The Pharisees were known for strictly following religious laws, especially tithing, yet Jesus challenged them for focusing on outward rituals while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness. This reflection explores how legalism can distract from the deeper spiritual principles God truly desires from His people. ✝️

Read more: https://www.kithcartcodeofsilence.com/pharisees-and-tithing-law/

#Pharisees #BiblicalTruth #ChristianFaith #FaithAndJustice #SpiritualGrowth #BibleStudy

A Child Reads Heaven Into the Brickyards | John 3:16

In a place where the air is filled with dust and the hands of children often carry the weight of struggle, 11-year-old Anita stands holding a Bible instead of bricks.

At the Chaudhary Faisal brickyard, under the teaching of Najma, Anita reads John 3:16 with a voice that feels small… but carries eternity inside it.

“For God so loved the world…”

#faithtok #biblestudy #john316 #scripture #godslove

Reflecting on Matthew 28 18-20 and Hebrews 10 22-25

This week we are finishing up our quarter on “social teachings of the church” with a look at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 28:18-20, “the Great Commission” or as Dallas Willard comments on it, “the Great Omission”) and a fragment of Hebrews, Hebrews 10:22-25 (which starts in the middle of a sentence, but then continues).

The final “social teaching” before us is “fellowship through worship.” We might actually want (or need?) to clear some conceptual ground, to do some thinking and discussing of those two big, basic ideas, to make further exploration possible. What does fellowship have to do with worship, do we think, and how do we have fellowship “through” worship, do we think? [Do we have fellowship through – in the course of, during, as an integral component of – our worship, typically? How? Or … what would need to change for that to happen?] What do we mean by “fellowship” in the first place? What do we mean by “worship”? Do we know what we’re talking about, and if we do, what are we talking about? Where have our ideas about all this come from, anyway?

Then, we probably want to look closely at what these two short texts seem to be teaching us about fellowship, and about worship. Where do we see “fellowship” in these texts? Where do we see “worship”? What relationship between fellowship and worship seems to be sketched or described or pointed to in these texts? And how similar to, or different from, the way we ourselves normally think of fellowship and of worship and of their relationship? Implications – anything we are moved to think about, or to do, differently? What? Why?

If that seems rather abstract, we might want to try focusing on the actual verbs in the text – going into the world, making disciples, approaching, etc. – and asking ourselves whether we think of those verbs as “worship” words, or as “fellowship” words, or as either, or as neither … and maybe, how our ideas about worship and fellowship would change if we did start to think of those words as “worship” or “fellowship” words. What does that exercise bring to our attention?

Some notes on the Matthew text are here; some notes on the verses in Hebrews are here. Here are a couple of additional questions we might want to think about, or to discuss in class:

In Matthew 28:18, Jesus begins by saying “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” It’s a big statement. What does it mean to us, for us, personally? That is, what does “authority” mean to us, and how does Jesus’ authority factor into our understanding of reality? What impact does Jesus’ authority have on the way we ourselves live our lives?

What does authority have to do with worship?

In v20, who or what are we approaching? Why? Thoughts, feelings about that approach? Why?

Back to Calvin’s questions: what do we learn about God, and what do we learn about ourselves, from these texts?

What about God seems to relate to, or to require, worship? Fellowship? Where do we get that from these texts?

What about us seems to relate to, or to require, worship? Fellowship? Where do we get that from these texts?

[And, if we don’t get our ideas from these texts, where do we get them from, and what seems to be moving us to bring those particular ideas to these particular texts? What do we learn from that?]

Where does this reflection on worship and fellowship and on “fellowship through worship” seem to leave us? Are we ourselves doing what these texts say to do? If not, why not? What would it take to do what these texts say to do? That is, what would need to change – to make it possible – and what would change – once we decided to start doing that, or doing it more routinely? What would we gain, do we think, and what would we lose? How would we feel about all that, do we think? Where do these reflections take us?

Image: “Conversation Tropiques,” Paul Gauguin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Studying Matthew 28 18-20 and Hebrews 10 22-25

This week we are studying one of Jesus’ most famous sayings – “the Great Commission” – along with part of a sentence from Hebrews, plus a couple more, Hebrews 10:22-25. [But we really might want to read that whole sentence, starting with v19.] Some notes on Matthew 28:16-20 are here, from an earlier study; here are a few notes on these verses in Hebrews:

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

We know even less about the book of Hebrews than we know about lots of other New Testament documents. We don’t know who wrote it. [Everyone quotes Origin, I think, saying “God alone knows …”] Or when. [The author seems to be living in a world in which there is still a Temple in Jerusalem, though; because if he or she weren’t, he or she probably would have mentioned that. That fact nudges some of us towards thinking “before 70CE.”] Or to whom. [Whomever it was, the author treats them as familiar with the Hebrew Bible, the wilderness narrative, the sacrificial system and its earliest manifestation in the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting, etc. So that nudges a lot of people towards thinking “not necessarily gentiles.”]

We do know it doesn’t read like a typical “letter,” so it probably isn’t one. It reads more like a sermon, or a lecture.

We know the author mentions trials the recipients are going through, and treats going back to an earlier way of life as an urgent danger for the audience, maybe because of those trials. From that we often conclude that the need to encourage suffering people to hold fast to the faith they have in Jesus is the very reason this document came to be written. Perhaps we are correct in that.

Leander Keck (Renewing New Testament Christology, Fortress Press, 2023) analyzes the distinctive Christology presented in the book of Hebrews. He points out that it presents Jesus, the high priest, who sanctifies his people, as the soteriological figure who corresponds to the human problem posed by human sin, and the death that goes with it, which bars humanity’s contact with God. People’s return pilgrimage to God is made possible by Christ’s high priestly work. But perseverance to the end of that pilgrimage is still required of the people who follow Jesus into the presence of God. We’ll definitely see that Christological message in our verses.

Our verses come about three-fourths of the way through the larger text of the sermon, after the author has contrasted the excellence of Jesus, a son, with the excellence of angels (Jesus is way better), and then the word of God that has come to us through Jesus with the word of God that has come to humanity through angels (again, the one through Jesus is far more compelling, surely), and then the whole apparatus of sacrifices made by priests in the earthly sanctuary for the purification of the people to the once-for-all sacrifice made by Christ, offering his own blood for the removal of sins (there’s an obvious pattern here). The beginning of chapter 10 makes that pattern explicit, and leads in to the exhortation in our text, to make good use of the boldness Christ’s work makes possible, and to hold fast to the faith and the hope that work opens up.

[The obvious pattern also reminds us that whenever we are reading Hebrews, we face the tough challenge of avoiding “replacement theology.” Because the author of Hebrews hasn’t made that easy for us.]

The rest of the book of Hebrews goes on to commend that faith in dramatic terms, listing the heroes of the faith, and invoking the reality of the “great cloud of witnesses” to exhort the hearers to persevere.

Hebrews 10:16-25 is a reading for Good Friday every year, so we might be familiar with this week’s text even if all we know is the lectionary.

CLOSER READING

In English, “we should approach” would make a good beginning to a sentence. Normally, in a presumably transitive construction like this, the next phrase would tell us what we should approach, like maybe “God” or “Jesus” or “one another.”

V22 begins precisely this way: “we should approach.” Those words are not, however, the beginning of the sentence. All of vv19-21 constitutes the beginning. Those verses give the reasoning behind why “we” can and should approach, and at least implicitly naming the “what” that “we” are approaching.

The “we” who is doing the approaching, by the way, seems to mean the author plus the brothers (v19) to whom the author is addressing the sermon.

We can approach because we are having boldness [NRSV reads “confidence”], a boldness that leads us into the entrance of the Holies or the holy things (v19). The holy things – analogous to the inner space of the sanctuary the author has just described, that lay behind the veil of the sanctuary – are themselves near God, an emblem of the very presence of God.

The boldness is something we have in the blood of Jesus. This has opened a way, newly-made and living into this inner sanctum.

There is a translation issue in v20 that hinges on grammar. We can read “(that is, his flesh)” as telling us about the veil through which the blood of Jesus has opened up a way; alternatively, this could be telling us about the way Jesus has made through that veil. The NRSV’s reading seems to lean towards making the phrase “that is …” describe the veil. It’s more consistent with the substance of the passage, however, and just as defensible grammatically, to think the author means “his flesh” is “the new and living way” through the veil that [used to] separate us from the presence of God.

[In other words, I’d read v20 into English more like this: “by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, the way of his flesh …”]

Then, in v22, we get to the approach, which we should do with a true/sincere heart, in full assurance/conviction of faith. Those hearts will have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and the body that houses them washed in pure water. That sounds a lot like baptism.

We should also hold fast the confession – literally, the common word or common statement – of hope, unwavering. We can do this because faithful is the one having promised the new and living way we are relying on.

Moreover, in v24, we should consider one another – specifically, towards the end of a provocation (literally, “paroxysm”) of love and of good/beautiful works. We outselves would probably use the language of “spurring one another on,” which relies on a similar image of poking someone with something sharp to incite some action.

In the process of this considering and provoking, we ought not to be forsaking / abandoning our assembling together – which, perhaps not at all coincidentally, uses the word for assembling that gives us our word “synagogue.” Whether the custom some have is the custom of assembling, or of forsaking the assembling, is not entirely clear.

What is clear is that “we” should rather be encouraging the assembling, all the more as you-all see the day drawing near. “The day” might be the day earmarked for the assembly. That would imply that we’d do even more encouraging on a Thursday or Friday than on a Monday. Alternatively, it might be “the day of the Lord,” in which case our encouragement and invitation would take on added urgency along with our sense that time is short.

All in all, the author is urging active engagement: we should be following Jesus Christ into the presence of God, which takes the bold confidence of faith, which in turn will be supported by the worshipful assembly of believers which we should be participating in, and urging “one another” to participate in along with us.

Some questions on the two texts are here.

Image: Angels and Jesus Christ, Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos at Kondorpoga, 17-18 century icon painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The miracle at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine, is a foundational story in the New Testament (John 2). Beyond the incredible act itself, it reveals so much about His divine nature and the start of His public ministry. What spiritual insights do you draw from this powerful event? #JesusMiracle #BibleStudy #NewTestament #BiblicalReflection

🔗 https://www.midsouthpresbytery.org/did-jesus-turn-water-into-wine/

Hannah: The Woman Who Surrendered Her Deepest Longing

https://osasproject.com/2026/05/27/hannah-the-woman-who-surrendered-her-deepest-longing/

Step into powerful biblical stories and faith-filled lessons that inspire wisdom, strengthen belief, and deepen your walk with God 🙏 Discover meaningful reflections on scripture, life, and spiritual growth.

Read more: https://www.drjmosleyiilifeasgodintended.com/category/biblical-stories-characters/

#Faith #BiblicalStories #ChristianLiving #SpiritualGrowth #BibleStudy #GodsWord

Hope Reaches for What Is Still Ahead

https://polymathchristian.wordpress.com/2026/05/26/hope-reaches-for-what-is-still-ahead/

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#womenshealth
#donations
#bible
#holyspirit
#renewal
#church
#biblestudy

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#africaday
#womenshealth
#donations
#bible
#holyspirit
#renewal
#church
#biblestudy

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.