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Matthew

In Bible Study, Blog, Matthew on
October 18, 2021

Judge Not

We live in a society where judgment is not tolerated. When a person makes certain choices or decisions in their life, they expect everyone to accept and affirm them. But if anyone pushes back or questions the decision, they act as if their identity and personhood is being denied, and they label their questioner as a hateful bigot. And this reaction is amplified if the person who pushes back is a Christian.

The Bible calls Christians to be kind and compassionate (Ephesians 4:32), to love their neighbors (Matthew 22:39), even if their neighbor is their enemy (Matthew 5:44). Because of this, many people, including many believers, think that Christians should not disagree with anyone publicly. Somehow, this is seen as being “unloving,” and if you do try to disagree with someone’s choices or actions, someone is sure to throw the common Bible verse at you: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1, ESV) However, this Bible verse is very often misused, especially in the situation described above. To find out the true meaning of this verse, we must look at it in context.

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In Bible Study, Blog, Matthew on
March 8, 2021

Salt & Light

How are Christians to interact with the culture they live in? If you’ve attended church for any length of time, you’ve likely heard that we are to “be in the world, not of it.” But what exactly does this mean? What does “being in the world but not of the world” look like? Well, Jesus makes it clear in His famous Sermon on the Mount.

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In Bible Study, Blog, Matthew on
January 11, 2021

Hear and Understand

When we are trying to teach a lesson, we often use stories to help those who are listening to us understand it. We tell children the story of The Tortoise and the Hare to teach them to never give up. We tell them the story of The Ants and the Grasshopper to teach them the importance of hard work. Or perhaps we share with them the story of The Lion and the Mouse to teach them to be kind to everyone they meet.[1] But we don’t just use stories to teach children. Pastors use illustrations in their sermons. Professors insert stories into their lectures. And motivational speakers share the tales of their own personal successes.

Jesus also used stories when teaching people during His ministry, which are usually labeled as parables. One of my favorite parables of Jesus is His Parable of the Sower.

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In Blog, Christmas, Matthew on
December 21, 2020

The Family of Christ

Two years ago, I got an Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas. It wasn’t something I had asked for, but I’d seen the Ancestry DNA commercials and was interested in it. I’ve always been intrigued by genealogy and genetics. I’ve wanted to learn about my family tree, who my ancestors were, and where they were from for a long time, but I had never had the time nor the resources to research it. After filling a little vial with my saliva and sending it back to the lab, I discovered that I am 53% English/Northwestern European. It turns out I’m also 16% Irish, 16% Scottish, 8% Swedish, and 7% Welsh. While I still have a lot to learn about my family tree, these results gave me a small glimpse of who I am and where I’m from.

There are lots of family trees or genealogies written in the Bible, but we often skip past them, believing these lists of names to be kind of boring and not that important to the story line. But whenever we come across a genealogy in our Bible reading, we should slow down, pay attention, and read carefully because these family trees teach us a lot more than we think they do. One of the most important genealogies in Scripture is Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1, and while it may seem like just another list of names, it actually contains a deeper meaning about who Jesus is.

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