Reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s Gospel), in this episode we arrive at Jesus’s “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke. Once again, Jesus opens with a series of “beatitudes” (blessings), that are difficult to interpret. What are we to make of Jesus’s declaration that the poor and hungry are “blessed”? (Poverty and...
Author: Kirk Winslow
God, Self & Other – Luke 14: Healing on the Sabbath??? (When Love Breaks the Law)
What does it look like – in practice – to love God? In this episode we look at 3 events (Luke 6:1-16) that bring into sharp relief the distinction between Jesus and his religious opponents (in this case, the often maligned Pharisees), particularly with regard to what it means to love God. Is love ultimately...
God, Self & Other – Luke 13: Dinner with a Tax Collector (Jesus Calls the Apostle Levi [Matthew])
Jesus scandalizes his religious contemporaries by accepting an invitation to dine with Levi, a known tax collector (one who purchased the right to ” collect” – read “overcharge” – the taxes of their fellow Jews). The occasion reveals a fundamental clash of values, in which Jesus declares that God has come to rescue the “righteous”...