{"id":9934,"date":"2021-10-15T06:37:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T11:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-13\/"},"modified":"2021-10-02T13:10:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T18:10:59","slug":"devotional-on-matthew-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Matthew"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2014 – Arches National Park, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teaching on teaching<\/p>\n

Matthew 13: Are you starting to get a handle on all this?<\/p>\n

In this chapter Matthew gives us several examples of Jesus teaching. We hear about the sower and the seed, a series of stories about how, in the Judgment, the division of the human race will take place and stories that illustrate the growth of the Kingdom of God. Of course, each story is true and helps us better understand spiritual reality. However, the overall purpose of the stories is to teach the disciples how to teach kingdom truths. Jesus explains that the reason he tells stories is to \u201ccreate readiness.\u201d If he begins his teachings at the high school level, all those who are at the elementary level are left out. Therefore, he starts with stories that pry open some new small comprehension that wasn\u2019t there before. As he concludes this \u201cteaching on teaching\u201d Jesus asks his disciples if they get it. I think \u201cgetting it\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that we Sunday preachers are supposed to always build our sermons around stories (although it\u2019s not a bad idea). Instead, \u201cgetting it\u201d means that we remember to start our preaching at the level of our listeners. Seasoned students of the Word tend to forget that things we take for granted are new territory for others. We also like \u201cchurch words\u201d and freely sprinkle them into our sermons. On one hand, we don\u2019t want to show disrespect for people by talking down to them. On the other hand, we don\u2019t want to be so \u201cabove and beyond\u201d that the average person is untouched by truths that could transform their lives.<\/p>\n

Take Away: We need to minister to people at their level of understanding.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teaching on teaching Matthew 13: Are you starting to get a handle on all this? In this chapter Matthew gives us several examples of Jesus teaching. We hear about the sower and the seed, a series of stories about how, in the Judgment, the division of the human race will take place and stories that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1518,1428],"tags":[1188,801,850,1200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15665,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions\/15665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}