How far should we go to control the things we say? James says we should go a lot further than we often do.
Jason looked to the Gospel of John to help us think about encountering Jesus as we begin Holy Week.
Greg helps us to reflect on Good Friday by turning to the Book of Isaiah.
Maybe you had a childhood toy that took your voice and sent it back distorted and amplified. Small choices work the same way in Proverbs 3:34-35 — God reciprocates what we put out into the world, amplifying our foolishness so we see it clearly, or honoring our wisdom in ways that matter eternally.
Most of us would never shrug off a slur against someone we love—yet we’ve grown comfortable around casual, empty uses of the name of the God we say we follow. The Third Commandment challenges us on that laxness.
Most of us haven’t murdered anyone this week, so we figure we’re keeping the sixth commandment just fine—but Jesus suggests the problem runs deeper, into the anger we harbor and the contempt we broadcast, long before any blade is drawn.
We’ve all stepped into a conflict hoping to bring peace and walked out having made things worse—turns out we didn’t understand the system as well as we thought. Jesus calls the peacemakers blessed in Matthew 5:9, promising they shall be called sons of God, so the question worth sitting with is: what kind of peace does He actually have in mind?
We’ve all found ways to look faithful without being faithful—the outward gesture that signals piety while the heart is somewhere else entirely. That’s exactly the trap Isaiah 7 sets in plain sight: a king who quotes the law of God to refuse the sign God himself is offering, and whose very piety is the problem.
Most of us navigate life by a quiet, practical question: what’s the minimum I need to get by with my time and my money? In Matthew 2, the wise men travel months across dangerous roads and then open their best treasures before the child—and the gap between what they did and what they could have gotten away with is exactly where this passage challenges us.
On Easter, we celebrate God’s great reversal, yet many of us still carry wildernesses where things feel anything but right. Mary Magdalene was in such a wilderness in John 20 as she wept outside of the tomb. In the wilderness, we often cannot see when Jesus is right in front of us.