Daily reflections

In today’s passage Matthew places a brief, seemingly innocuous, scene between the weighty topics of marriage and money. The peaceful image of Jesus’ hands resting on the heads of children seems strangely out of place. Yet...

Three successive passages in Matthew 20, expose the human desire to be important and respected. Hard-working people moan about the boss’s favouritism towards part-timers. Angry young men’s daydreams of booting out the...

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah had spoken of a day when the Messiah would arrive, not on a warhorse but a donkey. The people who cheered for Jesus as he entered Jerusalem had spent their entire lives under Roman rule...

Two medieval monks agreed that whoever died and went to heaven first would tell the other if it was how they’d imagined it, by uttering one word: either ‘taliter’ (it’s as we thought) or ‘aliter’ (it’s different...

In Jesus’ day, different groups of people responded to Roman occupation in different ways. The upper class clergy, the Sadducees, sought appeasement and the Essenes withdrew into monastic life, whereas the Zealots plotted...

This chapter of Matthew is part of the ‘Little Apocalypse’, a block of teaching that focuses on the ‘end times’. It’s in a style of writing – ‘apocalyptic’ – that’s like Revelation or parts of Daniel. We...

The ‘parable of the talents’ – a talent can be translated as ‘1,000 gold coins’ – fits here with the idea that Christ will come to judge what we’ve done with what we’ve been given, and it’s an uncomfortable...

After the ‘Little Apocalypse’ of chapters 24 and 25, Matthew’s story rushes headlong into the final days of Jesus’ life. There’s a succession of incidents and encounters, each of which we could dwell on slowly and...

After his betrayal, Jesus is 'tried' by the chief priests and elders, who are determined that he should die. As they don't have the authority to execute him, they need the permission of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.