The TMP Podcast

The Golden Rule sums up the whole ethic of Jesus: our calling as followers of Jesus, from morning to night, is to do to others what you would have them do to you. Jesus tells us that this sums up— it fulfills— the purpose and intention of the Law & Prophets. Jesus does not abolish the law, but establishes it: loving God and loving others. But how do we we do this well? Though it may seem odd,...

In the Gentile world, the gods were seen as distant and indifferent to the needs of humanity. Pagan practices of prayer largely centred around a quid pro quo approach to deity management. The thought was if you said enough words or did the right ritual the gods would be appeased and compelled to move on your behalf. Jesus has previously said, “do not keep on babbling like pagans”. But now Jesus is...

We tend to think that if we have life changing information, it should be shouted from the rooftops or be trending on Twitter. This is especially the case when have formed a judgement about an issue or topic. But curiously, Jesus says “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” What does he...

If there is one thing we do as humans, it is judge others. Research tells us that it takes just one-tenth of a second for people to judge someone and make a first impression. We then use our judgements to form how we engage a person. We live in a system in which everyone judges themselves and each other and creates a hierarchy of those above and below them. To judge another person is to ascribe wo...

We live in an age of worry. Studies from Statistics Canada tell us that 1 in 4 Canadians report to have moderate to severe anxiety. Gen Z and Millennial Canadians between 18 and 39 years old reported the highest levels of anxiety, loneliness, depression and stress of any age group (33.5 per cent for anxiety, 43.2 per cent for stress, 29.1 per cent for loneliness and 27.7 per cent for feelings of d...

We who live in consumeristic cultures must remain aware that we live in a context that is perpetually trying to get us to be discontent with what we have. We are conditioned to chase after more. We are trained to get our value from money, possessions, and material gains. Jesus tells us that “You cannot serve both God and money (Mammon).”(v24) Historically, “mammon” is the name of a powerful deity...

Jesus taught us that what we see is shaped by how our eyes are trained to see the world. If our eye is bad, our sight will be corrupted. We need good eyes to see the world rightly. When we see things, we project our own biases upon what we are seeing. What we see out there is interpreted through our own personal filter. Jesus here is challenging his listeners to think about the kind of eye that th...

One of the ingrained messages we receive in our culture is to do all you can do to get rich and stay rich. We spend a majority of our lives in the workforce earning and storing up wealth in the hope of an eventual retirement. Into our modern day consumeristic context we hear an invitation from Jesus to store up treasures that last. “Treasure” moves from things we value that are temporary— to thing...

Jesus comes out of teaching on prayer and begins to talk about another spiritual practice. “When you fast…”. Jesus doesn’t say, “IF you fast”but rather he assumes that people will be regularly fasting. This might strike us as odd in our modern North American context that tends to disparage the idea of self-denial. What is fasting? Fasting is abstaining—often from food and water. This abstaining cr...

This last line of Jesus’ prayer reminds us of our own frailty and the reality that evil is a force from which we need deliverance. We live in a broken world and have an enemy —the satan—which tempts us to fall. God does not tempt (James 1:12-13), but God does allow us to be tested and go through trials to refine our faith (James 1:1-3). When the satan or anyone else tempts us, they’re hoping we wi...

The Lord’s Prayer contains, at this point, a most unusual thing: a clause which commits the prayer to actions which back up the petition just offered. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Prayer and life are here locked indissolubly together. This isn’t saying that we do this in order to earn God’s forgiveness. It’s a further statement of our loyalty to Jesus a...

There many ways you can focus your prayer i.e., worship, thanksgiving, confession, consecration. Jesus teaches us that we should focus at least a part of our prayer time in petitioning or asking God to meet our needs, referring to the phrase ”daily bread.” In the historical context of this passage, the people to whom Jesus was speaking would have been poor, with no safety net. Less than 10% of the...

Jesus came announcing and enacting the Kingdom of God. Every parable, every teaching, and every personal encounter recorded in the Gospel’s ultimately tells us about King Jesus and his arriving Kingdom. It is perhaps surprising that Jesus asks his disciples to pray for the Kingdom to come, and the will of God to be done. This tells us that the Kingdom of God comes not through force, but through pr...

Of all the lines in the Lord’s prayer, the phrase “Hallowed be Your Name” is one of the more confusing statements. We rarely use the word “hallowed” in our common day vocabulary— which means to honour, sanctify, set apart, and treat with the highest of respect. And even if we do, we might misinterpret this section of the prayer as directed first at our actions. The first three petitions of the Lor...

Jesus opens his prayer with the words “our Father who is in heaven”. “Our” reminds us that we pray not as isolated individuals but with the communion of the saints. Curiously, all of Jesus’ prayers, except his cry of dereliction (Mt 27:46), begin with “Father.” Of all the titles we use to refer to God, Jesus invites his disciples into his own familial relationship with the Father. However, the wor...

Jesus taught that prayer was essential to our life with God, and the very heart of how we move through the world. He said to his disciples “When you pray…” Jesus didn’t say “If you pray…” or “On those occasions you happen to think about prayer…” He wanted his followers to know that the practice of prayer is indispensable, not a nice add-on. Yet, many of us struggle to incorporate prayer as a meani...

Few things frustrate us more than a person who is all show and no substance, and Jesus had quite a few things to say about the hypocrites of his day. Jesus called the religious leaders hypocrites because they hid behind meaningless performances of self-righteousness. Their public displays of spirituality were really about judgment of others and approval for themselves, and not about the pursuit of...

Jesus tells his disciples to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(5.48) This can sound like an impossible ideal from Jesus. Really, how can anyone be perfect? The key to understanding this passage is “therefore,” because it shows us that this verse is the conclusion of the previous verses. This verse is a calling to live in perfect unity, as the previous verses focus on how...

With the announcement of resurrection ringing in their ears, the disciples make their way to Galilee and “to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.”(28.16) This is no accidental location. In the Gospel of Matthew, mountains are associated with revelation as a symbolic place where heaven meets earth. Jesus is tested on a mountain (4:8), teaches a sermon on a mountain (5:1), is transfigured...

Today you are invited to bear witness to the Words of the Cross. Jesus’ journey to the Cross culminates in the actions of men to put him there. As Peter will later say, "with the help of wicked men, you put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”(Acts 2:23) The Cross is first something that is done to Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew bears witness to the words and actions that placed Perfect L...

Jesus is making his Triumphant entry into Jerusalem. As he enters the city, the people lay their cloaks and palm branches on the ground in an act of reverence. The people proclaim “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”(v9) It is a public declaration that Jesus is the King— the Messiah. The whole city was stirred at this procla...

Jesus has left Jericho and set out on his journey towards Jerusalem. Ahead of him is a confrontation with the religious and political authorities. Ahead of him is the long vertical ascent along the pilgrim paths and towards the city of Zion. A large crowd follows Jesus as he sets out from Jericho. Sitting by the roadside are two blind men who hear Jesus passing by. They cry out, “Lord, have mercy...

In Jesus’ day, there was a tradition taught by some Rabbi’s that a person is only obligated to forgive someone three times. It was commonly understood that forgiveness came with limitations. Peter approaches his Rabbi Jesus with a question about the limitations of forgiveness. “How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”(v21) Peter was exceeding gen...

In Matthew 16, Jesus and his disciples enter the region of Caesarea Philippi— a city on the border between the Gentile world and Israel. Jesus uses the opportunity to ask a probing question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”(v13) There were all sorts of replies to that question, but Peter is one who dares to say what the other disciples only think. Peter says, "You are the Messiah, the S...

Jesus begins Matthew 13 with a parable of the sower. It’s a parable about a farmer who sowed seed into four kinds of soil: the path, the rocky soil, the thorns and weeds, and finally the good soil. This parable serves as an analogy about how people receive the message of the Kingdom.(v.19) Not everyone who hears the Kingdom message will accept it. “For the people’s hearts have become calloused; th...