BIAY - Extravagant grace
Matthew 20-22, Psalm 66
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
Scandal of generosity (20:13-16) - This is the first parable that I understood and felt the scandalous nature of God’s grace and generosity, His opposition to earning. The men from the morning all agree to their wage, but want to be rewarded differently because they worked longer hours than those who began late in the day. It felt (and feels) unfair, yet it isn’t because the workers agreed to a fair wage—a day’s pay for a day’s work. But the point is that to be kingdom people, we must love God’s generosity, even when it seems odd or, dare we say it, off-putting to us.
Prayer requests (20:31-34) - The blind men receive a powerful invitation from Jesus in the form of a simple question: “What do you want me to do for you?” We know from experience that He doesn’t always do what we ask. But this story keeps me asking Him for what I perceive as my needs and my wants. I’ll trust Him with the answers.
Prickly parables (21:28-46) - We often think of the parables as crowd-pleasing down-to-earth stories that helped people understand God’s kingdom with accessible illustrations from everyday life. That’s true but incomplete. In the case of these, their audience understood them alright, but they were pointed, challenging the religious leaders and calling them out for their hypocrisy and opposition to God in Jesus.
Give to God what is His (22:18-22) - Jesus has a way of turning traps around on the would-be trappers. The dispute about paying taxes to Caesar is a great example. Just when they think they’ve got Him stuck commenting on politics, He seizes the opportunity for a lesson in faithfulness. What image is on the coin? Caesar’s, of course. And what image is on human beings? Everyone in earshot would know the answer to that one—God’s image! (Genesis 1:27) Just as a coin with Caesar’s image is to be given back to Caesar, a human with God’s image is made to be given back to God.
Questions:
Are you able to love God’s generosity even when it seems more extravagant to others?
What do you want to ask Jesus to do for you that you’ve been holding back?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, help me give myself to you each day so that I may reflect your image in my character and my actions. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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