Old Testament priests officially “declared” a person pure or impure. For example, lepers were declared impure. Priests would banish impure persons like lepers, establishing borders to keep them out, “He shall dwell apart.” Integrated relationships were destroyed. The Gospel’s Jesus of Nazareth gathers together people who are declared impure. More so, he specifically heals…
“Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unhealthy spirit… Jesus rebuked him and said, ‘Come out of him!’ The unhealthy spirit… came out of him. All were…
Jesus tells a parable of a debtor who receives a loan he cannot repay, “the lender… let him go and forgave him the loan.” “When that debtor had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back…
“Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” Jesus understands the killer ethics of the dictator class. They will kill him and will command subordinate soldier/slaves to do the deed. An extremely small number of…
Isaiah writes, “(I)f you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness.” So too Jesus speaks of bestowing Beatitudes or Blessings and then telling us, “You are the light of the world.” “Just so, your light must shine before others.” “Give your light…
The Old Testament, “Lord,” Yahweh, wears a MAGA hat: Make Atonement Great Again. Atonement asserts reparations or payments be made from the common people to “the Lord.” But by way of the earthly ‘Lords’ who took money from common people they judged as “depraved” and deserving of “the Lord’s wrath.” For that atonement price,…