Matthew 5

November 20, 2007 – 10:24 am
Pastor Karen asked me (John G) to create a new post based on my most challenging bible story. Many passages are challenging to interpret or to apply, but it took me a while to choose one that also seemed central to the bible's overall message. I chose Matthew 5:38 - 6:4, which is in the middle of a collection of bold and direct statements from Jesus to his disciples. The collection starts at Matthew 5:1 with the beatitudes: Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . ." [NIV] And the collection ends at the end of Matthew 7: "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock . ...

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The Prodigal Son

September 29, 2007 – 7:24 am
Luke 15:11-32 Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout the country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my ...

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