Week 2

Monday, January 6

Matthew 5:21-48

Commentary

Yesterday, we saw Jesus declare he came to fulfill the law, not do away with it. In our reading today, Jesus both interprets and expands the OT law – something only God himself could do. Jesus teaches that obedience is a matter of our hearts, not just our actions. Feeling tempted is itself not on sin, but dwelling on or fantasizing about that temptation is sinful.

Jesus teaches that not only is murder wrong, but also bitterness, looking down on others, and hatred. We cannot be at peace with God unless we have also at least attempted to make peace with those who we have sinned against. Adultery is a horrible thing, but it is the external expression of internal lustful desires. We should run from lustful thoughts and any temptations to them. Jesus takes divorce very seriously because marriage is a picture of his own love for us (see Eph. 5). Believers should not “swear by anything” because God’s should be so honest that we never have to qualify that we really do mean what we say. Vengeance and justice ultimately belong to God, we should show others the same mercy he shows us.

When we become believers, Jesus sets us free from the law in the sense that God credits Jesus’ perfect obedience to us because he paid for our sin and disobedience on the cross. However, Jesus also sets us free to the law –become slaves to God rather than servants to sin. The Holy Spirit, who dwells inside us, helps us resist sin and please God.

This passage shows us that we are remarkably sin-prone creatures – even a look or thought can damn us to Hell! Thanks be to God for sending Jesus, not just to teach us the depth of our sin but to pay for the fullness of our sin by dying on the cross for us!

Application/Discussion

1. When you dwell on sinful thoughts, whether lust or bitterness or discontentment or anything else, do you ask for God’s forgiveness, or simply move on as if nothing happened?

2. Is there anything in your life that tempts you to sin regularly? If so, what steps will you take to obey God rather than give in to these temptations? Far better to live in godliness without a cell phone or that crass music than it would be to live in sin with these temptations!

Points of Prayer

1. Thank and praise God for Jesus’ perfect obedience on our behalf.

2. For God’s help in turning from sin removing sources of temptation in your life.

3. For God’s help in and loving obeying him more than any sin or worldly distraction.

Going Deeper

You can also learn more about what the Bible teaches on divorce from these articles:

·       https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-did-jesus-teach-about-divorce-and-remarriage/.

·       https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-metaphor-of-christ-and-the-church.

·       https://cbmw.org/journal/grounds-for-divorce-why-i-now-believe-there-are-more-than-two/.

Tuesday, January 7

Matthew 6:1-18

Commentary

Jesus warns against the self-exalting, attention seeking practices of Israel’s religious leaders. We should still give to the needy, pray, and yes, fast, but our purpose in doing so must be to serve and please God, not impress others or feed our egos. As Jesus taught earlier (5:20), even the best of human attempts to perfectly obey God are not sufficient for salvation. We need a perfect sacrifice on our behalf and perfect righteousness to be credited to us – and that is exactly what Jesus provides for us!

The Lord’s Prayer (or the Model Prayer or Disciples’ Prayer) is the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Notice that Jesus never says the exact words of the prayer are what we should pray. Rather, he says we should pray like the prayer he gives as an example. Jesus also says we should not repeat words or be long-winded to sound more spiritual – our prayers should be honest, worshipful conversation directed to God.

The Lord’s Prayer teaches that our prayers should Address God with respect, love, and worship, Worship God and express our desire for him to be honored everywhere, humbly Submit ourselves to God’s rule and will, ask God to provide our Needs, Confess any sin in your life, ask God to help you live in Holiness and be gracious and forgiving as God is, and ask for God’s help to overcome Temptation.

Important Words/Themes

Prayer is a vital part of the Christian life, but so too are giving and fasting. These spiritual disciplines, especially fasting, tend to be neglected or less discussed. In giving, we use God’s blessings to us to bless others and trust him for further provision. In fasting, we temporarily deprive ourselves of food to focus on God rather than ourselves and trust him to be our sustainer.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you have difficulty knowing what to say in prayer, or do your prayers feel a bit awkward or unstructured?

2. Are prayer, giving, and fasting regular parts of your life? Why or why not? How can you make these practices a more important part of your regular walk with God? 

Points of Prayer

1. Thank God for his provision and ask for help in further trusting in and relying on him.

2. Use the Lord’s Prayer as a model for your own prayer today.

Going Deeper

1. You learn more about the Lord’s Prayer and how to use it a model for your own prayer in this post on the Family Bible Reading blog: https://familybiblereading.blogspot.com/2025/01/praying-lords-prayer.html.

2. You can learn more about fasting and its place in the Christian life from this video by Donald Whitney and Southern Seminary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szq34U6tWIM.

Wednesday, January 8

Matthew 6:19-34

Commentary

Continuing on a similar note from our reading yesterday, Jesus emphasizes that God is the one who provides for and sustains us. Therefore, we shouldn’t just hoard our money, or time or skills or relationships, for our own means and plans. Nothing will ever be totally secure in this world – money can be stolen, bank accounts can be hacked, and economies are always rising and falling. Instead of trusting in our money, then, we should trust in God. God sustained Jesus in the wilderness without food for forty days (see Matt. 4), he can provide for you whether you have money or not!

Jesus goes further into God’s provision, noting that life is about more than our physical necessities. In other words, we shouldn’t live our lives as slaves to worry or the timeclock, but as servants of God. God provides even for the birds and plants, surely he will provide for us! We see God’s fatherly care and provision ultimately expressed on the cross. God cares so much about our needs that he sent his own Son to die as our sacrifice. God let his Son die in our place to provide our salvation, don’t think for a moment that he’ll forget about you or fail to provide for you.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, “The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

Discussion Questions

1. Do you see money as a resource to be stored away and protected, or as a blessing to serve your family, others, and God?

2. Do you struggle with anxious thoughts? How do you respond to them? Do you turn to God’s promises when these thoughts arise, or do you go to things other than God for relief?

Points of Prayer

1. Thank God for creating, providing for, and sustaining you and everything else.

2. Ask for God to help you view your money, time, relationships, and more as resources to be used for his glory.

3. Ask for God to help you trust him and turn to him any time you feel anxious or unsure.

Going Deeper

To learn more about how we use our resources for heavenly purposes rather than worldly purposes, see this article from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/articles/learning-money-management-from-jesus/.

To dive more into what the Bible teaches about anxiety, see this post on the Family Bible Reading blog: https://familybiblereading.blogspot.com/2025/01/what-god-says-about-anxiety-philippians.html.

Thursday, January 9

Matthew 7:1-29

Commentary

Jesus’ warnings about judgement in verses 1-6 are often misunderstood. Jesus teaches that we should be careful in how we judge others because we will be judged with the same strictness, by God. If we have truly received God’s mercy, we should in turn be merciful to others. However, we must still use wise judgement, so that, for example, we do not throw our pearls to the pigs (who tend to eat or dirty pretty much everything). Life involves using our judgement in matters ranging from whether to trust a stranger in a dark ally to deciding who we will marry. Further, we must use judgement so that we can know who to share the gospel with, encourage to turn away from their sin, who to trust with leading our churches, and so on. We should be both wise and merciful in how we judge people, never compromising the truth of God’s Word either on matters of God’s love for sinners or God’s condemnation of sin. Similarly, Jesus’ teaching on persistence in prayer is easily misinterpreted. We don’t pray to bully God into giving us what we want, we pray to draw closer to him and ask for his help. God may not always give us what we ask for, but he will give us what we need, and knowing this fatherly care should motivate us to bring our concerns to the Lord.

Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount with warnings and promises. He warns that we should be wary of judging others, that the way to eternal life is narrow and missed by most, that destruction will come to the evil and fruitless, that we should treat others as we would want to be treated, and that salvation does not come merely to those who claim to be on God’s side or to do things on his behalf. Jesus promises that God will provide our needs when we ask – if godless parents know to do this for their children, surely God knows how to do this for us! – and that if we build our lives on his Word, we will be secure. The Old Testament is full of commands to build one’s life upon God’s Word (see Psalm 1). By using similar language, Jesus is thus equating his words with God’s Word. How can he claim this? Because he is God the Son himself.

When Jesus finishes his sermon, the crowds listening were amazed because he taught as if he had authority, unlike the scribes, the teachers of the law. What does this mean? In what he said and how he said it, Jesus spoke with divine authority because he was the Son of God. Jesus interpreted and added to the law (ch.5), he condemned the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (ch.6), and he said people should build their lives upon his Word (ch.7). All these teachings, as well as Jesus’ actions in forgiving sin, performing miracles, and rising from the dead, point us to the reality of the Incarnation. As John said in the opening of his gospel, the Word who was with God in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us, all for our salvation and God’s glory.

Important Words/Themes

Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is reminiscent of the covenant blessings and curses at the end of Deuteronomy. If the Israelites obeyed God when they entered the Promised Land, they would be blessed, and if they disobeyed, the would be cursed. If we obey Jesus’ teachings, we will be blessed, but if we do not, we will be cursed.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you tend to judge others with more harshness or humility? Why should we be merciful in how we think about and interact with others?

2. Are you quicker to call out wrongs, or to minimize or not mention them to avoid conflict? Why is it important to take opportunities to encourage people to turn away from sin?

3. How do you treat others? When you are stressed or have been wronged, do you treat others with kindness and mercy? Do you receive criticism as well as you would like others to receive your criticism?

Friday, January 10

Matthew 8:1-34

Commentary

This chapter showcases Jesus’ divine power through his healing of many sick people. By healing these folks, Jesus did even more than heal their infirmity (which even doctors had little hope of doing), he also helped them become readmitted into Israel’s religious and social life. Many sicknesses, such as leprosy, would have made a person ritually unclean and thus unable to be part of regular society, and many sicknesses left people as destitute and disregarded beggars. In the law, impurity was contagious – a body would contaminate a ritually clean person, ritually unclean people would spread the uncleanness to anyone they touched, and so on. With Jesus, however, he doesn’t catch impurity through touch or proximity; he spreads purity and wholeness. What a powerful picture of Christ’s power over sin and sickness!

This chapter also shows us Jesus’ authority – he has authority over sickness, certainly, but also over our lives, nature, and demons. Jesus tells two would-be disciples that the call to follow him is a call to leave one’s home and family. Jesus rebukes a storm and stops it so completely that the water calms immediately. He casts out demons from two men who were deeply oppressed and fiercely hostile. Jesus did things that no mere man could do – being face to face with someone of such power would indeed be frightening!

Finally, this chapter shows us Jesus’ love. He cared for the helpless leper when nobody else would dare come near him. He cared for the centurion, who no Jew would’ve cared about, and his servant, who no Roman master would’ve cared about. He cared for the disciples when they were scared to death by the storm. His love and care are the same today as always – when we feel helpless, ignored, disliked, or afraid, we know we have Jesus as our heavenly mediator and that he has already experienced the ultimate scorn misery when he died on the cross on our behalf. He rose victorious over the grave and he will be victorious over everything in this world that brings us down.

Discussion Questions

1. Jesus met physical needs to point to people’s spiritual needs. How can you serve the people in your community while pointing them to Christ?

2. Who in your life seems alone and downtrodden? Perhaps you have a classmate who is a bullied, a coworker who doesn’t seem to have any friends, or a family member who doesn’t receive many phone calls. How can you reach out to them with God’s love this week?

Points of Prayer

1. Thank God for the healing and victory he will bring to all his people because of Christ’s redemptive work.

2. Ask God to help you love and submit to his authority over your life.

3. Thank God for his great love and ask for his help in loving others this week.

Going Deeper

While the centurion would have been looked down on by the Jews around him for being a Gentile and for working for their Roman oppressors, Jesus applauds his faith and says the centurion and other Gentiles with such faith will be around the table in Heaven (v11), many Israelites (“sons of the kingdom) will be in Hell (v12).

The man who wanted to bury his father almost certainly didn’t mean that his father’s funeral was that week. Usually, a funeral who happen within a day of someone’s passing. Instead, the man was likely referring to his obligation to be sure his father is cared for until his death. In other words, the man was offering to follow Jesus… after the indefinite amount of time between then and his father’s passing (likely to obtain his inheritance).

Saturday, January 11

Matthew 9:1-38

Commentary

            Like chapter 8, chapter 9 details many of Jesus’ healing miracles. Jesus first forgives the sins of a paralyzed man. Healing would be great, but as we’ve said before, physical healing without spiritual healing is only a band-aid on a patient sick with sin. However, to show that he indeed has the authority to forgive sins (something only God could do), he also heals the man (something else only God could do). Matthew and the tax collectors and sinners (aka, people publicly known as unrepentant sinners) show that they understand this lesson. Yes, they were sinners in need of a Savior, but they were aware enough of that to come and talk with Jesus. The religious leaders, on the other hand, were so self-righteous that not only would they never come to Jesus like that, they couldn’t understand why Jesus would talk to those dirty sinners in the first place. Only those who know their need for spiritual healing will receive it from God, the self-righteous will never see their need for the true righteousness that only comes from Christ. Jesus came to give God’s people his own righteousness (state of purity/sinlessness before God), because we can never be righteous by our own merits. Jesus came with something better than a law that could condemn but not save or a system of man-made rules and regulations, he brought something new and fresh and lasting – this is the point Jesus illustrates by the metaphor of new cloth and new wineskins.

Jesus is then approached by a ruler whose daughter had died and while on the way to help, he is interrupted by a woman with a bleeding disorder (a feminine problem). She had this issue for years, meaning not only years of misery but of constant uncleanness. She was a lonely and helpless person, with no way to enter a synagogue or the temple, no physical contact or even closeness to others (she shouldn’t have been in the crowd, let alone touch a rabbi!), and, as Mark details in his account, no relief even after spending all her money on doctors. She had such confidence that Jesus could help she believed only touching his clothes would’ve healed her, and she was right. As Jesus said, her faith had made her well – because she trusted fully in Jesus to help, he indeed helped her. Jesus then goes to the rulers house, breaks up the party of mourners, and raises the girl from the dead. Both of these miracles serve as metaphors for Christ’s redemptive work – he brings us purity, restoration to the community of God’s people, and new life.

Jesus next heals two blind men and a demon-possessed man, further showcasing his divine power. The chapter closes with a sort of summary statement – Jesus is going all over the place, preaching and healing, and tell his disciples to pray for more laborers for the harvest of lost souls. The need for more people to spread the gospel and show God’s love is greater today than ever, and God empowers his people for evangelism today just as he always has!

Discussion Questions

1. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Do you consider yourself a laborer in the harvest of lost souls? How does this impact your relationships and day-to-day life? How can you be more on mission for Christ this week?

Points of Prayer

1. Thank God for the new life, healing, and family he gives us through the work of Christ.

2. Pray for laborers to spread the gospel within your family and church, your country, and throughout the world.

3. Pray for three lost people you know personally by name and ask God to help you share the gospel with them.

Going Deeper

Tax collectors were hated by the Israelites because tax collectors worked directly for the Roman government and made their living by extorting people for money on top of the taxes they owed to Rome. A Jew who became a tax collector was a traitor to his kinsman on top of being an unscrupulous person for extorting extra money from people. Interesting, Jesus called Simon the Zealot (zealous for the overthrow of the Roman government) as well with the Roman IRS employee Matthew. Christ brings together people who may never be in the same room, let alone the same family!

Sunday, January 12

Matthew 10:1-25

Commentary

            Jesus commissions the 12 disciples for a bit of a preaching tour. Verse 1 tells us that all 12 disciples had already followed Christ at this point, so Matthew’s account doesn’t tell us how each one was called, but he does list all twelve by name here. Jesus tells them to go two by two throughout Israel to preach (notice it’s the same message as 3:2 and 4:17) and heal. Jesus commissions them with a word of caution – they should go out preaching and trust God for their provision (even of a safe place to stay each night!) and they should simply move on from the cities that reject them. This doesn’t mean that we should only share the gospel with a person or community exactly once and stop if they’re resistant – just see how persistent the church is in evangelism in Acts. Instead, as part of this special preaching tour that Jesus sent the disciples on, they were to spread the news of Jesus as far as they could throughout Israel. If one place wasn’t receptive, they had plenty more places to go. Further, the Israelites had already received the prophesies about the coming Savior and the need to turn to God; if they rejected the disciples now, they had swatted away God’s call for the “several-th” time.

            Jesus warns the disciples that they are on a dangerous mission and it will inevitably come with persecution. This particular mission trip of the disciples seems to have been uneventful in regards to imprisonments and the like, but when the Holy Spirit comes upon the believers at Pentecost and empowers them to start spreading the gospel like wildfire, the disciples find themselves in exactly the position Jesus describes in verses 16 to 23. Believers since Pentecost have had very similar experiences – throughout the history of the church, Christians have often spread the gospel amidst great hostility from individuals, cities, religious groups, or countries. Some places in the world have virtually never given peaceful lives to evangelists. Here’s the good news if we find ourselves persecuted for obeying Christ, though – he suffered first. If we are persecuted for obeying God, we are simply following in the footsteps of our big brother, Jesus, and we know that he suffered the ultimate persecution so that we would receive heaven for our faith in God rather than hell for our sins against him.

Discussion Questions

1. What are you doing with the gospel? Have you received it by faith and turned from your sins to Jesus? Judgement will be even greater for those who hear the gospel but reject it! Are you sharing the gospel with those around you? If not, why? Do you think God saved you and taught you the truth so that you could keep it to yourself, or are you afraid of sharing, or is the gospel not on the forefront of your mind enough?

Points of Prayer

1. Thank God for Christ’s sufferings on our behalf.

2. Ask for the Holy Spirit to help you be bold and persistent in sharing your faith.

Going Deeper

You can learn a bit more about the 12 disciples with this sermon from John MacArthur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Or8dBmkJTE.