The Pharisee valued fasting and giving tithes, but could not find value in his fellow sinner.
God is not a tool in our hands. He does not exist to serve our goals, our metrics, or our platforms.
The gospel isn’t for the strong but people who know they aren’t.

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God is used to working with colorful figures. One of the most colorful in the Bible is Balaam. Hailing from Mesopotamia, Balaam was what we might call a shaman or a soothsayer.
First, if this passage from Hebrews 3 shines any further light on the Transfiguration account (Luke 9 is already quite bright!), it’s that on the mountain Jesus is showing us where following Him leads to in the end. No wonder Peter wanted to stay.
You’re not normally an eaves-dropper, and you don’t make it a habit of sticking your nose in other people’s business. But some conversations beg to be overheard. Transfiguration is like that.
The following is an excerpt from Law and Gospel in Action written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Did the Apostle Paul just say that “he fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?" That seems a little at odds with Jesus’ statement, "It is finished."
The resurrection of Christ is not God’s way of loving the last enemy (15:26). He despises it; defeats it. He makes such a mockery of it that it loses its name among Christians. Death is dead and can no longer be called death, but merely sleep, just a sweet and momentary sleep until the living Christ’s parousia (v. 23).
This week Jesus continues by discussing the behavior of his people. He’s particularly interested in the way his people treat others—especially those who mistreat them. Like last week, the only way to describe it is backwards.
The history of the early Reformation in the New World is both a tale of pirates and the battle of catechisms.
Scripture is clear: God’s Spirit pursues sinners from conception to the grave with his life-giving Gospel and gifts.
The basis of Christian proclamation is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a historical event. But what His death and resurrection are as events, now become reality for us, delivered to us through preaching and holy baptism, so all who receive His death and life have the hope of resurrection.
Backwards. That is the only way to describe the world Jesus portrays in Luke 6. Consider what He says about blessings. The blessed, He says, are the poor, the hungry, those who weep. It is those who are hated, excluded, reviled, spurned. Who among us wants to be “blessed” like that?
The Scriptural pictures of atonement offer every Christian comfort and hope against sin through the power of our Lord, Jesus Christ.