“God is just” was the accent of last month’s lessons. “Jesus calls for justice and mercy” is the accent of this month’s lessons. Therefore our texts will come from the Gospels—two from Matthew and three from Luke. Matthew 18 is Jesus’ fourth discourse in the Gospel. The theme of the discourse is taken from the […]

Reaping is the language of harvest in the Bible, and therefore sometimes reaping is a metaphor for judgment (Hosea 8:7; Revelation 14:15, 16). The law of harvest is universally true. You reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7). But it is uniquely true when it comes to the use of our money for others. Generosity begets […]

Biblical justice is not just about what a culture thinks is legal or illegal. Biblical justice (conforming to God’s standard) encompasses good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, action and attitude, and external and internal—as defined by the Lord. In our text today, Jesus defended his disciples and taught what truly commends us to God and […]

Parables are true-to-life comparisons that break forth into fictional analogies that seem upside down to us and often deceive us into truth by opening up the government of God. This is a homemade definition of parables, with the exception of the phrase “deceiving into truth,” which can be attributed to Soren Kierkegaard. By fictional analogies […]

In Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis wrote about the law of fair play. It goes like this. “I gave you a bite of my orange; give me a bite of yours.” Or, “Don’t hit me; I didn’t hit you.” From where did such laws arise? They seem to be innate. It would seem that there […]