re: #339 SanFranciscoZionist

I don’t know the Gospels well. I know that passage because the head of the middle school program at my last teaching job gave it to me when I came to him upset because the kids had questions about a suicide in the community.

He told me that that’s the only time Jesus gives us any insight into who goes to heaven and who doesn’t and why.

i got to know the matthew text fairly well when i was in a phase of studying the bible and reading up on jesus. it has a reputation as the most “jewish” of the gospels and has the best version of the sermon on the mount

what i did was to cut and paste into a file by itself all the places in matthew where it quotes jesus verbatim, and then to study that as, basically, a way to let jesus tell me what is he preaching, directly

naturally, a good jewish boy preaches a righteous jewish philosophy of moral and compassionate behavior