Tag Archives: Bible Study

Jesus heals on request (Matthew 8: 1-4)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus comes down the hill and a man with dreaded skin disease kneels before him and asks him to heal him. Jesus touches and heals him. He tells the man not to tell anyone, but to visit the priest to prove the cure and offer the sacrifice Moses ordered.

My Thoughts:

Follow the rules: Jesus had just told the crowd during the Sermon on the Mount not to draw attention to themselves, so he repeats this to the man by asking him not to tell anyone he had healed him. Instead, he tells the man to follow the rules of Moses and visit the priest to prove he is clean so he can become a member of the community again.

Even though Jesus could do great miracles, he still followed the laws. You can make dramatic change by “showing” others instead of “telling” them what to do.

Build your life solid like rock (Matthew 7: 24-29)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus tells the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount that anyone who hears and obeys his words is like a wise man who builds his house on a rock instead of sand. The rain pours, rivers flood, and wind blows hard against the house on the rock, but it does not fall. Jesus finishes the sermon and everyone is amazed at how he taught with authority, not like the teachers of Law.

My Thoughts:

Solid Foundation: Like a house, every life needs a solid foundation. Jesus provides that foundation in the Sermon on the Mount:

  • The Beatitudes
  • Be a good role model for all to see
  • Obey the Ten Commandments
  • Anger is a bad as murder
  • Marriage is sacred and adultery starts with a look at another woman
  • Keep your promises
  • Love your enemy instead of seeking revenge
  • Do charity anonymously
  • The Lord’s Prayer
  • Do not show off
  • Focus on riches in heaven instead of on earth
  • Live for today; life is too short to worry
  • Do not judge others before yourself
  • Ask and receive, seek and find, knock and the door will open
  • Make good choices even though they are very difficult
  • Be cautious about false prophets who may swindle your money

Be on guard for false prophets (Matthew 7: 15-23)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus tells the crowd during the Sermon on the Mount to be on guard for false prophets who look like sheep, but are wolves on the inside. You will know them by what they do. Healthy trees grow good fruit, but poor trees make bad fruit, so they are cut down and thrown into the fire. Only those who do what God wants will enter the Kingdom of heaven. When Judgment Day comes, many will say they spoke God’s message and performed miracles, but Jesus will say “I never knew you wicked people.”

My Thoughts:

False Prophets: Jesus warns us about false prophets, charlatans interested in swindling money and other valuables from you. They are very slick individuals that could sell you land on the moon. No, you cannot buy land on the moon – at least not yet. Today, some evangelists live in multi-million dollar homes paid for from heavily “encouraged” tithing by their church members. Jesus said we would know false prophets by what they do and he repeatedly spoke against accumulating wealth, so you decide.

God’s list of do nots (Leviticus 19)

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Bible Summary:

God tells Moses to have people be holy, respect their mothers, fathers, and older people, and the Sabbath. He then gives them a list of nots:

  • Do not abandon God and worship idols.
  • During harvest, do not cut the grain at the edge of the field nor go back to cut the heads of grain that were left.
  • Do not go back through your vineyard to gather missed grapes; leave them for the poor.
  • Do not lie, cheat, or steal.
  • Do not make a promise in God’s name, if you do not intend to keep it.
  • Do not take advantage of anyone or rob him.
  • Do not hold back wages of someone you hired, not even for one night.
  • Do not curse a deaf man or put something in front of a blind man to make him stumble.
  • Do not show favoritism to the poor or fear the rich in legal cases.
  • Do not spread lies about anyone, and when someone is on trial for his life, speak out if your testimony can help him.
  • Do not hold a grudge against anyone, settle your differences so you will not commit a sin because of him, but love your neighbor as you love yourself.
  • Do not crossbreed domestic animals.
  • Do not plant two kinds of seeds in the same field.
  • Do not wear clothes made of two kinds of material.
  • Do not eat the fruit from a newly planted tree for the first three years, offer all the fruit to God in the fourth year, and then eat the fruit every year after.
  • Do not eat meat with blood still in it or after the second day after the offering.
  • Do not practice any kind of magic.
  • Do not cut the hair on the sides of your head, trim your beard, tattoo yourself, or cut gashes in you body to mourn for the dead.
  • Do not disgrace your daughters by making them temple prostitutes.
  • Do not go for advice from people who consult the spirits of the dead.
  • Do not mistreat foreigners. Treat them as you would a fellow Israelite, and love them as you love yourselves.
  • Do not cheat anyone by using false measures of length, weight, or quantity.

My Thoughts:

Is genetic experimentation bad?: I think Moses covered about everything in this list. The command to not cross-breed animals or plants was surprising. We have been cross breeding since Gregor Mendel created hybrid pea starting in 1856 (learn more about Gregor Mendel at Wikipedia).  But, it puts into question how far genetic experimentation should go? In the future you might choose your child’s looks – gender, eye color, hair, and build. Sure sounds like Hitler’s master race. I think God was cautioning against messing with nature and interestingly, coming from the Bible, natural selection.

Positive repackaging by Jesus: The “love your neighbor as you love yourself” in Leviticus was surprising. It sure sounds like Jesus, just without all the “nots”. Maybe he just repackaged the best ideas of the Old Testament with a positive spin? If so, good for us.

Jesus points us towards the narrow gate (Matthew 7: 13-14)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus says the gate to hell is wide, the road is easy, and many follow it there. The gate to life is narrow, the way hard, and few find it.

My Thoughts:

Choices: Every day greets us with choices. I was going to say many are easy to make, like what to eat or what to wear, and then talk about the hard ones, but even these “easy” choices are difficult. You can choose to eat high-caloric items that will add pounds or wear that revealing outfit – or not. Every choice you make, from the mundane every-day ones made out of habit to the earth-shattering ones that can dramatically change your life, is a point where you should stop and rethink what God would want you to do if He were standing beside you. It is a narrow and hard way, but the results will amaze you.

God forbids certain sexual practices (Leviticus 18)

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Bible Summary:

God told Moses to tell the people of Israel to follow His rules and commandments, including not having sexual intercourse with:

  • Any of your relatives – mother, sister, step-sister, half-sister, aunt, grand-daughter, daughter-in-law, or sister-in-law,
  • With your wife’s sister as long as your wife is living,
  • With a woman during her period,
  • With another man’s wife,
  • With an animal, and
  • No man is to have sexual relations with another man.

My Thoughts:

This Law of Moses is clear that incest, adultery, bestiality and homosexuality are forbidden by God.

Ask and you will receive (Matthew 7: 7-12)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus says, “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.” Just like you give good things to your children, God gives good things to those who ask. He also says the Law of Moses means to do for others what you would want them to do for you.

My Thoughts:

Action: Everything you want in life requires action – ask, seek, open, etc. If you want to make things better, step up and take action. Take a chance, you will be pleasantly surprised what happens.

Good for good: I believe Jesus put a different spin on Moses’ “eye-for-an-eye” law in this passage changing it to “good for good”. If you do good for others, you will receive good.

Life of every living thing is in blood (Leviticus 17)

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Bible Summary:

God commands Moses to have the people of Israel only kill offering animals at the entrance to the Tent of God’s presence or they will no longer be considered one of His people. At all other times, they must only eat meat without blood still in it. “The life of every living thing is in the blood.”

My Thoughts:

Interconnectedness: “The life of every living thing is in the blood” touches on the idea that all things are interconnected, like when we eat vegetables and the living plant material becomes part of our body and blood. After animals die, their bodies decay into dirt, which is blown around by wind or carried for miles by water in rivers and streams. This dirt becomes part of the soil that grows the food we and farm animals eat, so a part of every living thing is in side of us.

Jesus says to judge not (Matthew 7: 1-6)

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Bible Summary:

Jesus says not to judge others or God will judge you the same way. He asks why you point out the speck in your brother’s eye and miss the log in your own. “You hypocrite!” He further says not give what is holy to dogs, they will only turn on you, and not to throw pearls to pigs, they will only trample them.

My Thoughts:

Parables: Not judging others is a pretty clear message from Jesus, but many others are less direct and in parable form, like the part about the dogs and pigs. This could mean many things, like if you try to speak the word of God to people who do not believe, they will only attack you and speak against your pearls of wisdom.

Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16)

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Bible Summary:

After Aaron’s sons die from offering unholy fire, God tells Moses how Aaron is to purify the people of Israel from their sins once each year. Aaron must take a bath, put on his priestly outfit, and bring two goats provided by the community for the offerings. He is also to sacrifice a bull for his family’s sins.

Aaron is to randomly choose between two labeled stones to decide which goat to sacrifice to God and which to send out to the desert to take away the people’s sins, ritually transferred to the “scapegoat”, with it.

My Thoughts:

Yom Kippur: This Day of Atonement is also known as Yom Kippur, the holiest day celebrated by the Jews each year. Learn more about Yom Kippur at Wikipedia.

Scapegoat: It is amazing how many phrases and ideas like “scapegoat” originated from the Bible. Scapegoats are innocent people set up to take the blame for someone else’s misdeeds, just like the innocent goat was set up to take away the sins of the people of Israel.