June 1, 2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Christ Jesus was never Yes-and-No; his nature is all Yes. For in him is found the Yes to all God's promises.

There is controversy in the church at Corinth, and Paul is in the middle of it. In this letter he defends his ministry and argues that his teaching represents the promise of Christ. Paul had planned to visit Corinth, but then postponed his trip. So he reassures the Corinthian Christians that he is not a Yes-and-No person, but will soon come. Similarly, he proclaims, Christ Jesus was never vacillating in his message.

There was, however, controversy in the early church. Why is that? The followers of Jesus from Galilee, the disciples who after Jesus was crucified became the first apostles, required that some commandments of Jewish law be observed by all the followers of Jesus. Paul's experience of the risen Christ, and his ministry among Greek-speaking Jews and Gentiles in the cities of the Roman Empire, led him to argue that Christians were saved by faith. Therefore, he resisted imposing the Jewish law in any way on Gentile Christians. 

Christian faith, as we know it today, embraced the thinking of Paul, but the outcome of this struggle was not clear until after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 and the church in Jerusalem was dispersed. The New Testament was written after 70 for Greek-speaking Christians in the Roman Empire. Jesus, as understood by Paul and other Greek-speaking Jews and Gentiles, was proclaimed as the Christ who fulfilled all the promises of God. How we understand that affirmation today is also a matter of controversy, but this is the good news of the church. In Christ is our salvation.

June 2, Colossians 2:6-13

Live your lives in Christ Jesus. Be rooted and built up in him, strengthened by the faith you have been taught and overflowing with thankfulness.

Paul is writing the church at Colossae in order to argue against false teaching. He emphasizes living "in Christ Jesus," which seems to mean embracing a continuous mystical relationship that enables Christians to be joyous despite their sufferings and also forgiving of one another, because God has forgiven their sins. Because Paul asserts that the Christians at Colossae have been circumcised in a spiritual rather than physical sense, we may conclude that other Christians were promoting Jewish circumcision as necessary for membership in the church. From other portions of Paul's letters we learn that there was a circumcision party in the church in Jerusalem, and representatives of this party were sent out to the churches to enforce the view that Christians were subject to at least some of the Jewish laws including circumcision.

This argument within the early church is hardly relevant for Christians today, but it reminds us that even the first Christians were not of one mind about Christian faith. Surely, however, Paul is right to teach that Christ is what unifies the church, and our response to Christ must be rooted in thankfulness to God. The heart of our faith is gratitude, not comprehension, and our understanding of Christian faith must reflect the spirit of forgiveness that marks the God of the Christian Bible. We are not called to rejoice in our own wisdom, but in the saving grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus.

June 3, John 6:47-51

In the gospel of John, Jesus says: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever."

This passage comes in the middle of an argument that Jesus is having with his followers. None of the other three gospels in the New Testament records this debate, so it is likely that this is a dialogue created by the author of the gospel of John. Why would he do that? To present a teaching that he and his church believed in. Jesus compares himself with the bread that the Israelites ate in the wilderness, before they entered the promised land. Then Jesus says that anyone who eats "this bread" will live forever. Clearly, he is referring to himself, as "the living bread," so it seems that the church of the gospel author is teaching about its celebration of the Eucharist by telling this story about Jesus.

In John 6:66 we read that after this argument "many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him." The story in the gospel of John seems to suggest a split in the church for which the gospel was written. The fourth gospel explains the understanding of those Jews, who believed that Jesus replaced all the teachings of Jewish law with new rituals celebrating God's presence in him and, through him. When the gospel of John was included in the Christian Bible in the fourth century, this understanding of the presence of God in Christ became the teaching of all the churches in the Roman Empire. And, through our history, it has become the witness of the church today.

June 4, Psalm 139

Fathom me, God, and know my heart. Probe me, know my thoughts and guide me in the way that is everlasting.

The psalmist prays for deliverance from personal enemies. He asserts that God knows everything and is everywhere, even in Sheol where the dead souls go. Therefore, God knows all about him. Passages like this have led Christians to say that God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). But clearly the psalmist is calling on God because he feels abandoned. The problem, for the psalmist, is that God has not brought justice and peace into the world.

The idea of God as all-powerful and all-knowing may become a "false god," if we begin to see everything as God's will. The God of the Bible is not consistent. The God of the Bible has power, but needs to learn how best to use that power. Christian faith holds that God chose to exercise power in weakness. God chose to save the world not by punishing evil-doers, but by defeating the power of evil on the cross. Christians affirm that the death of Jesus is God's greatest weapon against evil, which is why Good Friday is not remembered as Bad Friday. Our Easter faith is that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ. (Romans 8:38-39)

June 5, Deuteronomy 31:1-8

The LORD your God walks with you. God will never leave you or forsake you.

This chapter of Deuteronomy presents Moses at the end of his life. He gives a final message to the Israelites and affirms that God will remain with them and will help them overcome their enemies and enter into the promised land. The book of Deuteronomy also records the death of Moses, so it was clearly written after his death and not by him. Deuteronomy reinterprets the law of the covenant, and most likely was written at the time of Josiah's reforms in Judah (621 BCE).

The image of the passage is very physical. God will help his people fight their enemies and will be present to them like a strong warrior is present. In the time of the prophets, when the enemies of Israel defeated her armies, the imagery of Deuteronomy no longer seemed helpful. The God of Israel was no longer best understood as a warrior (because then God would be a defeated warrior), but as a Spirit present in the hearts of his people who is working out his will through the twists and turns of history. Paul and other early apostles believed that this God was present in the risen Lord, in a way completing all previous revelations and prophecies. Therefore, the church came to celebrate the presence and power of God in the physical form of Jesus.

June 6, Matthew 9:10-13

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Indeed, I have not come to call the just, but sinners."

The gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and prophecy of ancient Israel. In Mt. 5:17 Jesus says he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. This gospel presents an interpretation of Jesus that is in contrast to Paul's letters, for Paul argues that Christ is the "end of the law." (Rom. 10:4) But Paul would certainly agree with the author of the gospel of Matthew that the church is not called to keep the Jewish commandments about sacrifice, but to live the gospel message of forgiveness. Paul, too, admits that he remains a sinner (Rom. 7:19), but God has forgiven sinners. For Paul, this is the good news of the gospel.

The letters of Paul are the oldest writings of the New Testament. We can see, therefore, that the gospel of Matthew is an attempt to correct Paul's rejection of Jewish law. The gospel of Matthew agrees that the gospel offers new life to sinners, but it presents a Jesus who nonetheless claims to be upholding Jewish law rather than setting it aside. Most likely the gospel of Matthew was written for a church that was dominated by Greek-speaking Jewish Christians, who remained committed to at least the moral commandments of Torah. The letters of Paul, however, were written largely to church communities dominated by Gentiles. So, Paul preaches against the Jewish law, because other apostles are urging that circumcision and other commandments in the Torah be required of Gentile converts.

June 7, John 6:1-15

After the people saw the miraculous sign worked by Jesus, they began to say: "Surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world." Jesus, realizing that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew to the hills again, alone.

The feeding of the five thousand is, in the gospel of John, one of the miraculous signs that proves Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, this miracle must have been deeply rooted in the traditions about Jesus, because it is the only miracle reported in all four of the gospels of the New Testament. Was it a miracle involving the materialization of bread "out of nothing," or a miracle because Jesus succeeded in getting poor people to share what they had so everyone might be fed? The gospel presents it as a miracle in the first sense, but many Christians today understand it in the second way.

In the gospel of John the miracle story is used to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy and that his life, death and resurrection is controlled by God. The people want to make Jesus king immediately, but he withdraws to be with God, who will decide not only when he is to become king but what sort of king he is to become. Whatever we may think about the feeding of the five thousand, we know that our faith in God involves trusting that God's love can redeem our lives and all of history.

June 8, John 6:27-29

The gospel of John reports that the people asked Jesus, "What must we do to do God's work?" And that Jesus replied, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one God has sent."

In this gospel Jesus distinguishes between physical life and spiritual life. Food that satisfies hunger is part of our physical life, but spiritual food sustains eternal life. It is in this sense that Jesus says he is the bread of life. The meaning is spiritual, not literal. His body is not literally food, but his life and teachings will sustain them. This discussion is not found in the other three gospels of the New Testament, and was probably composed by the author of the gospel of John. The words of Jesus express the theology of the church for which the gospel was written.

In verses 28 and 29 of the 6th chapter, the question and answer reveal to us the division that has occurred in the community of faith. It is an argument about whether salvation comes through good works or through trust in Jesus. The author of the gospel of John sides with Paul in this regard, rather than with the author of the gospel of Matthew. The gospel of John says that trust in Jesus and faith in him is necessary for salvation. As we see in the letters of Paul, many Jewish Christians disagreed with this position. In the gospel of John we find that the same division is present in another Christian community apparently unknown to Paul.

June 9, Mark 1:1-15

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus says: "The kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and have faith in the good news of the Gospel."

The gospel of Mark begins with an announcement that it is the "gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." After telling the story of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus, the gospel relates that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness until John was arrested. Then he began his ministry. After calling four disciples, Jesus proclaims in the synagogue at Capernaum that those who would enter the kingdom of God, which is upon them, need to repent. Teaching about the kingdom of God and calling his followers to repentance are two of the three pillars of the gospel. The third is the call to faith. All three are presented in Mk. 1:14-15.

We see that this statement contrasts with John 6:27-29, which was read yesterday. The gospel of John does not present a call to repentance, and in it Jesus does not talk about the kingdom of God. In the gospel of John, Jesus emphasizes faith. In the other three gospels Jesus tells many parables about the kingdom of God (kingdom of heaven in the gospel of Matthew) and calls sinners to repentance and faith. The witness of the church is that faith alone is not all that is required of Christians. Those who would enter the kingdom of God are called to have faith and repent of their sins.

June 10, Sirach 2:1-9

You who revere the LORD, wait for God's mercy. Do not turn aside from God.

This passage is not in Protestant Bibles, but it is in Roman Catholic Bibles where the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) comes at the end of the section of wisdom writings just before Isaiah. Protestant and Catholic Bibles differ in this respect, because the Catholic Bible uses as the Old Testament the Jewish scriptures (the Septuagint) read in Greek by Paul and the early church, whereas the Protestant Bible translates its Old Testament from the Hebrew scriptures approved around 100 CE by the Jewish rabbis. The official Hebrew Bible omits some of the books of the Septuagint, because these books were thought to have been written after the revelation of God had ended during the time of the second temple.

Sirach was part of every Christian Bible until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the book continues to be part of the Christian Bible for all Catholics in the world. It was written by Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach, about two hundred years before the birth of Christ, but it was not translated from the Hebrew into Greek by the author's grandson until about 130 BCE, who wrote a forward containing information about the author. Chapter 2 of Sirach emphasizes trust in God, who is compassionate and forgives the sins of those who fear God.

June 11, Matthew 11:28-30

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: "Come to me, you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest."

This statement by Jesus is only recorded in the gospel of Matthew, so it may well be the composition of the author of the gospel. The rabbis spoke of the "yoke" of the law of Moses. The gospel of Matthew is contrasting that "burden" with the commitment of faith in Jesus Christ, which is "easy" and "light." The story of picking grain on the sabbath follows this passage, and in that story the Pharisees complain that the disciples of Jesus are breaking the law of Moses by picking the grain. Jesus tells them that they have not understood the scriptures, and he quotes the passage from Hosea 6:6 that says God desires "mercy, and not sacrifice." We see clearly that issues concerning the place of the law of Moses in the life of the church continued to be controversial at the time the gospel of Matthew was written.

The gospel of Matthew does not agree with Paul's statement in Romans 10:4 that "Christ is the end of the law (of Moses)." The community of faith for which the gospel of Matthew was written believed that Jews and Jewish Christians should continue to keep the law of Moses, because this is clearly what that community has Jesus say in Matthew 5:17-20. But the Jewish law was interpreted by this first-century Christian community, as we see in the discussion of the sabbath, to allow some modifications that made good sense, particularly for Jewish Christians living in Roman cities.

June 12, Matthew 7:7-11

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

This is part of the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew. The gospel of Luke says that Jesus gave this sermon to his disciples on the plain (Lk. 6:17), not on a mountain (Mt. 5:1). Most likely the gospel of Matthew has Jesus go up a mountain to give these teachings, because that would remind a Jewish reader of Moses ascending Mt. Sinai to receive the commandments of the law from God. The gospel of Luke, on the other hand, is written for churches that are largely Gentile. It is, therefore, far less concerned with Jewish images than the gospel of Matthew.

June 13, Matthew 9:36-10:8

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus sends out the twelve, saying: "proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. Freely you have received, freely give."

When Jesus sends out the disciples to heal and cast out demons, we learn their names: Simon (Peter), Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the Cananaean), and Judas Iscariot. The gospel of Mark has the same list, but the gospel of Luke omits Thaddaeus and instead lists "Judas the son of James." (Lk. 6:16) As the gospels of Matthew and Luke use most of the gospel of Mark, it seems that the author of the gospel of Luke is correcting the list that the gospels of Mark and Matthew take to be accurate. There is no list in the gospel of John, but Andrew, Philip, Simon (Peter) and Nathaniel are mentioned in the first two chapters, Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, and Thomas plays an important role at the end of the story. But the names of James, Bartholomew and Thaddaeus do not appear in the gospel of John, and none of the disciples in the fourth gospel is called John.

June 14, Isaiah 32:15-20

Isaiah said: "Once again the LORD will breathe upon us, and the wilderness will become an orchard, an orchard as green as the forest."

The prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, proclaimed his message to Judah and Jerusalem between 742 and 687 BCE. In that period, the northern kingdom of Israel was annexed by the Assyrian Empire, and Judah was forced to pay tribute to the Emperor. The prophet explains the threats to Judah as God's just response to the social injustice in the land, and he calls on the people and their leaders to trust in God.

June 15, Psalm 27

"Come," my heart says, "seek God's face!" Your face, LORD, do I seek.

The psalmist prays for deliverance from his enemies. "The Lord is my light and my salvation," he cries, "whom shall I fear?" He praises God and pledges to be faithful, asking that he might "dwell in the house of the Lord all the days" of his life. The psalmist says that his father and mother have forsaken him, but he trusts that the Lord will not abandon him to his enemies. To others, therefore, he advises: "Wait for the Lord . . . be strong, and let your heart take courage."

June 16, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Praised be God who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

There are conflicts in the church at Corinth that are causing suffering, for Paul and for others. Therefore, Paul writes to the Corinthians to comfort them and to encourage them in their faith. He reminds them that Christians share abundantly in Christ's suffering as well as in his victory over suffering and death. Therefore, they are not to be depressed by their difficulties, but must patiently endure them in order to find the comfort that is offered in Christ.

June 17, John 6:41-51

In the gospel of John, Jesus says: "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day."

The author of the gospel of John uses the murmuring of the Israelites, against Moses in the story of their wandering in the wilderness after escaping from Egypt, as the context for asserting that Jesus is the bread of life. The gospel presents Jesus as God's preordained son, who has come to earth to reveal the will of the Father to all those who are able to receive this teaching. The Israelites in the wilderness ate manna that God provided, but now Jesus is the food that sustains life in God.

June 18, Matthew 5:13-16

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to his disciples: "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again?"

Three gospels contain a statement about salt losing its taste. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus utters the second sentence quoted above from the gospel of Matthew but not the first, and then tells the disciples: "have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." (Mk. 9:49-50) In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says simply that salt, which loses its flavor, will be thrown away. (Lk. 14:34-35) In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus also says that salt, which is no longer salty, will be discarded, but he precedes this with the cryptic statement, "You are the salt of the earth." Jesus is talking with his disciples and seems to mean that they are to bring the "flavor" of life to the world, as salt does to food that otherwise is bland. Unlike the gospel of Mark, however, the emphasis in the gospel of Matthew is not on peace among the disciples, but on preaching the gospel to the world.

June 19, Ephesians 5:14-20

Let yourselves be filled by the Spirit. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.

This letter attributed to Paul calls on the Christians in Ephesus to be joyous in their worship and prayer. To live in faith is to live with gratitude for all the gifts of life. To trust in God is not only to see that the glass is half full of water, but to be thankful that we have water to drink and food to eat and love to share.

June 20, Psalm 69:30-37

You who seek God, may your hearts live! For God listens to the poor.

The psalmist prays to God to be saved from his personal enemies. He admits to making mistakes and prays that his folly will not turn others away from God. The author of the psalm entrusts himself to God's steadfast love and asks to be redeemed from the peril that threatens him.

June 21, 1 Peter 5:5-7

Clothe yourselves in humility in your relationships with others, for God gives grace to the humble.

This letter was written in excellent Greek, so the immediate author could not have been Peter, the fisherman from Galilee, who became a disciple of Jesus. But it may reflect the understanding of churches that followed his teachings. The letter refers to several of Paul's writings, so it must have been written after Paul was executed in Rome in the mid sixties.

June 22, Micah 7:7-8

My hope is in the God who will save me. Though I lie in darkness, the LORD is my light.

Micah was a younger contemporary of the prophet, Isaiah. He lived at the beginning of the 7th century BCE in a small village southwest of Jerusalem during the time that the Assyrian Empire controlled the northern kingdom of Israel and required tribute of Judah, the southern kingdom. Micah proclaimed that the suffering of the Israelites was a judgment for their faithlessness. He denounced the leaders of Jerusalem for their corruption, and he called for a purification of the capital. He even predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, if its religious practices were not purified.

June 23, Psalm 37

Make the LORD your joy: God will give you even more than your heart's desire.

This psalm is about justice. The psalmist proclaims that the wicked will be punished by the LORD and that the righteous will be rewarded. Therefore, the psalmist urges us to trust in God, who is "our refuge in time of trouble" and who will deliver us from the wicked. "Depart from evil, and do good," the psalmist counsels, "so shall you abide for ever. For the LORD loves justice and will not forsake the saints."

June 24, Acts 13:23-25

As John was completing his work, he said: "Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but one is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."

The author of the gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles relates a sermon by Paul in Antioch. Paul is addressing both Jews and Gentiles, because he begins by saying, "Men of Israel, and you that fear God, listen." At the time of Paul the synagogues in many cities of the Roman Empire were community centers where Gentiles as well as Jews gathered to discuss in the Greek language moral issues and questions about theology. In this story Paul is the guest speaker for the day. He summarizes the history of Israel and then speaks of John the Baptist, who called the Jews to repentance and pointed to Jesus as the Savior promised by God.

June 25, Deuteronomy 4:29-31

The LORD your God is a merciful God who will not forsake you.

The Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible presents a summary of the law of God in the form of three addresses by Moses. Because it records the death of Moses, it was surely written later, probably during the reign in Judah of king Josiah, who in 621 BCE instituted reforms that banned worship at local shrines and restricted worship to the temple in Jerusalem. It is important to see, however, that in these addresses to the ancient Israelites Moses affirms that God is merciful as well as just. The God of the covenant with the ancient Israelites is understand to be steadfast and loving, and not simply a God of law who punishes the disobedient.

June 26, Mark 10:35-45

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus says: "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life to save many."

In the gospel of Mark the sons of Zebedee, James and John, ask for a privileged place among the disciples, when Jesus comes to reign in glory. Their request causes dissension among the disciples and prompts Jesus to instruct them about serving others rather than seeking positions of honor. In the gospel of Matthew it is the mother of these two disciples who asks on their behalf that her sons be given this privilege (Mt. 20:20-28), whereas the gospel of Luke omits any reference to this request and merely says a dispute arose among the disciples as to who was the greatest (Lk. 22:24-27).

June 27, Matthew 10:37-42

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells those he is sending out: "Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."

This passage contains some of the hardest words of the New Testament. The Jesus of the gospel of Matthew says: "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Mt. 10:37-38) An even harsher version of this teaching is contained in the gospel of Luke, where Jesus is reported to have said: "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Lk. 14:26)

June 28, Romans 12: 14-21

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who are rejoicing, weep with those who weep.

Most Christians who read these words in Paul's letter to the church at Rome think immediately of the teachings of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, where he says in the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Mt. 5:44) But Paul is not quoting from the gospel of Matthew, because none of the gospels had yet been written when Paul sent his letter to the Romans. Moreover, Paul doesn't attribute this statement to Jesus, so it doesn't seem that he is passing on a well-known teaching by Jesus to his disciples.

In fact, Paul is explaining a teaching from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. Proverbs 25:21-22 says: "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you." Paul quotes this text in Romans 12:20. Jesus may also have taught this in his lifetime, but the sermon in the gospel of Matthew that is attributed to Jesus is a creation of the author of the gospel, as it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The gospel of Luke contains some of it, in what is described as a sermon "on the plain" rather than on a mountain. These sermons are constructions by the authors of these gospels, and both of these sermons are written after the time of Paul. The gospel authors may or may not be using teachings by Jesus in these sermons, but they are certainly using teachings that are central to the life of the early churches. Paul's comments in his letter to the Romans make this very clear.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples: "Who do people say I am?" "Some say John the Baptist," they answer, "some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But you," he says, "who do you say I am?" Peter replies, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

The gospels of Mark and Luke each contain this dialogue but with different emphases. In the gospel of Mark, Jesus simply tells his disciples not to reveal his identity to anyone. (Mk. 8:27-33) In the gospel of Matthew, however, Jesus praises Peter and says he will give Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. (Mt. 16:17-20) The gospel of Luke does not add to the account in the gospel of Mark any comment about Peter, but it does add a teaching by Jesus about how the Son of Man will be rejected and killed and on the third day will be raised. (Lk. 9:22)

This is a good example of how a story in the gospel of Mark has been used to make another point in the other two gospels. In the gospel of Matthew the story is used to promote the special role of Peter in the life of the church, which must have been important to the community for which the gospel of Matthew was written. In the gospel of Luke the story is used to repeat a teaching concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus. Peter is named in all three accounts, but only in the gospel of Matthew is he singled out for praise and responsibility in the life of the church. In fact, the gospels of Mark and Luke point more to Paul's leadership in the church than to Peter's. By omitting any resurrection appearance to the disciples, the gospel of Mark may be suggesting that the experience and ministry of Paul was more important. And the Acts of the Apostles, the sequel written to the gospel of Luke by the same author, gives much more attention to Paul than to Peter.

June 30, Exodus 22:20-21

The LORD says to his people: "Do not mistreat or oppress the strangers in your midst, for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt."

The Book of Exodus tells the story of the escape by the ancient Israelites from Egypt into the wilderness and their reception of the law given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. The 22nd chapter lists various laws of the covenant between the people of Israel and God, including the prohibition of worshipping idols (v. 20) and the statement above (v. 21). The Lord does not merely command the Israelites to treat strangers well but reminds them that they, too, were once strangers in a foreign land. The argument both evokes sympathy for the stranger, but also reminds the Israelites that they depend on God for their liberty. The only reason why they are no longer strangers in Egypt is that God has freed them from their captivity.

How should Christians read a law like this today? We were never strangers in Egypt, so it may seem the law does not apply to us. Nonetheless, are we commanded by God to be kind to strangers? We might argue that Christian faith released us from the obligations of Jewish law, like the commandment not to oppress the strangers in our midst. But even if we affirm that we are saved by faith rather than by keeping the law, surely we are commanded by God to care for the strangers in our midst. In the gospel of Matthew we find Jesus teaching that "Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Mt. 7:21) Whether Jesus actually said this or not, it is the teaching of the church and bears on our salvation. We are called in faith to love our neighbors as ourselves, and not simply to profess our faith in the name of the Jesus.