Most of the homes are filled with ang pow, red packets with gifts of money; and oranges, which signify wealth. Talk of death is forbidden. Yet,

Why did Matthew tell us of the transfiguration? Why does he frame it as Jesus’ response to the depression his disciples fell into when they learned about the crucifixions in their own futures? Why does he tell us about Peter’s tent-construction proposal? Why was God so “political” in the way he addressed Jesus?

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Matthew 5:13-20. The English Standard Version supplies the heading “Salt and Light” to verses 13-16, and the heading “Christ Came to Fulfil the Law” to verses 17-20. Last week, I discussed the earlier verses in today’s chapter, the first words in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus …

Did Jesus really say some people are fit only to be trampled upon? Read More »

Why did Jesus begin with blessings? And why did he label as “blessings,” things which we surely don’t want?

In the first months of my discipleship, a man called Mr Purdie asked me why I chose to follow Jesus. I said I somehow …

Jesus joined sinners in solidarity. Not to commit sin together with them. But to reveal sin as the cause of so much trouble in our world, and to reveal and to act out God’s solution to it – a solution which required his death on the altar of a Roman cross in Jerusalem, the Holy City.

The words “fulfil all righteousness” ring in my ears. I wonder. Is the baptism of Jesus more than a commissioning, more than a shot fired to say the race has begun? I wonder if it’s an enactment of

The more I read the Gospels, the more I believe that I – and most Christians I know – fail to read them correctly.