Daily reflections

Matthew 10 contains Jesus’ operational instructions for his disciples in their mission to their fellow-Jews. Their message is to be that ‘The Kingdom of heaven is near!’ (verse 7).

There’s something quite wistful or plaintive about John the Baptist’s message to Jesus. He is in gaol, having offended the powerful Herod Antipas. John the Baptist is an authoritative, charismatic figure, like Elijah, but...

There are indications in the Gospels that Jesus’ family were worried about and even hostile towards his ministry. Perhaps they have come to him on this occasion to try to talk him out of his mission. His words about family...

This is another parable about the Kingdom of Heaven. The world is a very mixed bag: there’s good and evil, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Good people don’t get what they deserve, and neither do bad people – it all...

Everyone knows about the five loaves and two fish that miraculously became enough to feed a whole crowd. With slight variations, the story appears in all four Gospels. Like many others, it has Old Testament roots: Elisha does...

The Pharisees were devoted to serving God through keeping his law. We should be careful about saying they believed they could ‘earn their way to heaven’ – it wasn’t really like that – but keeping the rules could...

Until now in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been doing well against the opposition he faced. Now, the forces of darkness are beginning to gather against him, and he starts to prepare his disciples for what lies ahead. They...

After having spent some time with Jesus, the disciples must have thought they had a pretty good idea of what he was about, until at the drop of a hat he began to talk about suffering and dying. Peter voiced what everyone else...

Matthew 18 contains some hard Jesus sayings: on pride, temptation and the wages of sin. And yet, read these passages closely and there’s always an underlying vision of deliverance.