What did the First Christians believe about the New Covenant? I’m talking about those Christians who were alive in the days when the New Testament was being written, when they could ask questions of those who had heard Jesus speak (or perhaps had even heard him themselves). These were heady days for those folks.

It does seem to me, in the discussions I have heard about the Old and New Covenants, that there is something about them that very few people have understood. But before I go into that question, I’ll have to cover a little background. So let’s discuss a couple of ideas: the concept of the mind as a closet never cleaned out and the dilemma of the double bind.

Also see the following messages:

• A Closet Never Cleaned Out
• The Double Bind

I know that Jesus was a gentle man. I am certain that he was kind, that he was merciful, and very gentle with the people he dealt with. But, you know, at the same time he was straight as a die—he was totally honest. And sometimes honesty can be brutal. He could look a man straight in the eye and tell him he was a hypocrite…because that’s what he was. When you see what a man is, you can tell him, right? Of course, sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t—but from Jesus that’s what you got. On one occasion, Jesus says to the assembled crowd:

[…] The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not according to their works: for they say, and do not.

Nowadays, we think of a government divided into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The separation of powers and checks and balances are fundamental to our system. But Moses was all three to Israel: he was a lawgiver, he was an executive, and he was also the judge. But as the burden grew over time, the responsibility of judging was distributed to a system of judges. The judges were a legitimate authority in the community, and their judgements took on the force of law. Plainly, Jesus felt the judiciary was corrupt in his time. That did not in any way justify ignoring their civil decisions, but it meant that their moral authority was bankrupt. Let’s see what else Jesus had to say about the system of his day, and what we could learn from it, in Matthew 23.

There is a time in a man’s life when he must act—when he must seize the day. There are moments of opportunity; there are simple chances to do things—an opening to produce something really worthwhile. And when you let those moments pass, they never come your way again. It’s a deep lesson, a profound lesson, and I think it lies at the root of a curious incident in Jesus’ ministry.

In Matthew 21, Jesus is staying near Jerusalem in a little town called Bethany. He was on his way into Jerusalem early in the morning, and he was hungry. As he walked along the way he saw a fig tree, the season was such that there should have been fruit on it. He walked over to it, looked for fruit, and found nothing but leaves. And he said to it, Let no fruit grow on you again forever and the fig tree withered away.

Now, that seems to me like a strange thing for Jesus to do, and I don’t think he would have done—nor Matthew recorded it—it unless there was a lesson for his disciples and all of us to learn from it. There are times when you and I ought to be producing something—putting something out. And if we don’t do so, then our time will pass and we will never get the opportunity again. Jesus developed a theme not unlike this in the 13th chapter of Luke…

What is the Kingdom of Heaven like, really? Listening to preachers when I was growing up, I was under the impression that the Kingdom of Heaven was Heaven itself—that is was a city with streets of gold, where we dined on milk and honey, and spent all of our days looking up into the master’s face. There was a river there where we could get together with loved ones, renew old acquaintances, and shed copious tears when we embrace someone that we had not seen in so very long and had been worried about.

But, you know, Jesus’ disciples started out with a rather different view. They were looking for a messianic kingdom. They thought the Kingdom of Heaven would be Jesus leading a revolt and throwing out the Romans. We’re going to get a mob together, arm the people with swords, assault the Roman strongholds, and reestablish the Kingdom of David. Things would be like they were in the good old days.

But as the disciples listened to Jesus, they became a little confused about the Kingdom because when Jesus said, The Kingdom of Heaven is like… the parable that followed did not fit their presuppositions—it was not what they expected at all. The funny thing is…it doesn’t fit ours either. We’ll begin in Matthew 19, with Jesus’ answer to question posed to him by a young, wealthy man: Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

What is it about children that makes some people so ready to dismiss them as though they were of no consequence? You know, I have finally become convinced that one of the the reasons children behave badly is because no one pays any attention to them when they behave well. After all, a kid who behaves all the time is like wallpaper, a piece of furniture, or background music—they’re there, they’re appreciated. We pat them on the head, feed them, make sure they have clothes to wear and a bed to sleep in, and there’s really no worry apart from that. On the other hand, when children are bad we pay attention. Many kids are willing to risk the wrath of Mom and Dad just to get some recognition.

Too often, children are treated like non-persons. When I was growing up, I heard it said that little owls have big ears when the conversation around children turned to something they shouldn’t hear. Now, people say all kinds of things in front of children like they were waiters in a restaurant. And when they are inconvenient, we can just get rid of them. I don’t mean kill them off (though, regrettably, in extreme cases, that happens). I’m talking about parents who leave their children home alone and go off on vacation—little kids. And then there is the ever-increasing number of children who are being raised by their grandparents because their parents are unable, or unwilling, to get their lives to together. I wonder about what we are going to do when the last generation of grandparents—who really care about children—are gone. Jesus provides for us an excellent example of the proper attitude and responsibility towards children in Matthew 19:

Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Allow little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Can a Christian take up arms against another person, or another nation? Can a Christian ever be responsible for the death of another human being? Thousands of Christians serve in the military and law enforcement with a clear conscience. Are they wrong? Are the misguided? What is it they don't understand? Or...what is it that those on the other side of the question don't understand?

Well, first, let's clarify a few things...a few things about God.

When you were on your way home from work yesterday, and you drove by a schoolyard with a couple of hundred kids out there—either playing, or waiting for buses, or waiting for Mom and Dad to pick them up—did it ever cross your mind that, of all those children out there, fully one half of them are going to have to go through (or have already been through) a divorce? That’s the way it is nowadays, about half of all children, before they reach adulthood, are going to experience the rupture of their family. Their parents who, once upon a time, loved each other more than any other human being on the face of the planet, have now come to loath and despise one another with the same intensity. So they’re splitting up, and guess who gets the greatest emotional and psychological burden of it all. Right—the children. And about one third of those kids will go through it again.

One of the stupidest things I’ve heard on this subject it that, Well, the kids will be alright. They will adjust to it. Yes, they’ll adjust to it—just as people who go to prison adjust to it. People who get committed to a mental hospital adjust to it. What kind of adjustments to kids make to divorce? Well, they’ve done some studies on that, so we don’t have to guess. Many become more passive, dependent, and repetitive in the way they go about their days. Some become less affectionate, more disobedient. Some display resent, anxiety, and grief. One study found that, ten years later, children show signs of stress left over from a divorce—with more ulcers, poor school performance, and a higher suicide rate. And when they grow up and get married, they are far more likely to get divorced.

So children do make adjustments to the breakup of marriage. But these are not adjustments I would ever want my kids to go through, would you? Maybe, then, we can begin to understand why Jesus took such a hard line on divorce. When the Pharisees confronted him with a contentious question regarding divorce in different schools of rabbinical thought, they were again challenged by his answer. We’ll find it in Matthew, chapter 19.

Is it possible for a sinner to be forgiven and then have that forgiveness taken away? It doesn’t sound right, does it. After all, God says he will remove our sins from us as far as the East is from the West and that your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more. Then surely once we are forgiven, we are always forgiven, right? No one can take that away from us, right?

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

In case your math isn’t good, that’s 490 times you’re supposed to forgive your brother. You should know this is not a literal number—they are symbolic numbers that mean you should keep on forgiving your brother as long as there is anything to forgive. There is no limit to your forgiveness. To underline this point, he gave Peter a kind of parable. We’ll find it in Matthew, chapter 18.