Daily Dose of Hope

July 7, 2025

Scripture - Matthew 22:1-22

Prayer: Holy God, We come before you this morning in awe of your blessings and love. Thank you, Lord, for the ways you continue to guide our lives. Lord, we want more intimacy with you. We are desperate to know you better. In these next few moments of silence, Jesus, please speak to us. We need to hear your voice... In Your Name, Amen.

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and Acts. Today is the first day of Vacation Bible School (VBS) at New Hope. We are expecting close to 200 children. Please pray for every single child and their families, may they come to know Jesus.

Today, we are starting Matthew 22. We are starting with the parable of the wedding banquet and it’s a hard one. Let’s remember that parables are not meant to be taken literally. Parables are intended to surprise the audience to make a point. What can we learn from the Kingdom of God from this parable? Let’s be careful not to make arbitrary links between the text and God. For instance, the king is like God in some ways, but he is not the same as God. Also, his son is not Jesus.

This particular parable is somewhat complex and difficult to make sense of. Why did the king not invite everyone to his banquet from the beginning? Why did the invited guests reject the king’s invitation? That would have been unheard of in their culture! And then, the king’s violence against the guests who didn’t attend does not make a lot of sense. What is the radical message of this parable?

One possibility is that Jesus is actually continuing the parables of the Two Sons and the Wicked Tenants by making the point that there is nothing more important than doing God’s will. Even though people are called or invited to do God’s work, they may neglect or refuse it, consumed with their own needs and self-interest. But God isn’t giving up on his work of saving people and calling others to join him in that task. The subversive message might be that the position and status of religious leaders, such as the Pharisees, will not last forever. God is going to achieve his purposes no matter what. It may mean breaking traditions and doing new things.

And then we have the passage about paying tax to Caesar. The Jewish leaders are really trying to find a way to trap Jesus. By this point, they can’t stand him and they simply want him out of their way. He threatens their authority and what they find important. Thus, they ask him about the poll tax. We discussed this in Mark too. This was a flat tax that every person living in the Roman Empire was forced to pay. To the Jews, it was a reminder that they were far from free. If Jesus had responded with a positive remark like “yes, definitely pay it!” then he would have turned off a lot of his audience. If he had said, “don’t pay it!” then he would have been seen as turning against Rome, a dangerous thing. The way that Jesus answered the question blew everyone away!

More tomorrow.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki