Matthew 10:23 – “I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
What does ‘before the Son of Man comes’ mean?
Mistaken expectation? According to Mounce, Albert Schweitzer based his entire scheme of thoroughgoing eschatology on this verse. He held that Jesus thought that the mission of the Twelve would bring in the kingdom. He was disappointed when it did not turn out that way.…
A possible contradiction has been identified, in that in Mark Jesus exorcises a demoniac in the region near Gerasa; (Mk 5:1) in Matthew it occurs in Gadara. (Mt 8:28) However, the former is probably a city; the latter, a province (so Blomberg, DJG). If so, it’s rather like one person saying that something happened ‘near Norwich’, and another saying that it happened ‘in Norfolk’.
‘The problem of the city’s name is a classical one and goes back at least to Origen’s time.…
Matthew 5:21f “You have heard that it was said…But I say to you…”
Did Jesus reject the moral teaching of the Old Testament?
William Barclay thinks that
‘Jesus quotes the Law, only to contradict it, and to substitute a teaching of his own. He claimed the right to point out the inadequacies of the most sacred writings in the world, and to correct them out of his own wisdom.’
More generally, Richard Rohr writes this:
…‘It is rather clear in Jesus’ usage that not all scriptures are created equal.
Matthew 2:9 After listening to the king they left, and once again the star they saw when it rose led them until it stopped above the place where the child was. 2:10 When they saw the star they shouted joyfully.
‘”Magi” (not “wise men”-KJV) were pagan astrologers whose divinatory skills were widely respected in the Greco-Roman world; astrology had become popular through the “science” of the East, and everyone agreed that the best astrologers lived in the East.…
Matthew 2:1f After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, in the time of King Herod, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, “Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Separating tradition from (biblical) text
Tradition says that the magi were three in number and that they were kings, but this is not indicated in the text. …
Isaiah 7:14 ‘Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel.’
Matthew 1:22 This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 1:23 “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”
The passage in Isaiah, and its quotation by Matthew, invite a raft of questions:
Colossians 1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son 1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Steve Chalke (The Lost Message of Paul, ch. 19) argues that, if Paul’s words in Colossians 1:19f mean anything, ‘all’ must mean ‘all’, and that the ‘reconciliation of all things’ must include all people, without exception.…
Matthew (Mt 8:5-12) and Luke (Lk 7:1-10) both have an account of a Roman centurion whose servant Jesus healed.
Matthew 8:5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help.
Luke 7:3 ‘When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.’
So, did the centurion personally ask Jesus for help, or did he send others to do this on his behalf?…
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, NIV).
These words constitute the go-to text for Christians who wish to assert that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. It is also the go-to text for those who feel that Christianity condemns itself as abhorrent and intolerant by reason of the very exclusiveness of this saying.
But does does the text actually mean what most of its friends (and, indeed, most of its enemies) think it means?…
Mark 15:34 ‘At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”‘
Six hours after he was nailed to his cross, the dying Jesus shouted out these awesome words.
The cry is also recorded in Matthew 27:46. Mark’s quotation from Psa 22:1 is in Aramaic; Matthew’s mainly in Hebrew.
The difficulty of this saying
According to Hard Sayings of the Bible,
…‘this is the hardest of all the hard sayings.
