scripture with commentary

These scripture quotations are taken from "the Message" translation. I dont know the copyright info, and i obtained my electronic copy without cost. In the updated engine I use to read it, the module for "the Message" is no longer free. So if I copied and distributed my copy of the module, I could be liable for illegally distributing the Word of God. Not because the Word is restricted, but because somebody[s] thinks that they deserve some sort of monetary justification to allow you to read /their/ version of Gods word. Several versions have this property. The only reason to require payment for a bible *should* be to cover Media costs (paper,disks) and distribution costs (retail markup, server overhead) and/or if you had to take out a loan to do the translation work. Which is dumb - there are countless organizations that would donate you a closet so you could translate the bible, as long as you asked nicely. Make Scripture free. Its the right thing to do.

Um...this is a really really really long post. Sorry. Have fun.


Mat 18:4 Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom.

Mat 18:5 What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.

Mat 18:6 "But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.

Mat 18:7 Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don't have to make it worse--and it's doomsday to you if you do.

Mat 18:8 "If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You're better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire.

Mat 18:9 And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You're better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

Mat 18:10 "Watch that you don't treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don't you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?



Mat 18:12 "Look at it this way. If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine and go after the one?

Mat 18:13 And if he finds it, doesn't he make far more over it than over the ninety-nine who stay put?
Mat 18:14 Your Father in heaven feels the same way. He doesn't want to lose even one of these simple believers.



Mat 18:15 "If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him--work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend.

---try #1. Remember this is about rectification of wrongdoing. Forgiveness is something you do inside you. Going to someone else is about correcting a problem, and you may need to forgive them in order to be able to have a civil discussion, but this proceedure is not instructions on forgiveness. Just remember to forgive the person at every step. The reason is more appearant by the end.



Mat 18:16 If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again.

---try #2. with acountability



Mat 18:17 If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love.

---try #3. with authority. If the 3rd confrontation fails to provide resolution, then start as though they dont understand what is right, and need absolute education. Even though they should have done right the first try, after the third do not just poke 'em in the eye and leave 'em for idiot. Not willing that any should perish or be left, remember.



Mat 18:18 "Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this.

--- Cautions - dont shoot off your mouth from the hip. words are not empty - do not open your mouth lightly



Mat 18:19 When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action.

Mat 18:20 And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there."

--- encouragement. We're gonna need some after we give someone 3 chances and then start over and do it again without results.



Mat 18:21 At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, "Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?"

--- ?!? Seven!? i thought just the three was going to be hard on my preception of procedure.



Mat 18:22 Jesus replied, "Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.

--- oh, endlessly. An initial wrongdoing, a chance for reconciliation... an /endless/ chance for reconciliation. Without malice, without regret. no wonder the Lord called it a cross when he said to take it up and follow Him.



Mat 18:23 "The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants.

Mat 18:24 As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars.

Mat 18:25 He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.

Mat 18:26 "The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.'

Mat 18:27 Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt.

Mat 18:28 "The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, 'Pay up. Now!'

Mat 18:29 "The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.'

Mat 18:30 But he wouldn't do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid.

Mat 18:31 When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.

Mat 18:32 "The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy.

--- and now we feel stupid. Redemption from all unrighteousness, and we can still carry malice? Whats wrong with us? are we blind? do we not see? is the book wrong? There is little evidence against the book - it is complete in its scope and exemplary in standard. Which gives creedence to the feelings of stupid. Great, now we are insulting ourselves. Wonder if its harder to forgive yourself than to forgive someone you can walk away from?



Mat 18:33 Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?'

--- "compelled" is a good word. a sort of "forced to go along with". Not a "follow the example" but a "you arent being shown how - just do this thing along with me".


Mat 18:34 The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt.

---interesting translation. Accurate in most extent, but our language seems weak in conveying concepts. it should be more like "The king was raging furious and personally threw the dude into the dungeon with all the creepy proding, poking, dismemberish inhumane dungeonkeeper dungeon stuff until his debt was paid." The modern meaning of "put the screws" doesn't conjure the image that it would have 1500 to 2000 years ago.



Mat 18:35 And that's exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy."

--- Ooooh. ouch. Better get this one figured out. And I don't see the "anyone who asks for mercy" part actually being there. Original text is more along the scope of "you with your heart forgive the other person every stumbling of themselves".

Blindness to Relationship

Why do we not understand love?

Why do we forget how love can consume our existence? Is the 139th Psalm a broad-overview statement of clinical omnipresence; or is it the song of a heart so drowned in love that the heart's lover is so inescapable even hell can not take Love's Raptured Presence away?



So we hate and kill like abused, lovesick dogs. Not even comprehending love songs when they are scripted before us. Script is an interesting word, defined as "write". It is more than that - it is the essence of conveyable action. Theater or screen scripts are the skeleton of the life and emotion that the story /breathes/. Computer scripts are the texts that govern bits and streams of process to perform powerful operations with minimal opportunity of randomization. So a script is a picture of action (including emotion).



And still we approach emotion like it doesn't exist. When the psalmist writes, "when I awake, I am still with thee" or, "Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!" or, "I have waked, and I am still with Thee" or, "When I awake, I am still with thee," there is some strength in a wager that there is no disgruntled animosity between the scriptor and the one being addressed. Reading the passage recently, it vividly reminded me of waking and looking across the bed at the one I love, and thinking, "you are still here" in words and "I love you" in emotion. What if this Psalm is the same: not an observance of the Presence of an omnipresent God that is presented by far too much tradition of Church and Creed and Theological Idiot-ness; but a song of emotion and love and stirring in the heart of someone so deep in a personal relationship that even in the wildest fantasy the Love is still more vivid than dawn-light sun burning color back into the night world, or than brain warping concepts like time. There is color in the script; emotion, love, and passion. Why do we treat everything like a science textbook babbling on about flaming balls of gas when we should be looking at (or at least remembering) the carpet of coloured gems that we call stars in the sky above us?