, and crossroads of your life to bring his good news to others and make the world more like the kingdom of God that it was meant to be? What is God calling you to do next, where you are? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

What is God trying to do in our world today, and are we missing the signs of what is needed and what he is doing? Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 16:1-12 What is God trying to do in our world today, and are we missing the signs of what is needed and what he is doing? Sculpture by Sargis Babayan. Jonah the Prophet . Armenia. CC BY-SA 3.0 , uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Sargis Babayan, 24 Jan. 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jonah_the_Prophet.jpg . Tom Faletti June 15, 2025 Matthew 16:1-4 The Pharisees and Sadducees demand a sign Who challenges Jesus here? This is the first time the Sadducees have had anything to do with Jesus. We see them joining with the Pharisees to challenge him. This is a significant development because the Pharisees and the Sadducees were diametrically opposed on many issues: The Pharisees accepted the whole Old Testament, believed in angels and an afterlife, and followed the minutiae of ritual rules and traditions added over the centuries, while the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Old Testament), did not believe in angels or an afterlife, and did not follow the extra ritual rules the Pharisees cared so much about. Also, the Sadducees were the wealthy class of political collaborators, while most Pharisees avoided politics as long as they could continue their customs. But here they are united by their opposition to Jesus. What do you think the Pharisees and Sadducees are looking for when they ask for “a sign from heaven”? A sign from heaven might be a voice from the skies or some other supernatural occurrence from above. Jesus’s initial response in verses 2-3 does not appear in many of the early manuscripts, but it is considered part of the canon of inspired Scripture. It is a clever reply because they are asking him for a sign from the skies (heaven) and he says they know how to interpret the natural signs in the skies but not the signs of the times. Many people are familiar with the saying Jesus quotes in verses 2-3. We know it as an old sailors’ adage: “Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.” Jesus is saying they know how to interpret the appearance of the sky to judge weather conditions, but they don’t know how to interpret “the signs of the times.” What do you think he means by “the signs of the times”? The signs of the times are the things going on in the world at any particular moment in history, where God is working or where his influence is needed. The signs the Pharisees and Sadducees are missing are miracles and teachings of Jesus that are the signs that he has been sent from the Father and that the kingdom of God is at hand. During the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the bishops urged the Church to interpret “the signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel. Pope Francis was fond of using this phrase to call attention to the issues of the 21st century where Christians need to put Gospel values into action (for more on the signs of the times that Pope Francis thought were significant, see the Faith Explored study “Where signs of hope are needed today” ). What do you think the signs of the times are today in our nation or world – the things happening in our society or world where God is working or where God’s perspective is needed? And what are the gospel values that need to be brought to bear in those areas? In verse 4, Jesus refers again to “the sign of Jonah.” He used this term in 12:39-41. What is the sign of Jonah? In the story of Jonah, Jonah was in the belly of the whale for 3 days and lived. The “sign of Jonah” may be that Jesus will be in the tomb for 3 days and then rise back to life. That will be a sign for those who doubt Jesus. But considering that Jesus has just been addressing the issue of the Gentiles, the “sign of Jonah” may also be that God cared so much about the Gentiles in Ninevites that he sent Jonah to preach to them and call them to repentance; and God cares equally about the Gentiles in Jesus’s time. The demand for a sign raises a philosophical issue. If God wants people to freely believe in him and accept his authority in their lives, would the kind of sign from heaven that the Pharisees and Sadducees want support or undermine that goal of free acceptance? More generally, why doesn’t God do dramatic things in our lives all the time, to show us that he is real? Matthew 16:5-12 Warnings about the Pharisees and Sadducees What is Jesus’s warning to the disciples in verse 6? What do the disciples think he is talking about? What is he actually talking about? What is the “leaven” or “yeast” of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Jesus is talking about the false teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees – their misunderstandings about who Jesus is and about what kind of life God is calling them to live. Jesus had used leaven as a positive analogy in Matthew 13:33 (the kingdom grows like a batch of leavened dough), but now he uses it as a negative thing. What is it the negative connotation of what leaven or yeast does that he is pointing to here? Yeast corrupts what it comes in contact with. In what ways are the disciples thinking too literally and missing the symbolism in the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000? What is the symbolism he thinks they are missing? The modern-day equivalent of the teaching of the Pharisees might be excessive legalism, while the modern day-equivalent of the teaching of the Sadducees might be materialism and the pursuit of power without regard for the spiritual. How can you distinguish good teaching from corrupting teaching today? Take a step back and consider this: Although the Pharisees and Sadducees ask for a sign and Jesus refuses to give them one when they demand it, they have already had multiple signs – including the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. The Pharisees and Sadducees are missing what is right in front of their faces. The disciples are also missing what is right in front of them. They think Jesus is chiding them for not bringing bread with them (verse 7) even though he has just recently shown that he can provide all the bread they will ever need. They are too focused on the literal and physical, and they are missing the spiritual dimension. In what ways might we, like disciples, miss the point of what Jesus is teaching, by focusing on literal, physical interpretations when Jesus is speaking at a spiritual level? How might we be missing what God is doing or trying to do in our time because we are focused too much on our immediate physical needs and not focused enough on what God is trying to do spiritually in our world? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

The various denominations within Christianity don’t agree on whether Mary had other children besides Jesus, but they do agree with his statement that those who do his will are his brothers and sisters. How can we respond? [Matthew 13:54-58; Mark 6:1-6; Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21] Previous Mary List Next Session 5: Jesus’s family The various denominations within Christianity don’t agree on whether Mary had other children besides Jesus, but they do agree with his statement that those who do his will are his brothers and sisters. How can we respond? [Matthew 13:54-58; Mark 6:1-6; Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21] Everyone can be a brother or sister of Jesus, if they are willing to do the will of God. Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti July 16, 2025 In the next two sets of passages that we are going to explore, the Gospels refer to Jesus’s “brothers.” The question of how to interpret the word “brothers” divides the body of Christ, with Protestants on one side and Catholics and Orthodox on the other. At its root, the question is whether Mary had other children after she gave birth to Jesus or remained a virgin all her life. Protestants say she gave birth to many children and Catholics and Orthodox say she was “ever-virgin.” There is also a question as to whether Jesus had stepbrothers who were children of Joseph from a prior marriage. This study is designed to be useful to people from all Christian denominations, so we will not insist that everyone reach the same conclusion. What this study will do, however, is call attention to the many pieces of evidence that scholars consider as they study the question, because the evidence is not as simple as some would like to think it is. Matthew 13:54-58 / Mark 6:1-6 Isn’t Jesus the son of Mary and the brother of James et al? Matthew and Mark tell about the same incident in these passages, which is why they are paired together here. Before we explore the main point of the passage (which is not whether Mary was a perpetual virgin), let’s deal with the issue of Jesus’s “brothers.” Without trying to argue one side or the other, can you state in one sentence why the word “brothers” is controversial? Why does it matter whether Jesus had “brothers” or not? There are a variety of issues to consider in exploring the disagreement about what “brothers” means in this passage. Here is the background: Three common interpretations of the references to Jesus’s “brothers” Protestants take the word “brothers” literally and argue that Mary had sex with her husband Joseph after Jesus was born and gave birth to children who were the blood brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have always maintained that Mary was a virgin throughout her life and that “brothers” is properly interpreted as “relatives” – most likely cousins. A third view, which is acceptable to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, is that “brothers” refers to sons of Joseph from a prior marriage, who would therefore be stepbrothers of Jesus (because Jesus was, in effect, adopted by Joseph). What is the evidence that might help us determine whether “brothers” means blood brothers, cousins, or stepbrothers, when it is used with regard to Jesus? To evaluate whether when the Bible refers to Jesus’s “brothers” it is referring to blood brothers, cousins, or stepbrothers, we must consider a variety of evidence, background information, and Scripture passages. Here are some of the factors to consider: In both the Old and New Testaments, the word “brother” is used for a variety of relationships, figurative and literal, partly because the Hebrew language did not have a word for “cousin” ( Ignatius Catholic Study Bible , Matthew 12:46 fn., pp. 29-30). In Greek, which is the language of the New Testament, the word for “brothers” is adelphoi , which is used for many kinds of relationships: (1) blood brothers (including stepbrothers), (2) people from the same nation, (3) one’s fellow men, and (4) fellow believers. It does not always mean a literal blood brother, so its meaning in any particular passage must be considered carefully, taking into account everything we know. The Gospels never refer to any person as a child of Mary except Jesus. We see references to Jesus’s brothers, but no one other than Jesus is ever called a child of Mary. This does not prove that Mary was ever-virgin any more than the references to Jesus’s “brothers” proves they were blood brothers. It is just evidence to be considered. Matthew 12:55 and Mark 6:3 tell us the names of four “brothers” of Jesus: James, Joseph (or its Greek variant Joses, in Mark’s Gospel), Judas, and Simon. Later, Matthew 27:56 tells us that one of the women looking on at Jesus’s crucifixion was “Mary, the mother of James and Joseph.” Similarly, Mark 15:40 refers to “Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses.” Joses is a variant of Joseph. If both of these references to a James and Joseph are referring to the same pair of brothers, (which is likely but can’t be proved), it would mean that James and Joseph are not blood brothers of Jesus because their mother was with Jesus’s mother Mary at the crucifixion. They could be relatives, however, if, for example, this Mary and Mary the mother of Jesus are sisters or sisters-in-law. John 19:25 says that standing at the cross of Jesus were his mother and “his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas.” This might indicate that the Mary who was with Jesus’s mother at the cross was Jesus’s mother’s sister. Some people find that doubtful because it would mean that the two sisters were both named Mary. Alternatively, since “brother” and “sister” could refer to a wider circle of family relationships and not just blood brothers, it is possible that this Mary is the wife of a brother of Joseph. If that is the case, then she is the sister-in-law of Jesus’s mother, not her immediate sister. In either case, this might indicate that the James and Joseph who are identified as Jesus’s “brothers” are these relatives, sons of the Mary who was with Jesus’s mother at the cross. While Jesus is hanging on the cross, in John 19:26-27 Jesus entrusts his mother Mary to the beloved disciple (who is traditionally believed to be John). If Mary had other children, it would have been the norm for Mary to automatically come under the care of her other children. Jesus would not have needed to entrust her to a non-relative, and to do so would have been considered a serious breach of tradition. One explanation sometimes offered for why Jesus might have entrusted his mother to someone outside the family is that Jesus’s “brothers” did not believe in him. John 7:5 tells us that this was true for at least a period of time earlier in Jesus’s ministry. However, if the word “brother” is to be taken literally every time it shows up with reference to Jesus, then Jesus did have a “brother” who soon after that was a recognized leader of the church. Either he was already a believer when Jesus was executed, or he became a believer soon after. This “brother” is mentioned by Paul in Galatians 1:19, where Paul says that when he first went to Jerusalem after he started preaching the gospel of Christ (probably around AD 37, which is only a few years after Jesus’s death), he met with Peter but did not see “any other” apostles except “James, the brother of the Lord.” His use of the word “other” indicates that this James was considered an apostle. Two Jameses are named as apostles in the Gospels: the James who, along with John, was a son of Zebedee (Matthew 4:21), and the James who was the son of Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3). Matthew tells us the names of their fathers. Since neither of their fathers is Joseph, they cannot be sons of Mary. Therefore, if “brother” always means blood brother when applied to Jesus, then Paul is not referring to either of them. Acts 12:17 and Acts 15:13-21 tell us of a James who is a leader of the church in Jerusalem. According to tradition, the first bishop/leader of the church in Jerusalem was “James the brother of the Lord,” so that is probably who Paul is referring to. That means there was a James who believed in Jesus and was a “brother of the Lord,” and he was so prominent that he was a recognized leader of the church just a few years later. Jesus could have entrusted his mother to that “brother,” if indeed it was a blood brother; there would have been no need to turn Mary over to a non-family member. Therefore, the claim that Jesus turned his mother over to John because his family didn’t believe in him does not easily fit the facts. A better case can be made that this James the brother of the Lord is the son of the other Mary who was with Jesus’s mother at the cross, and therefore that in at least this instance, “brother” may mean cousin or relative. Some early church fathers taught that Joseph was an older man when he married Mary and that he had children by a previous marriage. That claim first appears in the Protoevangelium of James , a document written around AD 150. That document was not accepted as part of Scripture and was specifically rejected by some early Church leaders because some of its content was considered fiction or legend, but it offers some insight regarding ideas that were circulating in the early days of the Church. That document explains that Mary was dedicated to God as a virgin when she was born, that she was raised in the Temple from the age of 3 until she was 12, and that Joseph was then selected by lot, with a full understanding that she was a dedicated virgin, to take care of her by taking her as his wife. The references to the brothers and sisters of the Lord would then be references to the children of Joseph from an earlier marriage. They would therefore a stepbrothers and stepsisters of Jesus by adoption – not sons and daughters of Mary but still “brothers and sisters” of the Lord. A variety of church fathers before AD 400 taught that Mary was a perpetual virgin, but many of the early church fathers did not discuss the question, perhaps because it did not become an issue until a group of people in the 4th century began to teach explicitly that Mary was not a perpetual virgin. The details of who taught what over the years are beyond the scope of this study, but citations and quotes from various church fathers on the subject can be found in many places, including in “ Which church father first taught the perpetual virginity of Mary? ” A thousand years later, Martin Luther rejected the Catholic practices of venerating Mary and praying to her, but he taught the perpetual virginity of Mary. To summarize, there is a lot of evidence indicating that this is not a simple question. “Brothers” can mean many things in the Bible. Catholic and Orthodox readers find a lot of support for the position that Mary was a lifelong virgin and the word “brothers” refers to relatives of Jesus, but Protestant readers of the Scriptures prefer the plain-language interpretation of the literal words of the Bible. No Bible Study is going to resolve the ongoing disagreement among Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants about whether Mary remained a virgin throughout her life (or about the other issues about Mary that divide us). For the purpose of how you live your life, to what extent does this disagreement matter? _____ Matthew 13:54-58 / Mark 6:1-6 continued Now let’s return to these passages and look at what actually happens in this incident. Jesus has been traveling around Galilee preaching, and he returns to his hometown of Nazareth. What happens? Why do they not believe in him? How do you think Mary feels about the resistance of her fellow townspeople to believing in Jesus? What does Jesus’s statement about “a prophet” in Matthew 13:57 and Mark 6:4 mean? What do you think Mary’s view of Jesus is at this point? Who do you think she believes him to be? Are there ways that we are like the people of Nazareth? Do we ever find ourselves unwilling to accept the value of people who are doing the work of God, because they are too familiar to us? If so, what do we need to do to avoid missing what God is doing? It may require humility, letting go of our ego that wants to ask why he’s so great if I’m not, seeing with new eyes, and having some faith that God is at work in people and that they can grow to be more than what we may have seen in them. Are there ways that we are like the people of Nazareth in not embracing the teachings of Jesus because he or his teachings have become too familiar to us? If so, what do we need to do to continue to embrace his teachings and have them remain fresh and potent for us? Matthew 12:46-50 / Mark 3:31-35 / Luke 8:19-21 Jesus’s mother and brothers come to him Jesus has been traveling all over the region of Galilee. His mother and brothers have not been traveling with him. From Mary’s perspective, what happens at the beginning of this story? Why do you think she and the brothers have come and are standing outside the place where Jesus is preaching? What do you think Mary wants? When Jesus receives word that his family is outside, how does he react? Jesus says that whoever “hears the word of God” (Luke 8:21) and “does the will of God” (Mark 3:35) or “does the will of my heavenly Father” (Matthew 12:50) is his brother and sister and mother. What do you think he means by that? How can determine whether we are hearing the word of God and doing the will of God? How do we know if our actions are consistent with that description of the brothers and sisters of Jesus? How might God be calling you to respond right now to the call to hear the word of God and do God’s will? Even before Jesus was conceived, Mary was someone who heard the word of God and did God’s will. So is Jesus drawing a distinction that separates her from those who follow him? Or is he expanding the concept of his family, as he expanded on many Old Testament teachings when he said, “You have heard . . . , but I say . . .” (for example, in Matthew 5:21-48), to include others along with his mother? Explain. How do you think Mary interprets what Jesus says here? Note that Jesus presumably loves his mother dearly, but he wants to make a bigger spiritual point. We will see Jesus push us to see a bigger picture again soon. Take a step back and consider this: Jesus’s relationship with his mother was different when he was an adult than when he was a child. In what ways did Mary have to accept a change in her relationship with Jesus, and how do you think she dealt with it? We also have a changed relationship with parents and other family members as we grow older. Are there times when we are called to step outside the comfort zone of our previous relationship with a parent or other family member, as Jesus did? If so, how do we continue to honor our parents or other family members even as we live our lives in ways that might be different from their expectations? Sometimes it is the other person (perhaps a grown-up child) rather than us who is responding to an inner call that changes their relationship with us. What can we learn from this story that might help us deal with those changes? Bibliography See Mary - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/mary/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Mary List Next

Jesus tells us to be ready for his return. What are you doing to be ready for that day (whether it is the Second Coming or your death)? Previous Matthew List Next Matthew 24:32-44 Jesus tells us to be ready for his return. What are you doing to be ready for that day (whether it is the Second Coming or your death)? Image provided by Wix. Tom Faletti September 7, 2025 Matthew 24:32-35 No one knows when Jesus will return, so be ready for whatever God does In verses 32-33, Jesus shifts from apocalyptic language to an image from the garden that most people can identify with and understand. What does he say about fig trees to help us understand that we will know he has come when he comes? Verse 34 is confusing even to scholars. We aren’t sure what Jesus meant when he said that “this generation” will not pass away until “all these things” have taken place. Obviously, the people who lived at the time of Jesus have passed away, but he has not returned. What could it mean? Some people interpret “this generation” to mean “this age” – i.e., this era in human history – but the word is not elsewhere translated in that way. Jesus could be saying that his death and resurrection will occur before that generation dies (similar to what he said in Matthew 16:28). Or he might be referring to the destruction of Jerusalem. However, neither of those events amounts to “all these things,” since Jesus has just discussed his Second Coming; so this is not a sufficient interpretation. It is not uncommon for prophetic and apocalyptic material to have multiple layers, so in different places Jesus could be referring to different events or even multiple events that occur at separate times. However, it would be unwise to argue that none of what Jesus has talked about refers to the Second Coming. Matthew often gathers different sayings of Jesus and presents them together in one place, so perhaps this sentence really belongs with the things Jesus said about the destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 24:15-22. The Greek word used for “generation” – genea – was also sometimes used by Greeks to mean a family or race (Liddell and Scott), so perhaps Jesus was saying that the Jewish people would not be wiped out before the Second Coming. This would mean that Jesus is using a different meaning for the word here than when he used the same word in Matthew 11:16 and 12:41. That is not an extraordinary thing to do, but some people reject this option for that reason. Although some scholars argue that the whole chapter is mainly about the destruction of the Temple, and others argue that the whole chapter is about the Second Coming, this study takes a more balanced approach that is consistent with the broad mainstream of scholars, including both Catholic scholars such as Harrington (pp. 94-97) and scholars with deep evangelical roots such as H. L. Ellison (1146-1147). In this approach, Matthew 24:4-14 stands as warning to Christians of all time periods, Matthew 24:15-22 is about the destruction of the Temple, and then Jesus makes a shift toward the Second Coming that becomes clear in verses 27-41. Since Matthew is mainly concerned about being ready for the Lord whenever he returns (which is the focus of the next passage) and would not have written an obvious contradiction into his Gospel, the third and fourth explanations above are the most satisfactory: Either Matthew has merged material from various sources and verse 34 is referring to the material in verses 15-22, or “this generation” has a meaning that could still make sense in Matthew’s time, such as that it means “this people” – i.e., the Jewish people. We don’t need to be troubled by the fact that we cannot be sure what verse 34 means. Nothing here is central to our faith, other than the encouragement that Jesus will return and that we should live our lives in a way that is always ready for him. We do not need an exact timeline –in fact, in verse 36 Jesus says that even he doesn’t know the exact timeline. What we do know is that Jesus will be victorious in the end and those who remain watchful and endure will live with him forever. What do you think about Jesus’s confidence that his people will be able to endure through the suffering and that he will come in the end to gather his people to be with him forever? Verse 35 says that Jesus’s words will live on even when the universe is no longer in existence. What does that tell you about Jesus? Does verse 35 make you want to know more of Jesus’s words, since his words will live on forever? If so, why? Would more studying of the Bible help? Matthew 24:36-44 No one knows when Jesus will return, so be ready When Jesus was speaking to them, did he know when the Second Coming will occur? Jesus said he did not know. As the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God knows everything the First Person of the Trinity knows (see, for example, Matt. 11:27, and also John 3:35). But as a human person, Jesus apparently did not know this in his human knowledge, unless he is exaggerating to emphasis the importance of not focusing on timetables but instead on always being ready. Given that Jesus says that neither he nor the angels know when the Son of Man will come, what do you think you should focus on? In verses 37-39, Jesus gives an illustration from Noah’s time to explain the attitude we should have toward the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus is contrasting Noah’s attitude with the attitude of the people around Noah. What is the point of the story? In verses 40-42, Jesus gives some examples where one person is “taken” and one person is “left.” The Left Behind franchise has popularized the idea of the “rapture” as one possible interpretation of these words, but that interpretation reaches far beyond the text of what Jesus actually says. For an exploration of “rapture” theories, see The Rapture? It’s Not a Pre-Millennial Escape from Tribulation . How does verse 42 explain the point of verses 40-41? Throughout this chapter, Jesus has been speaking metaphorically, so verses 40-41 are probably also metaphorical rather than literal. (The statement applies very well to our own individual deaths.) Obviously, our eternal salvation is not dependent on whether we literally “stay awake” or fall asleep. What is the point Jesus is making? Does this teaching about the Second Coming of Jesus have any relevance in our lives other than if we happen to be alive when the Second Coming occurs? What does Jesus want us to take away from this for our everyday lives? The next analogy Jesus offers involves a homeowner (verses 43-44). What is the point? A homeowner doesn’t know when a thief might be coming. What does that mean a homeowner must do in order to be safe? In verse 44, Jesus tells us to be “ready” (NRSV) or “prepared” (NABRE) for his return, even though we don’t know when he is coming. How can we be ready? How might it be useful to consider these questions in terms of our own death? No one knows when they will die but we all will die someday. What does it look like to live a life that is always ready for the day when we will meet our Maker? What would you do differently if you lived your life with a greater focus on being ready for the day you will meet God face to face? Take a step back and consider this: This passage challenges us – not to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the signs of the Second Coming, but to live a life that is ready for the day when he comes (perhaps in the Second Coming but more likely when we die). My Bible Study group explored the idea that we can get ready for God by living the life now that he has called us to live. This led us to ask: What are the signs that you are living the life God has called you to live? One member pointed out that sometimes she knows God wants her to take a new step to become more like him, because it keeps nagging her. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us to live is that we are talking with God about the ways he wants to change us and allowing him to make us more like himself. Another member described a time when she had to stop trying to make things go her way and just accept that she was called to a season of serving others. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us to live is that we are accepting those times of serving as Jesus would, rather than fighting it. Another member talked about how important it is to keep growing spiritually, and not think we are done growing. One of the signs that we are living the life Jesus calls us live is that we are looking for the next small way that God wants to help us be more like him. What are the signs that you are living the life God has called you to live? What do you need to do to get ready? It is a blessing that we can leave to God the timing of the Second Coming and don’t have to try to figure out obscure signs. We can focus on the interior signs that indicate we are ready for Jesus right now, and not be distracted by a focus on exterior signs of some future event. Matthew has been very clear about what Jesus is telling us to do right now, in the present. Here are some examples: Be pure in spirit and pure of heart; be peacemakers; don’t respond to others with anger, but love even your enemies; love God with your whole heart; love your neighbor as much as you love yourself; and, in the next chapter, use the talents God has given you to serve him, not to serve yourself; feed the hungry; welcome the stranger; take care of the sick; etc. Those are the concerns Jesus asks us to keep our eyes on, not an obscure timetable for his return. What is one thing you can do in the next week to keep your focus more on what Jesus is calling you to do right now, while you wait for his return? Bibliography See Matthew - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/matthew/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous Matthew List Next

Jesus tells us we need to be born again/from above in order to enter his kingdom. What does this mean, and what might our life look like if we are born from above? Previous Next John List John 3:1-15 Jesus tells us we need to be born again/from above in order to enter his kingdom. What does this mean, and what might our life look like if we are born from above? John La Farge. Visit of Nicodemus to Christ . 1880. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Public domain, via Smithsonian American Art Museum, https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/visit-nicodemus-christ-14202 . Tom Faletti November 23, 2025 Read John 3:1-15 Jesus talks with Nicodemus about being born again from above It would be helpful to read this passage in the light of the final verses of the previous chapter. Some people came to believe in Jesus because of the signs he was doing in Jerusalem, but Jesus did not trust their newfound faith, which may have been a shallow response to his miracles rather than being a deep-seated change of heart. One of the Jewish leaders now comes to Jesus. He has not rejected Jesus the way other Jewish leaders have, but he also has not jumped to faith based on Jesus’s signs. He has questions. Nicodemus is described in 2 different ways in verse 1 and in a third way in verse 10. What are told about Nicodemus? Verse 1 tells us that Nicodemus is (1) a Pharisee and (2) a “ruler” (in most translations) or “leader” (NRSV) of the Jews. Verse 10 tells us he is a teacher. A “ruler” probably means a member of the Sanhedrin, the 71-member Jewish council that enforced Jewish religious law and also had political power under the Roman authorities. The Sanhedrin included the chief priests and the elders of Jerusalem’s leading families, and its members included both Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees were committed to a zealous adherence to the entire Jewish law and the interpretations of it that had developed over the centuries. The Sadducees believed only what was stated in the Torah (the first 5 books of our Old Testament) and took a less rigorous approach to religious practices. Why do you think Nicodemus comes to see Jesus? Is he like the “come and see” disciples who check out Jesus in chapter 1? In verse 2, John tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. On a practical level, why might he have come at night? And what symbolism might be suggested in the image of Nicodemus coming at night? He may be afraid to be found out by those who oppose Jesus. Symbolically, he is in spiritual darkness and has not yet received the light of Christ. This fits with something Jesus will say later in the chapter when he contrasts those who come into the light from those who don’t (John 3:19-21). In verse 2, how does Nicodemus describe Jesus? In verse 3, Jesus shifts the conversation. What does he say? John here tells another story where someone misunderstands Jesus. The misunderstanding begins with the Greek word that follows the word “born.” That word can mean “from above” or “again.” Which way does your translation of the Bible translate that word? The NRSV and the NABRE choose the translation “from above.” Most other translations follow the King James Bible in using “again,” although some translations say “anew.” Some of our modern translations say “born again,” and some say “born from above.” What does Nicodemus think Jesus is saying, and what does Jesus actually mean? After Nicodemus shows that he doesn’t understand, Jesus tries again. Jesus provides a little more explanation in verse 5. What does he say? He says we must be born of water and spirit (or Spirit – the Greeks at that time did not have separate letters for lower case and upper case, so we must make our best interpretation). There is significant disagreement across the various Christian traditions as to how to interpret this verse. The Catholic Church sees here a clear reference to the sacrament of Baptism, where people are born of water and the Spirit in a single event: one baptism that involves both a physical washing by water and a reception of the Holy Spirit. This understanding extends back to the early church. Justin Martyr, writing around AD 155-157, cited John 3:3-4 in explaining the Church’s baptismal practices ( Justin , par. 61). The Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches also have historical positions that are compatible with a sacramental view of this verse. Many evangelicals reject the idea that this verse is referring to sacramental baptism and believe that these words refer to the cleansing and spiritual regeneration that occurs when a person makes a profession of faith. They point to other passages of Scripture such as Romans 10:9 for their understanding of spiritual regeneration. A minority position is that the baptism of water is a reference to our natural birth at the beginning of our lives, but it would have been trite for Jesus to say that a condition of entering the kingdom of God is that you must have been born physically. The fact that Jesus identified water and spirit suggests that he was thinking of something more when he referred to water. Moreover, the Greek phrasing suggests that “water and spirit” are not separate but go together, because in the Greek there is no “the” before “spirit”: the phrase is “water and spirit.” Ezekiel 36:25–27 talks about water and spirit in a way that supports the idea that there is a spiritual transformation that involves both water and spirit in one action of God. What does it mean to you to be “born again”? What does it mean to you to be born of water and the Spirit? In Nicodemus’s mind, to become a child of God, you must be born of a Jewish mother. Jesus is redefining what it means to be a child of God. In verse 7, the first “you” is singular – talking to Nicodemus – but the second “you” is plural: “ You all must be born again/from above.” Jesus is not just saying that Nicodemus must be born again/from above, he is saying this to everyone. Regardless of whether you interpret this passage sacramentally or as referring to a spiritual regeneration that comes with a profession of faith, it needs to be lived out on an ongoing basis. What does a life that is born again or born from above look like? Jesus refers to “the kingdom of God” in both verse 3 and in verse 5. This is the only place that phrase appears in the Gospel of John. It appears more regularly in the Synoptic Gospels. In verse 3, Jesus says we need to be born again or from above to “see the kingdom of God,” and in verse 5, he says we need to do this to “enter the kingdom of God.” So being born again or from above is the process or step that allows us to see or enter the kingdom of God. What do you think Jesus means by “the kingdom of God”? What do you think it means to see or enter the kingdom of God? Jesus makes a pun in verse 8 that is not obvious to us in English. In both Hebrew and Greek, there is one word that means both “wind” and “spirit” (John uses the Greek word pneuma ). Jesus says the pneuma blows and you hear it, referring to wind. And he says we are born of the pneuma , by which he means the Spirit. Jesus says that we don’t know where the wind comes from or goes, but we are able to perceive that it is there; and he says that people who are born of the Spirit have a similar experience. How are they similar? We can’t see the Holy Spirit, but we see the effects of the Spirit. In what ways do you perceive the presence of the Holy Spirit even though you cannot see him? Nicodemus still does not understand what Jesus is saying, and Jesus chides him in verse 10 for not understanding even though he is a teacher. Nicodemus then disappears from the story, though he will return later (John 7:50) and will eventually do a courageous good deed (John 19:39). The “we” in verse 11 may refer to Jesus and John the Baptist, though it also could be the author’s view of the contrast between the Christian community and the Jews around it. The second “you” in verse 11 and all the instances of “you” in verse 12 are plural. Jesus is now speaking not just to Nicodemus but to anyone who has not put their faith in him. In verse 13, what does Jesus say about the Son of Man? He descended from heaven and will ascend to heaven. This description of the Son of Man makes it more clear than in the Synoptic Gospels that the “Son of Man” is a heavenly person, not just a human. How important to you is it that Jesus came down from heaven and returned to heaven, and why? Verses 14-15 refer to an incident from the Old Testament involving Moses. John has already suggested that Jesus is greater than Moses (1:17). Let’s see what he is talking about here. Read Numbers 21:4-9 . Why do you think Moses hangs the bronze serpent on a pole? This allows him to lift it up for people to see, even from a distance. Look at John 3:14. John does not explain here what “lifted up” means (he will make it clearer later in his Gospel), but we know what it means, as did John’s readers. What does Jesus mean when he says that he will be lifted up? Jesus will be lifted up on the cross in his Crucifixion. He will also be lifted up from the grave in his Resurrection and lifted into heaven at his Ascension. The bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert gave life to people who otherwise would have died of a snake bite. According to John 3:15, what does Jesus being lifted up do? Ironically, the bronze serpent eventually became an idol and King Hezekiah ultimately destroyed it in 2 Kings 18:4. Satan appeared as a snake in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. Genesis 3:15 says that the snake will continue to strike at the heel of Eve’s offspring. In Numbers, snakes were biting the Israelites in the desert. If we interpret the story in Numbers as an allegory, the snakes that were biting the people might represent Satan, and the bronze serpent that was lifted up represents Jesus. How does Jesus’s action of being lifted up protect us from the deadly attacks of Satan? How is Jesus in chapter 3 calling us to a deep-seated change and not just to a single moment of faith? Take a step back and consider this: Although churches that believe in sacramental Baptism see it as a one-time event, and churches that focus on a profession of faith only expect you to make that profession once, they all agree that faith is about more than a single moment. Faith is an ongoing process of conforming yourself more and more fully to the person of Jesus. How can you live your life in a way that more fully reflects your status as a person who has been born again, born from above, born of water and the Spirit? Bibliography See John - Bibliography at https://www.faithexplored.com/john/bibliography . Copyright © 2025, Tom Faletti (Faith Explored, www.faithexplored.com ). This material may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration, for nonprofit use, provided such reproductions are not sold and include this copyright notice or a similar acknowledgement that includes a reference to Faith Explored and www.faithexplored.com. See www.faithexplored.com for more materials like this. Previous John List Next