Matthew 21-23

Matthew chapter 21 is basically Jesus going around trolling people, which makes it my favorite chapter so far. It starts off with stopping outside of Jerusalem and telling a couple of His disciples to run ahead and steal a donkey so that he can ride into town in style. He advises them to just tell the farmer who it's for--I'm not sure if this is Jesus being all "I am Lord, give me things" or just generic socialism taken a bit far. Either way, the idea of Jesus sitting on a rock outside of town waiting for His friends to bring Him a stolen donkey to ride on is pretty funny.

Once he gets to town, He throws all the peddlers out of the temple and sets up camp to tell stories and perform miracles, which seems like a solid move to me.

The next morning, though, He sees a fig tree that doesn't have any figs, and He's just so miffed about it that he curses it forever (Matt 21:19). I get it, I'm cranky before breakfast too, but that seems a little harsh maybe. Though He does use it as an opportunity to tell His followers that if they're super super good, they'll get magic powers too. Not just to curse impotent fruit trees, but apparently to get anything they pray for (Matt 21:22). It makes me wonder how many people focus on this passage in trying to strengthen their faith. All you've gotta do is never doubt your faith ever, and you get the power to destroy mountains.

I admit I had to look up the meaning of The Parable of the Two Sons (Matt 21:28-32) to understand it. All I knew was Jesus was telling a story, and when they gave what I thought was the right answer to his question, He yelled at them "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you!" (Matt 21:31) which I found both confusing and hilarious. Apparently He means the tax collectors and the prostitutes are the "first son," initially disobeying but then behaving themselves, and the priests and elders of the temple are the "second son," saying they'll obey but really not. This is the start of many, many versus of Jesus finding creative ways of telling the priests and elders that they're terrible.

I felt a little dumb after looking up the meaning of The Parable of the Tenants (Matt 21:33-46) because it seems really obvious now. Just another version of Jesus telling the priests and elders "You guys are the worst and my Dad is maaaad at you!"

And then Matthew chapter 22 is mostly more of that. My favorite parts are always when someone asks Jesus a question, and His first response is to basically tell them they're dumb for not already knowing the answer (in this example, Matt 22:29).

I still don't really get Marriage at Resurrection (Matt 22:23-33). The only part that seems clear is also quite unpleasant, where we're reminded that Moses told everyone that, "if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him," (Matt 22:24). This comes with the disturbing language of a man "leaving" his wife to his brother, as though she were his property.  Thumbs down to all of that.

The next passage is another one that a lot of Christians don't seem to take seriously: the greatest commandment is to "Love your Lord" (Matt 22:37), but then right after that the second greatest is "Love your neighbor as yourself," (Matt 22:39). I think there a lot of noisy people who use the Bible as an excuse to not do that, even though Jesus says right here that it's really, really important. I marked this passage as extra important in my own book.

And then Matthew chapter 23 is more of Jesus finding creative ways to tell off the priests and elders. Like the whole thing. I would love to see this scene depicted as a rap battle.

Matthew 13

It took me awhile to get through these parables. I'm glad that they're all explained, at least.

I liked the parable of the sower (Matt 13:1-23). The seed sown along the path is someone reading but not understanding; the one sown in the rocks is the person who's enthusiastic at first but their faith dies off once they face persecution; the one sown among the thorns is choked out by the person's focus on life and wealth; the one sown in the soil grows roots and flourishes. It's cute. I don't think my seed was sown in any of those places, but it's a cute parable.

The parable of the weeds (Matt  13:24-30) seems to be saying to leave people alone to be good or evil and God'll sort them out later to either burn or be put in the barn.

The parable of the net (Matt 13:47-50) is pretty much the same as the weeds, except this time people are good or bad fish. The bad ones are, yet again, tossed into fire. So much talk about hell in this book. Is it a coincidence that the two most popular religions by far are the only two that threaten their followers with eternal hell? I somehow doubt it.

I find it weird when Jesus won't do miracles because of people's lack of faith (Matt 13:58). It would be so easy for him to be like "See, guys? No lyin'. Now you can see with your own eyes!" But, no, people are expected to believe the rumors they've heard about this guy, despite many other men of the time making similar claims. Like "How can you guys not realize I'm the real deal? I know you heard that a friend of a friend of a friend totally saw me heal a blind guy." He's totally willing to prove himself to one group of people, but then not another. I'm going to withhold judgment on this, though, since I'm still only 13 chapters in. I admit it's not giving me the greatest impression, though I do find Jesus to be overall kind of a funny guy.