Daily Bread Pastor Mike Anderson

The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times 24  Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.   2  “Do you see all these things?”  he asked.  “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another;  every one will be thrown down.” 3  As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives,  the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming  and of the end of the age?” 4  Jesus answered:  “Watch out that no one deceives you.   5  For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.   7  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines  and earthquakes in various places.   8  All these are the beginning of birth pains. The

A Warning Against Hypocrisy 23  Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:   2  “The teachers of the law  and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.   3  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.   4  They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  5  “Everything they do is done for people to see:  They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments  long;   6  they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;   7  they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others. The animosity between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders is growing.  Not only are the leaders getting jealous and paranoid about the following that Jesus is getting, but today Jesus calls them on the carpet. He calls the Pharisees and

Matthew 22 - The Parable of the Wedding Banquet The kingdom heaven is like  a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.   3  He sent his servants  to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.  4  “Then he sent some more servants  and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’  5  “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.   6  The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.   7  The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers  and burned their city.  8  “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.   9  So go to the street corners  and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’   10  So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could

Matthew 21  Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting "Hosanna in the highest", they were indignant. "Do you hear what these children are saying?", they asked him. Jesus replied, "Have you never read, from the lips of infants and children you Lord have called forth your praise." And he left them and went out to Bethany and spent the night.  Dramatically Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a "war horse".  The donkey was the symbol of humility and a "beast of burden".  But lest the peop

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard 20  “For the kingdom of heaven is like  a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.   2  He agreed to pay them a denarius [ a ]  for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3  “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.   4  He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’   5  So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.   6  About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7  “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8  “When evening came,  the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going o

Matthew 19 Then Jesus said to his disciples,  “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich  to enter the kingdom of heaven.   24  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  25  When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”  26  Jesus looked at them and said,  “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This is one of those passages that can be greatly misunderstood if not interpreted correctly.  Some have gone to great lengths to try and figure out how a camel could possibly go through the eye of a needle.  Jesus often uses "hyperbole" when he teaches, and he is doing this in this passage.  He message is that as it is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, so it is impossible for a "rich" man to enter heaven.  The key interpretive question becomes what does Jesus mean

Resolving Conflict in the Church - Matthew 18 15  “If your brother or sister [ b ]  sins, [ c ]  go and point out their fault,  just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16  But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ [ d ] 17  If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church;  and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 18  “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be [ e ]  bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be [ f ]  loosed in heaven. 19  “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them  by my Father in heaven.   20  For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them .” No one enjoys dealing with conflict.  People either avoid conflict, or often handle it badly.  Some people e

The Transfiguration 17  After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John  the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.   2  There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.   3  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4  Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!”  6  When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.   7  But Jesus came and touched them.  “Get up,”  he said.  “Don’t be afraid.”   8  When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.  9  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them,  “Don’t tell anyone  what you have seen, unt

Jesus Predicts His Death 21  From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem  and suffer many things  at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law,  and that he must be killed  and on the third day  be raised to life.  22  Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”  23  Jesus turned and said to Peter,  “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”  24  Then Jesus said to his disciples,  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.   25  For whoever wants to save their life [ f ]  will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.   26  What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?   27  For the Son of Man  is going to come  i

The Faith of a Canaanite Woman 21  Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22  A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David,  have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”  23  Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”  24  He answered,  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”  25  The woman came and knelt before him.  “Lord, help me!” she said.  26  He replied,  “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  27  “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  28  Then Jesus said to her,  “Woman, you have great faith!  Your request is granted.”  And her daughter was healed at that moment. Today Jesus is met by a Caananite woman.  The Canaanites were Gentiles who were known for worshipping many other gods.  I counted over 2