The Belt of Truth

Jesus heals two parallel accounts of two daughters who are unclean, dead or dying, to demonstrate that Jesus is bringing the new kingdom of God on earth that is located in his being and he can bring with just a touch.

Jesus teaches the disciples of John that he is not some patch to an old system or is to be regarded as an ongoing way of an old life. Jesus comes to bring something new and he can’t fit inside the methods of the old, but rather as their fulfillment. 

Jesus calls surprising people to belong to him. When asked why Jesus calls the people he does, he notes that sick people need a doctor not people who feel good. Jesus comes to call and heal sinners and to invite them into fellowship with God by trusting him and following him. 

Jesus has authority on earth to forgive sins and proves it. 

Jesus comes to the Gadarenes and is met by two demon possessed men. After their confrontation, the people of the city also come to meet Jesus in an eerie way that only unbelief can. 

Jesus continues to heal and to bring about God’s kingdom. His authority is even over demons and the creation itself, showing him to be very God of very God himself. People also respond to him and his claims. His disciples follow him but there are also those who do not understand the extent of his claim and Jesus will correct them so that they might know him and so he saved. 

As Jesus comes down off the mountain, people begin to respond to him by faith. We hear of a Leper who was healed and also of a centurion asking for the health of his servant. Both of these people are surprising people to respond to faith, and Jesus has much to say to both in regards to receiving him by faith. By extension we are also exhorted to respond to Jesus’ call in the same way. God grant that by the power of his Spirit! 

Jesus concludes the sermon on the Mount, encouraging those to hear and do and warning those who do not, since the final judgment is in view. Jesus’ words are truth and can save us in the final judgment. The crowds are amazed by his authority, that being a key theme in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus now goes out to extend God’s reign on earth through his mercy and grace. 

Jesus ends his sermon by exhorting and warning us about hearing a false Jesus and the consequences of not heeding his words. 

Jesus wraps up his sermon’s main body with an encouragement that God is ever ready to give and therefore we are called to live in a world that depends on God’s generosity that enables us to be generous as well. 

Our Lord wants us to be careful with judgment. None of us can go about it without sin, and so our attitude and direction with judging is for the restoring of a brother who has fallen into sin. But checking our motives for doing so. 

Jesus calms worried hearts by pointing us to the fact that we live under the care of our Heavenly Father who sees all that we need. We are to seek for the more important matters of life. We are made to be in God’s eternal kingdom. And so we seek that and God will make sure to handle what we need. 

Jesus gives the warning about idolatry and how possessions end up possessing us and capturing all our attention and worship.

Jesus tells his disciples how he desires for them to fast, not to gain favor with men, but to do so in honor of our Father in Heaven.

Jesus expands on the topic of prayer and how he wants his disciples to posture and approach prayer. Not as something to gain favor with God, but to approach in trust as beloved children and ask for those things that God desires to give. 

Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount with the topic of piety. He focuses his last triad on three aspects of righteousness. Giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting. His intent is to focus on the motivations for doing good works. He expects his people to do them but how they do them matters. How we do them shows that we are either faithful or self-serving. Jesus notes that the Father will work it all out in the end and to spend our time serving him faithfully. 

The 5th petition has us asking God for forgiveness. We see that forgiveness with God is also tied with forgiving others. In effect, we ask God for the Gospel to impact how we relate and treat others. Forgiveness is not something that humans can generate. It is a gift that God gives. Not because we deserve it, but because our Heavenly Father is gracious to us. So we also extend that gift to others. 

Jesus gives us the attitude and action we should have toward our enemies. To love them and care for them as God our Father does. We are called to be perfect, complete. This is rhetorical demand of the law and it is also the gift that Jesus comes to give to us by his life and atonement for us. 

God is our Creator and cares for our daily needs. He gives and we don’t even realize it. But here we pray that we would and that give thanks for it! 

Thy will be done! This is a battle cry as we enter the fray of the enemies of God who would seek to deter God’s kingdom from coming and from us being made holy! 

As Jesus continues the discussion during his Sermon on the Mount, he moves into oaths and retaliation. He fights ideas popular in his day about ranking oaths and getting even. Things still popular today . As salt and light Jesus wants to live in a way that doesn’t fit this age but does fit the age to come. As we put our lives out in risk, we hope and pray for God’s vindication. 

Jesus continues his authoritative sermon on those who are blessed to be his disciples. In this part, Jesus gives us God’s intention for sexual purity and marriage. He pushes back on the legality of divorce in his day and gives God’s will for it. Jesus also shows us that sexual purity is not just something we have with our hands but first in our hearts. By this Jesus calls us from the world’s ways and has us trust in him. For Jesus has paid for the sins he calls out here.

We pray for God’s kingdom to come. This means we want God’s kingdom to come to us when God sends his kingdom. And God’s kingdom comes now when we receive God’s Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Word and the giving of the Sacraments. This leads us to become holy, believe in Christ and to lead holy lives now and forever! 

Jesus gives us God’s intention of the law as he aims at the 5th commandment which says, “you shall not murder.”While Jesus does not give us case law, he gives us the intention of God’s law which does more than look at our actions but directs us to the sin which is born in our hearts. Rather we seek to reconcile and make right, especially before The Day comes.

We pray for God’s name to be holy. But what does that mean? Isn’t God holy already? Of course! But what does it mean that I should keep God holy? That is the question. Here we take a look at how we ask God to make us holy in all that we say and do. 

Jesus, making us into new people, now encourages us to be salt and light.Jesus also describes his relationship to God’s revealed Torah and how his people are to understand it as well.

Jesus begins his inaugural address concerning God’s reign in the sermon on the Mount. He begins with the blessings of who is in God’s kingdom and speaks in the third person. But his 9th and final blessing is directed at you, those who hear and believe. 

The Creed wraps up with the work of the Holy Spirit who makes a holy people using the Holy Word and Sacraments. The Holy Spirit makes us holy by delivering to us the gifts that Jesus purchased by his death and resurrection. This is leading God’s people to the day of the resurrection which will finish this task that he has begun in us. Amen indeed! 

Jesus, with authority as God’s Son and the Christ, has driven back Satan and that leaves room for God’s kingdom to come. Jesus announces that it is time to repent and come into God’s kingdom. He calls Peter, Andrew, John and James to be his disciples and they immediately follow Jesus, even leaving their father behind. Jesus spreads the effects of God’s kingdom by restoring and healing people of the effects of the devil’s reign. This sets up Jesus’ inauguration speech that God’s Kingdom has come in the Sermon on the Mount

In the final movement of Matthew 1-4, Jesus positions himself to fulfill the Scripture to proclaim to his people in Gentile country that he is bringing God’s kingdom and he is the King. The passage from Isaiah 9 connects to Immanuel and gives us a miniature Gospel summary, that Jesus is here to bring God’s Kingdom to Jew and Gentile alike. The pieces are now set for Jesus to fulfill God’s mission. Jesus will now call people to follow him and give them a taste of God’s kingdom 

The Second Article of the Creed describes the work of our redemption. Christ Jesus, who is true God and true man in one person has worked our salvation. He has made us right before God the Father through his work outlined in the Creed. 

Jesus, as God’s Son, takes our place to save sinners by being tempted by the devil. The Spirit leads him on to this attack where he fulfills perfectly what God’s Son Israel had failed to do in the Old Testament. Jesus does this for us. He suffers the sins, quotes the Word of God from Deuteronomy. He outlasts the devil and is now ready to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God. The only question is where that will begin to take place. The Scriptures are fulfilled in order provide us with the location of that next time.

The Apostles Creed gives us the shape of God’s love and care in creating us, saving us, and making us holy. The 1st article starts us off in creation. God has made us. But what does that mean? We dig into Luther’s Small Catechism to see the blessings that God gives.

Jesus comes to the Jordan River to submit to the plan to fulfill our salvation and save sinners. John is at first puzzled knowing that Jesus does not need this, but Jesus makes his stand with sinners and wanting their salvation. The Holy Spirit descends on him and the Fsther declares him his beloved Son. The Triune God is revealed and is working together in this. Jesus is now equipped and ready to be the faithful Son. His next step is going to prove that against the ancient foe in the wilderness. The place where God’s children had failed in Exodus. 

As we finish up the 10 Commandments, we see that the law gets us to the heart of the matter. And the conclusion to the commandments shows us God’s intent for them. We also cover the three uses of God’s law. The law functions as a curb to keep gross sin in check, the mirror shows us our sin and accuses us of rebellion against God. As Christians, the law works as a guide/GPS to show us the shape of love that the new life in Christ restores us into. Now that the law has left us with empty hands and as a beggar, we will now look at the Apostles’ Creed which will not give us something to do but someone to believe in whose hands are filled with every blessing.

John the Baptist is brought into the narrative as “these days” continue to be fulfilled. John comes to prepare people for God’s reign on earth that is now dawning. For John to comes means that Israel has gone astray. But now God is coming through on his promises. Crowds come out to him and they confess their sins, which Jesus is coming to take away, as they await the fullness of the promise. John rebukes the religious leaders who are perhaps coming out of pretense and not faith. God is able to make children for Abraham out of rocks, so they should not presume on their status. This unbelief will make them the principle characters of the human resistance against Christ. John then notes the coming of the last day and the work that the Christ will do to Baptize his people with the Holy Spirit. The table is now set and we await what God will do. 

The 8th and 9th commandments aim at our tongues and our hearts. Our tongues take aim at our neighbors’ reputation and name. We can use lies to attack the gift of our neighbor’s name. And we can even use the truth to further our own sinister agenda at the cost of our neighbor. We are called instead to be the one to defend our neighbor’s reputation. Coveting is what we do with our hearts that leads to murder and lust and all other sins. The opposite of coveting is contentment. We are called to rejoice in what God has given to my neighbor. That means putting to death my pride. Through this, we learn how to love God and our neighbor and to cry out to God for forgiveness and restoration. 

Joseph is called back to Israel by the angel, showing us God’s continued care to complete the mission for our salvation. The path back mirrors the people of Israel from the Old Testament. This shows us that as God’s Son, Jesus is here to do fulfill the people of Israel’s story faithfully. Joseph goes to live further north on the fringes of the Promised Land of Israel, in Nazareth. By doing this, Jesus fulfills more words from the Prophets. This is a summary of the rejection Jesus will face as shown by the prophets and not a direct quote to any passage, especially since it says “prophets.”

The 6th and 7th Commandments point is to God’s gifts of marriage and private property/work. Through marriage and work we see the blessing God wants for society and the shape of love that we can share. Adultery is anything against the design that God has given for sex and marriage between a man and a woman. Stealing is that which we take from others what belongs to them or fail to help them keep what God has provided. To these sins we are called to repent and trust in Christ to forgive and restore as he gladly does.

Matthew’s Gospel shows us how an infant Christ reigns and rules despite rejection and persecution. God is directing all events in the narrative and we see how Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture. Here we see what it means that Jesus is God’s Son. It is both who Jesus is by right and a function he carries out. After the magi depart, an angel directs Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus into Egypt. Jesus, like Moses, flees from the wrath of hostile rulers and is delivered by God’s providence. Since Herod figures that the Magi saw the star proclaiming Jesus’ birth, he orders the death of the children of Bethlehem. A terrible evil that points us to how God knows man’s rejection and the evil it will cause. But Christ escapes, the one who will save his people, even the children of Bethlehem from all their sins and the evil they suffered. 

The second table of the law (4-10) show us how to love our neighbor. They also call us into a vocation. Whether that is as a spouse, child, brother, worker, etc. we see that God has ordered and structured life together in order that love and care be shared among all creatures. Love means service. We then see how beautiful life is in the 4th and 5th commandments. We also take note of our sins and ask God for his mercy as we talk about parents and our very life as God gives. 

The Magi come, and God reveals to them his Son. They respond with faith, but what will be the people of Israel along with King Herod’s reaction? Matthew shows us more who this Jesus is and who his people are. 

The law of God gives us the shape of love. Before God, the second and third commandments show us how we love God with our tongue and worship. This also gives witness to others who will properly love God as he reveals his name and preaches his word. The commandments have a don’t and a do. This tells us there is much more to the commandments and that God’s claim on us is total. 

The origin of Jesus Christ is discussed. We see mankind’s first decoration of our Lord. It is rejection by Jesus by means of the law. Showing us that it must be by revelation that Christ is rightly known and the right response of faith is given. We also learn the Old Testament points us to Christ by the quote of Isaiah 7:14, the first of many quotes in Matthew’s Gospel. This promise of Immanuel will form the book end in Matthew’s Gospel showing how Christ is with us always until the ending of the age. We also see that the identity of Jesus is connecting with his purpose. Jesus means “YHWH saves.” And Jesus will “save his people from their sins.” 

What is Luther’s Small Catechism, why do we use it and how should we use it? This series will go through Luther’s Small Catechism as it teaches the faith that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to us. It will echo to us the faith we are called to confess and gives an answer for what it means to be Christian. 

Welcome to the Belt of Truth! In this Podcast we go through Matthew’s Gospel! In Matthew 1:1-17 we cover the genealogy of Christ. We find that its purpose is to establish who Jesus is. He is the Christ who comes through human ancestry and is directed by a threefold repetition of 14 by God himself who works through sinful humanity to redeem it. A whole host of people that come from Genesis to Malachi and beyond and listed. This shows us that the purpose of the Old Testament was to bring us to Christ. He is the fulfillment of God’s special covenants made to David for a King to rule forever and also to Abraham who would bring a descendant to bless all nations. We consider briefly the differences in Matthew and Luke’s Gospel concerning the genealogies listed as well as why the last section only list 13 generations. 

Praise the Lord! Where, why, how and who. Where do we praise God? Why do we praise God? How do we praise God? And who do we praise? Psalm 150, the final psalm gives us a dramatic conclusion to the Psalter. In it we join everything thought and everything and swallow it up in a resounding Hallelujah! 

In the penultimate Psalm, Psalm 149, continues the theme of praise of 146-150.Here God’s people praise their Maker and their King. The idea of King has gone through a transformation and fulfillment in this book. With the rise and fall of David’s line to God himself combining the promise of David’s Son with himself. So that it is God and man who rule. This is Jesus Christ our Lord.As a result of God’s triumph and gift, God’s people are free to praise God. They, as Paul puts it, will make every thought captive to Christ. Spiritual warfare has been in the background of nearly all these psalms and that continues here. God’s people will reign with Christ and Christ will raise up his lowly people. And our praise is the sword we wield in the present age. And the day is coming, where Christ will come again in his glory and his people will sit and even judge the angels. 

Psalm 148 continues the praise of the Lord! Two areas are focused in on. The heavens in verses 1-6 and all that is in them. And then the earth in verses 7-14. This praise from the heavens is automatic and is styled like how God spoke and they came to be. As the heavens and the angels do their job, they praise God. They are well ordered because God’s Word is holy and true. The earth and all that is down below praises God as well. But this praise originates in how God reveals himself on earth. He acts in human history. Primarily when he raised a horn of salvation for his people, which all nations can come to. This is the Lord Jesus, whose name is given that is above every name and exalted beyond the earth and heavens. With this in mind, what our God has done for us, we cry out, “Praise the Lord!” Hallelujah!

Psalm 146 brings us back to two concepts we have seen a lot in these psalms: God’s care of creation and his care of the Church. This gives us confidence to hope in God as we see him ordering the creation and the world around us. We join in the Hallelujah! This causes us to marvel and be at odd. For though God is high, he uses it for the benefit of his people. He rules all on behalf of his people and also sends his Word to them to call us to faith and hope. Praise the Lord!