Something isn’t right in these three parables of Jesus. Can you spot it? Each parable has something (or someone) that is lost and then found. Each of the three main characters rejoice in what they find…

Tensions were growing in these towns and villages as the early Jewish Christians continued to carry out their daily work, Sabbath observance, and participate in synagogue worship. The synagogue was at the heart of Jewish life in these towns, and the possibility of being expelled from the center of cultural life and experiencing very public rejection by friends and family would have rested heavy…

Jesus’ brilliant parable is only two verses long, yet it can stand alone as a work of literary art. But when we see it in the frame Luke alone provides, it leaps to another quantum level. His story provides a place for all of them: the woman as the great debtor, and Simon as the one who owed less…

Notice the “earthiness” of Luke’s version. Go back and read it again. The man digs down deep. Can you hear the shovel tearing open the soil? The heavy thud as stones are set in place and the foundation takes form?…

Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount quotes and alludes to Jewish Scripture at an alarming rate. We’ve barely finished ruminating on one saying (“you have heard it said…but I say to you…”) before another begins. Jesus spoke and taught as a Jewish man, so it is no surprise..