Today's scheduled reading covered Matthew 16 through 26 but I went ahead and finished the entire book. It's such a short account of 33.5 years of life, though the Old Testament covers much longer time periods in only a few short chapters. I recently finished reading a Holocaust memoir that only covered several years and it was longer than Matthew's telling of Christ's life.
I don't have any specific thoughts and I didn't mark any passages while reading. I'm glad that Christ came to live on earth for awhile but disappointed and saddened that He was killed. Why are human beings so threatened by anything different? We tend to live in our own little bubble, only socializing with people who agree with all of our religious and lifestyle beliefs. The Jewish leaders had their ideas of what it meant to be Jewish. Christ threatened their security. And for that they killed Him.
I don't want to get so zealous about minor issues that I fail to see the big picture. Christ criticized the Jewish leaders because they tithed mint but failed to grasp the ideas of judgment, faith, and mercy (Matthew 23:23). Tithing was and is important, but mercy is more important. It's important to have lifestyle standards like dress and food but even more important to love people. If your attitudes about what other people are wearing gets in the way of loving them, it's time to take a step back and analyze your religion. If my beliefs about food are causing me to judge others, I need to look at my priorities. People are more important than anything else and we are called to love.
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