Exploring The Holy Scriptures with Rev Dr David Wright

Loving God can sometimes seem relatively easy. We can come together, sing hymns, say prayers, read the Bible, to sermons, about our faith etc. But Jesus challenges us with: How do we treat the person standing next to us? How do we treat the person who disagrees with us? How do we treat the person whose politics and beliefs are totally different from ours? How do we treat the stranger? How do we treat the person who has nothing to offer us in return? How do we treat the person we would rathe...

Money has a remarkable ability to raise questions about who owns what, who has authority, and what we owe to others … and that brings us directly into the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 15-22. Send me a text if you wish :)

If what we hear in today’s gospel (Matthew 22:1-14) is really what the kingdom of heaven is like, then I’m not interested. Who needs God’s kingdom – at least as Jesus describes it today – when we already have more than enough leaders throughout the world who are abusing their power, when violence is perpetrated on a daily basis, when people’s lives are being destroyed, when cities are burning, when some are excluded and told they don’t belong. Send me a text if you wish :)

"What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own" is a literary line used to describe selfishness. It comes from James Joyce’s 1922 novel “Ulysses” but it is based on a traditional sentiment found in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure ("What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine"), so Joyce twists a romantic or communal ideal of sharing into a greedy individual claim. However, what if we question these quotes by saying they aren’t simply about, “What belongs to me?” but rather by ...

Okay, we hear God’s call and say, “Yes, Lord.” We come to worship. We say our prayers. We sing the hymns. We read the Bible. We know the right words … and YES all of those things matter … but, BUT … Jesus is asking us a more searching question, “What happens after we say ‘yes’?” Send me a text if you wish :)