Matthew 22:34-40 Lead in #1: In Matthew 22:34-40, it is clear the religious establishment had a deep disdain for Jesus. The Pharisees, the scribes, the scholars of the law, all of them wanted Jesus out of the picture. Why were they so threatened by the itinerant...

Matthew 22:15-21 Lead in #1: In Matthew 22:15-21, the Pharisees were plotting how they might trap Jesus, hoping to silence him once and for all. Careful to conceal their scheme, they flatter him with heaps of praise, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and...

Matthew 22:1-14 Lead in #1: In both Matthew 21 and in Matthew 22, Jesus tells a story of how, in a last attempt to get people to come to his banquet party, he sends his son. They again reject the invitation and, to add insult to injury, they turn on the king’s son....

Matthew 21:33-43 Lead in #1: Jesus tells stories that sometimes seem pretty far fetched, like in the story he tells in Matthew 21. What farm hands, looking to get paid more, would be so greedy that they would go so far as to do away with the farm owner’s son to get...

Matthew 21:28-32 Lead in #1: In Matthew 21:28, after refusing to do what his father asked, the son “changes his mind” and does what he is asked. The Greek translation for “changed his mind” connotes a remorse for having fallen short of what a relationship requires....

Matthew 20:1-16A Lead in #1: In Matthew 20, Jesus tells a parable where workers who work only one hour are paid the same as workers who labored for ten hours. Naturally, when those who worked all day learn that they were not paid any more than those who worked only...

Matthew 18:21-35 Lead in #1: When Jesus tells us to forgive seventy times seventy, the point is not simply to add up the number of times we forgive. Rather, as we keep forgiving those who use their power in harmful ways that hurt us, that at the same time we take back...

Matthew 18:15-20 Lead in #1: Matthew 18 presents a delicate issue. How does the church deal with troublesome people who disrupt unity within the community, yet not exclude the unrepentant sinner? Reconciliation here is much more than conflict resolution or legal...

Matthew 16:21-27 Lead in #1: In Matthew 16, Jesus levels with his disciples. He tells them flat out, “What lays ahead for me in Jerusalem will not end well.” Peter will hear none of it, “God forbid that anything like that should happen to you.” Jesus then rebukes...

Matthew 16:13-20 Lead in #1: Jesus was aware that people were speculating about who he might be. Some were thinking he was John the Baptist or some other prophet from of old. So, Jesus pressed the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” It was Peter who spoke up, “You...