Danny Taylor: Skinny Guy Thinking it Through

If you are a human being, something like Matthew 6.25-34 is enough to make you think the Christian life is completely impossible.  To be told “Don’t worry,”—you might as well be told to grow a tail.   I have heard many pastors try to soften the blow, creating a distinction between “worry” and “genuine, valid concern.”  For instance, “worry” is our mental, emotional, or psychological reaction over rather trivial things.  What is your reaction when there are only two eggs left in the refrigerator?  Or when there is a test you haven’t studied for?  Or when your underwear drawer is dwindling down and there is no detergent in the house?  And it is snowing?  Do you sweat?  Do you panic?  Do you lose sleep?  If so, stop worrying! There are even more dire things that seem important but in the grand scheme of things really aren’t.  What is your reaction when the car won’t start in the morning?  When dinner with friends is ...

My wife grew up in the South Pacific where English is not the native tongue.  She still speaks Samoan from time to time.  It can be a little awkward when we get together with her family.  We will sit around a table to eat, enjoying company and conversation.  Suddenly, someone will utter what sounds like unintelligible vowel noises and my wife and her family will start laughing.  Meanwhile, we in-laws stare blankly at one another, hoping we were not just the butt of a joke.   If I ask my wife, “What did your mom just say?” she usually replies, “Oh, you wouldn’t get it.  It doesn’t translate well into English.”  I guess I had to be there (even though I was there!) Translating from one language to another can be tricky business.  Some things just don’t translate well, and to prevent from being lost in translation, you need to be somewhat familiar with both languages.  Such is the case with Matthew 6:22: “The eye is the la...

After discussing person-to-person relationships, Jesus turns his attention to duties related to religious life.  The point of the chapter 5 examples was, how you treat other human beings matters .  For some, not killing another human being is enough.  Jesus’ disciples must go beyond that and actually treat their enemy with love and dignity.  His audience had been misguided and had misunderstood certain aspects of Old Testament Law and Jesus takes time to clear up those misunderstandings. Starting in chapter 6, they haven’t misunderstood anything, but Jesus checks their motives for doing things they are apparently already doing.  Jesus grants that they give, pray, and fast, and they should be doing these things.  However, when they give, pray, fast, or commit other acts of righteousness, they are not do to them like the hypocrites do.  Instead, You are to be different .   Jesus calls giving, praying, and fasting “your righteousness.”...

There are a few “son of ...” phrases which are popular in our culture.  “Son of a...” as an independent phrase was popularized by “Tommy Boy.”  Whenever he took a shot to the face, his painful outburst was simply, “OWW, Son of a!”  “Son of a gun” is a tamer version of the more common “SOB” phrase.  Both can be used as a forceful exclamation of frustration, disappointment, or throbbing thumb pain due to a stray swing of the hammer.    On the other hand, “SOB” can also be used as an insult to the highest degree: “You dirty no good SOB!”  When used, the one using it isn’t necessarily saying something about your actual mother as if she were the “b-word”, and you just happen to be her son.  Instead, it is understood that the person is saying something about you yourself.  There is something about your character that another person is calling out. In a biblical context, “Son of ...” statements were rather common.  If you were to do a...

This is probably one of the more divisive sayings of Jesus.  Strict pacifists in particular use verse 39 to suggest that Jesus himself is a strict pacifist who hates war, just or otherwise.  Therefore we should be pacifists too.  After all, we are to “turn the other cheek” when slapped, punched, kicked, mutilated or what have you.  In addition, we are not to “resist the one who is evil.”  That means we do not fight wars, join the police force, or even defend our families from an intruder, regardless of how “evil” the opponent might be.  In my opinion, many avoidable evils have taken place all because a pacifist believer—well intended, no doubt—played the “turn-the-other-cheek” card.   The pacifist / non-pacifist dialogue will inevitably continue until we all nuke ourselves into oblivion (or non-violently protest our way to a blissful utopia).  What I will say here is not likely to put an end to the discussion.  In fact, as I read through...

When I was a kid, the phrase, “I swear to God!” was the one thing we could use to validate or refute an argument.  If someone from within our group of friends made some wild claim that was hardly believable, he would verify the truthfulness of his claim by “swearing to God.”   In the fourth grade, a friend once claimed that he had kissed the prettiest girl in the class.  Obviously this was an unbelievable claim.  At nine-years old, none of us would have had the guts even to approach a girl, let alone kiss her.  However, we knew he was serious when he verified his claim by saying, “I swear to God I kissed her!”  Even a fourth-grader wouldn’t swear to God like that if he didn’t actually kiss the girl.   On another occasion, the wimpiest kid in class once made the claim that he beat up a notorious neighborhood bully.  After a series of investigative questions and getting nowhere fast, I asked, “Do you swear to God you did?”  His silenc...

Immediately following his words on adultery and lust, Jesus turns his attention to the more specific issue of divorce.  Before proceeding, I should note two things.  First, this is a difficult issue; I would guess that everyone in America has been touched by divorce, whether a close friend or family member, your parents, or even you yourself.  The reasons for any divorce are usually many and complicated, and I don’t want to make the issue seem simpler than it is: only to consider what Jesus says specifically in Matthew 5.  Second, we should notice that Matthew 5 is not all the Bible has to say about divorce and marriage.  This is not an exhaustive study, just a look at the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:31-32 provides a good starting point for a discussion on divorce.  As before, Jesus opens by saying, You have heard X, but I tell you Y.  Apparently the Pharisees had a very different take on divorce than Jesus.  Their question seems to have...

The context of much of Matthew 5 deals with the assumed question, “How much can I get away with without actually breaking any rules?”  Verses 21-26 dealt with hatred and murder.  Verses 27-30 deal with lust and adultery.  You could imagine a new convert to ancient Judaism asking his rabbi, “I have this neighbor, and his wife is smokin’ hot.  Is there any law saying I can’t seduce her?”  To this, a good rabbi would say, “Yes: You shall not commit adultery,” and leave it at that.  A less-than-noble rabbi might say, “Technically, yes, that’s called adultery.  But you know, the Bible doesn’t say anything about imagining what you would do if you could.”   Jesus has something to say about the issue.  He closes yet another loophole, but in doing so, it seems that more problems are created.  Adultery is bad, yes we know.  And Jesus equates “lust” with “adultery” in the same way he equated “hatred” with “murder.”  But what is “lus...