"if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off"; it is better to enter life crippled than to be thrown into the eternal fire; and if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out (a paraphrase of Matthew 18:8–9).

This is the second time in Matthew that Jesus uses this hyperbolic language to convey the seriousness of sin. The first was in the Sermon on the Mount: if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better to lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell; and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away (a paraphrase of Matthew 5:29–30).

In Matthew 5 the instruction comes in the context of Jesus' teaching on adultery. In Matthew 18 it comes in the context of His teaching on causing others to stumble and on sin generally.

We normally understand these passages as hyperbole — deliberate exaggeration. Even if a person tore out an eye or cut off a hand or foot, we understand this would do little to prevent sin. What is somewhat humorous is that Jesus only mentions removing one eye, one hand, or one foot, never both. If one eye caused a person to sin and it were removed, wouldn't the other eye simply take over? The same could be said of the hand or foot.

Jesus said elsewhere that sin is not external but internal; it comes from the heart (Matthew 15:18–19). James also writes that temptation comes from one's own evil desires (James 1:14–15). So why would Jesus prescribe such extreme remedies for sin?

Notice Jesus' words: "if your hand or your foot causes you to sin," and "if your eye causes you to sin." In other words, if it truly were your hand, foot, or eye that caused you to sin, it would be right to remove that agent of sin. Jesus chooses this extreme remedy so that people will not flinch when they need to take lesser actions — for example, ending a relationship with someone who is leading you into sin, or getting rid of a smartphone, cable TV, or computer that is causing you to stumble. The severe remedy is prescribed to make lesser remedies more palatable. It also motivates deeper change of heart, for who wants to lose an eye, a foot, or a hand? Each of us would confess, "It is my heart, Lord, not my eye or hand or foot." Help me change my heart.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Jesus' use of hyperbole here is widely recognized, and early Christian leaders explicitly rejected literal self-mutilation as a misreading of the text. The comment's insight — that the extreme image makes lesser, practical measures seem reasonable — is a helpful way of reading the passage. The point is radical seriousness about sin: whatever regularly leads us into it, however valued, is not worth keeping at the cost of our souls. Paul expresses the same principle in less graphic terms: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you" (Colossians 3:5), and "make no provision for the flesh" (Romans 13:14).

The comment is also right that Jesus locates sin in the heart, which is why external measures alone cannot cure it. Scripture's remedy for the heart is not self-reformation but God's gift of a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) and the Spirit's ongoing work, as believers "by the Spirit... put to death the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:13). Practical steps — the comment's examples of removing temptations — are real acts of obedience, taken in dependence on the Spirit rather than as a substitute for Him. The comment's closing prayer, "Help me change my heart," is exactly where Scripture points.

Whoever divorces his wife, "except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9).

This echoes what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, "and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (a paraphrase of Matthew 5:32).

Everyone tries to focus on the exception rather than the rule. Yet the fundamental teaching is that you must not divorce. The second fundamental teaching is that when divorced people remarry, they commit adultery. In my view, this second rule stands outside the exception, so that it is always true. Normally, when people divorce, they do not stay single. They usually remarry, and when they do, I believe they commit adultery or, at the very least, cause their new spouse to do so.

Yet there is no sin if couples choose to stay together in spite of any presumed exception. I have written elsewhere that I do not believe anyone today, outside a particular Jewish betrothal custom, can claim the exception clause, so I will not reargue it here. But I reiterate that it is clearly better to stay married than to divorce. God hates divorce (cf. Malachi 2:16). Even if divorce were somehow shown to be allowed, God would still hate it. Marriage pictures Christ's relationship to the church (cf. Ephesians 5:22–33). How awful to imagine that Jesus could divorce His bride! The permanence of the marital union is meant to reflect the permanence of Christ's union with the church.

Friends, if you or anyone you know is contemplating divorce, tell them, "Don't do it!" Encourage humility and reconciliation. If there is unfaithfulness in one spouse or the other, consider how often you have been unfaithful to the Lord. Would you want Him to divorce you? How patient and forgiving has He been with you? In cases of abuse, I believe separation — but not divorce — is the right course.

If someone has already divorced and the damage is done, urge them not to remarry, unless they are reconciled to the one they divorced (provided that spouse has not remarried). Encourage them to remain single. Why add sin to sin, adding adultery to the breaking of their sacred covenant before God?

People who excuse their remarriage with words like "God doesn't want me to be unhappy, does He?" show themselves captive to their own desires rather than submitted to God's Word.

I am not on a high horse, looking down on others. My own sinfulness weighs on me. But my inadequacy does not change the truth of God's Word. I do not excuse my sins, nor will I condone those of others. Let us all humbly receive the rebuke of Scripture, repent, and seek the holiness God desires for all of us.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The comment represents one of several positions Christians have held on Jesus' teaching about divorce and remarriage. Its view — that the exception clause refers to unfaithfulness during the Jewish betrothal period (as with Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1:18–19) and does not permit remarriage after a completed marriage — has been held by respected interpreters. Many other Christians, across Protestant traditions, understand Matthew 19:9 to permit divorce and remarriage for the innocent party in cases of adultery, and 1 Corinthians 7:15 to release a believer deserted by an unbelieving spouse. The Catholic Church holds that a valid sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved, while providing for annulment when a marriage was not valid from the beginning. The Eastern Orthodox churches permit remarriage in some circumstances as an act of pastoral mercy.

Across these views, Christians share the comment's conviction that God designed marriage as a lifelong covenant reflecting Christ's faithful love, and that reconciliation should be sought wherever possible. It is also important to say clearly, as many pastors and theologians across traditions affirm, that the safety of an abused spouse and children must come first; Scripture's high view of marriage never requires anyone to remain in danger. For those who have experienced the pain of divorce, the gospel offers the same grace it offers every sinner and sufferer: "a bruised reed he will not break" (Matthew 12:20).

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22).

Jesus commands Peter to forgive "up to seventy times seven." By this, does Jesus intend to set an upper limit? No. He is simply playing upon Peter's initial sense of magnanimous grace in forgiving someone up to seven times. It is as though Jesus was saying, "You think seven times is magnanimous? How about seventy times that amount?!" Jesus' words express limitless forgiveness, for this is the kind of forgiveness God has bestowed on us. This becomes clear in the story Jesus tells following this dialogue, where the debt a servant owed a king is far greater than the relatively tiny sum his fellow servant owed to him.

In view of such a great debt owed to our heavenly Father, how small is any debt owed to us. And in view of the great forgiveness we have received from our heavenly Father, how readily ought we to forgive one another.

That said, as I have written elsewhere and now affirm again, there can be no true place for forgiveness apart from repentance.

Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him (Luke 17:3–4).

Where there is no repentance, there must be rebuke, as the Lord also commanded. Now, if there is no repentance after a private rebuke, then a more public rebuke is required. And if the person still refuses to repent, such a person must be ostracized from the church and treated like an unbeliever:

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matthew 18:15–17).

Now, these passages should be clear enough; however, there are still some, who steadfastly hold to the belief that people should unconditionally forgive any wrong done to them, even when there is no repentance by those that sinned against them.

Since this is not how God forgives sinners, insisting on forgiveness of the unrepentant requires them to depart from God's model for forgiveness. Yet, passages like Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:13 teach that we should forgive as God forgave. God's forgiveness is not so completely unconditional, for it necessitates repentance, which presumes an acknowledgement of sin and the acceptance of forgiveness.

I've heard this passage often quoted to support that idea of unconditional forgiveness:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions (Mark 11:25).

It is preached that this passage gives no opportunity for repentance; therefore, it speaks of a unilateral and unconditional forgiveness. But is that right? There is also no suggestion of repentance with respect to God's forgiveness. Does this mean that as long as we forgive others, we will automatically be forgiven by God without any need for repentance and faith in Christ? What is more, in the verse just preceding this one, we read,

Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you (Mark 11:24).

Shall we also apply this verse unconditionally? If we simply believe that we have received whatever we pray for, will God give it to us?

What I am suggesting here is that Mark 11:25 does not provide a complete picture. Yes, we ought to forgive anything anyone has done against us, but only if they repent. In light of other clearer and more detailed passages (e.g. Luke 17:3–4), it is not improper for us to presume the condition of repentance in the scenario given. The reason Jesus may have left out the condition in Mark may be because He wanted to focus attention on the one offering forgiveness rather than the one seeking it. If they had an attitude like Jonah, they would have refused to forgive even in the presence of repentance. This is also consistent with Jesus' story of the king and his servant (cf. Matthew 18:23–35), where the servant's refusal to have compassion on his pleading fellow servant with a much smaller debt was incompatible with the king's compassion on the repentant servant, who owed a much larger debt. Notice how the lesson of the story is very similar to the lesson of Mark 11:25:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions (Mark 11:25).

You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?... My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart (Matthew 18:32–33,35).

Notice, in the story the king says that he had mercy on the servant because he "pleaded" with him. This is repentance. The king expected this servant to treat his fellow slave in like manner. Now, if you simply read the last verse (Matthew 18:35), you might miss the condition of pleading, for which the king forgave his servant. The rebuke is not simply for a refusal to forgive but a refusal to forgive where there was a similar pleading or repentance. In the same way, let us not look at passages like Mark 11:25 without considering the larger biblical teaching on forgiveness. The king is like the Lord, modeling the manner of forgiveness we should practice, namely, forgiving where there is repentance.

Here is a good treatment on the topic from Questions.org: http://questions.org/attq/should-i-offer-forgiveness-without-repentance/#cit1

AI-Expanded Reflection

Peter’s numerical question invites Jesus to define a generous limit. Jesus’ answer, whether rendered seventy-seven or seventy times seven, dismantles that accounting approach (Matthew 18:21–22). The point is not to create a larger ledger. The following parable contrasts a debt beyond ordinary repayment with a much smaller, though still substantial, debt between fellow servants (Matthew 18:23–35). Having received extraordinary mercy, the first servant refuses the kind of patience he has just requested for himself.

The original rightly keeps this passage within a chapter that also addresses wrongdoing and restoration. Matthew 18:15–20 does not command a community to pretend that sin has not occurred. It describes confrontation, witnesses, and a final communal judgment when a person refuses to listen. Luke 17:3–4 likewise joins rebuke, repentance, and repeated forgiveness. Forgiveness is not equivalent to moral indifference, and Jesus does not require a harmed person to rename evil as harmless in order to be merciful.

The debated question is how those passages relate to Mark 11:25 and other commands to forgive. The author understands repentance as an implied condition throughout. Other Christians distinguish an inward relinquishment of vengeance, which can occur without the offender’s cooperation, from restored relationship, which requires repentance and truth. Still others use forgiveness more broadly while making the same practical distinction about reconciliation. It is helpful to clarify what each person means by the word before concluding that one side wants to excuse wrongdoing or the other wants to preserve bitterness.

The parable itself should not be made more explicit than it is. Both debtors plead for patience and promise payment. Those pleas contribute to the narrative’s comparison, but they are not a detailed account of repentance, changed conduct, or restitution. Jesus’ final emphasis is the contradiction between receiving mercy and withholding it from the heart. The author’s argument about conditional forgiveness is therefore best supported through the wider passages he cites, rather than by identifying every plea for delay as proof of complete repentance.

Several practical commitments remain clear across these interpretations. Christians must refuse personal vengeance and remain open to a genuine turning of the offender (Romans 12:17–21). They must tell the truth about harm. Reconciliation cannot be performed unilaterally, and restored trust is not identical with a declaration of forgiveness. A repentant person may still need to make restitution, accept legal consequences, or live within boundaries that protect others. Forgiving does not require restoring someone immediately to leadership or access to a vulnerable person.

The passage is especially misused when powerful people demand quick forgiveness while avoiding accountability. It is also resisted when injured people are encouraged to make vengeance the permanent organizing center of life. Jesus’ mercy exposes both distortions. The aim is a heart freed from keeping an ultimate personal debt ledger, together with a community serious about repentance, protection, and repair. Where restoration becomes possible, mercy should be ready; where it is not yet possible, truth and appropriate boundaries can remain without becoming permission to seek another person’s destruction.

Jesus said that unless they change and become like little children, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven — and that whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom (a paraphrase of Matthew 18:3–4).

There are not many verses in the Bible that say unless you do something you will never enter the kingdom. The only other that comes to mind involves something entirely out of our hands — the new birth by the Spirit in John 3, where Jesus says no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit, and then describes that work as mysterious and sovereign.

But here an action is commanded. Jesus says unless you change and become like children. The first part suggests they were not like children to begin with. They had just asked who was greatest in the kingdom, which already revealed that their hearts were wrong — and Luke's parallel is more pointed, telling us they were arguing about which of them would be greatest (Luke 9:46). This is what needed to change.

And Jesus explains what He meant: whoever takes the lowly position of this child is greatest. Other translations read, whoever humbles himself as this child. In the next chapter He reiterates it, telling them to let the children come and not hinder them, because the kingdom belongs to such as these (a reference to Matthew 19:14).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The comment is right that the quality in view is stated rather than left to inference, and the word Jesus uses is humility rather than innocence or trust. That matters, because "become like a child" is often read as a commendation of uncritical belief, which sits awkwardly beside the same Gospel's repeated calls to discernment.

The social detail sharpens it. In that household, a child had no legal standing, no property, and no claim to press. That is precisely the condition men arguing about rank would not choose. Jesus does not answer their question by naming a winner; He answers it by pointing at someone with nothing to compete with.

Worth noting the contrast the comment draws is also its most interesting observation: John 3 describes something done to a person, and Matthew 18 describes something asked of them, and both are stated as conditions of entry. Christian traditions differ on how to hold those together, but the New Testament does not seem troubled by stating both.

The disciples ask Christ who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He calls a little child, places the child among them, and says that unless they change and become like little children they will never enter the kingdom — that whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest, and whoever welcomes such a child in His name welcomes Him (a paraphrase of Matthew 18:1–5).

Jesus emphasizes that childlike qualities are rewarded in heaven. He's referring to their faith — children tend to believe without question. Only after they experience deceit and dishonesty do they begin to doubt. The world hardens our hearts and poisons our faith and hope. It's a challenge for adults who have put their hope in people and things, only to be disappointed again and again, to place trust in a God they cannot see.

Faith often starts with hope — a desire to believe — and then either smolders or kindles depending on what we do to grow it. I know from personal experience that a desire to serve God through obedience to His word has made the difference in my faith. Conversely, if we don't seek God daily through prayer and Scripture, our faith can be smothered by the cynicism of our world.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Worth adding a qualification to the common reading of this passage, which this comment mostly avoids but which is easy to slide into: Jesus's point in Matthew 18 is introduced by a question about status, and the word He uses for the child's defining quality is humility, not credulity. In a first-century household a child had no standing to leverage and no claim to press. That is what the disciples, arguing about rank, are being pointed toward. Trust follows from that position rather than constituting it — which matters, because "become like children" read as an endorsement of unexamined belief sits awkwardly beside the same Gospel's repeated calls to discernment.

A man came to Jesus and asked what good thing he must do to get eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the commandments, listed several, and the young man confidently claimed he'd kept them all. "What do I still lack?" Jesus told him: sell your possessions, give to the poor, and follow Me. The young man went away sad, because he had great wealth (a paraphrase of Matthew 19:16–22). Reading this before, my attention always went straight to "sell your possessions" — everyone understands why that drove him away. But I'd never given much thought to the first half: "keep the commandments." Did this man really keep them, or was he self-deceived? I think he was sincere but genuinely mistaken about his own condition. Paul describes the Law working very differently in his own experience: he was alive apart from it, but once the commandment came, sin sprang to life and he died — the very commandment meant to bring life brought death, because sin used it as an opportunity to deceive him (a paraphrase of Romans 7:9–11). For Paul, the Law produced painful awareness of real sinfulness. For this young man, it apparently hadn't — he confidently claimed full compliance, which is why Jesus points directly at his specific blind spot: his wealth. That wealth had become his god, breaking the very first commandment without his recognizing it (see Exodus 20:3). Whatever the Law says, it says to silence every mouth and hold everyone accountable — no one is declared righteous by observing it; through the Law we become conscious of our sin (a paraphrase of Romans 3:19–20). But apart from the Law, God's own righteousness has been revealed — a righteousness given through faith in Jesus Christ to everyone who believes (a paraphrase of Romans 3:21–22). Sincerity alone doesn't save. Salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The specific diagnosis this comment offers — that the young man's "I have kept all these" reveals the Law hadn't yet done its intended work in him — is worth extending with what makes his particular blind spot so instructive: he wasn't lying or being evasive; by his own honest self-assessment, he really had avoided murder, theft, and adultery. His failure was narrower and more specific than general moral laxity — a single commandment, the very first one, quietly broken by an attachment he'd likely never framed to himself in those terms. That's a useful caution against equating a clean conscience regarding obvious sins with a truly clean conscience overall.

Someone asked about Jesus's brothers being listed by name in Matthew 13: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. There's noticeable name overlap with some of the Twelve, which raises the question: were these common names? Yes — these were common Hebrew names in Jesus's day, much like John and James remain popular today, so the overlap is likely coincidental. Unlike what some traditions hold, these appear to be Jesus's biological half-brothers, clearly associated in the text with His mother Mary and Joseph the carpenter, and explicitly distinguished from the Twelve disciples (see also Acts 1:13–14; 1 Corinthians 9:5). Jesus's brothers are mentioned again, though unnamed, in Luke 8:19–20. Paul specifically mentions "James the Lord's brother" in Galatians 1:19 — likely the same James who became a leader of the Jerusalem church and the writer of the New Testament letter bearing his name. What appears in our English Bibles are the Greek equivalents of the original Hebrew names, since the New Testament was written in Greek (just as "Jesus" is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The question this comment addresses — who exactly were Jesus's "brothers"? — is worth naming as genuinely contested across Christian traditions rather than a settled matter, even though this comment assumes the straightforward biological reading. The disagreement traces back not to differences in how seriously either side takes the Gospel text, but to differing theological convictions about Mary specifically. That framing is worth holding whenever the question comes up: readers land in different places here based on what other doctrinal commitments they're bringing to their reading, not because one side is ignoring what the text says.

On two separate occasions, someone asked Jesus the same question: "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" — once a rich young man (see Matthew 19:16–30), once a teacher of the law (see Luke 10:25–37). Jesus told both of them to keep the Law. Neither left it there. The young man claimed he'd kept it all; the teacher, Luke tells us, asked his follow-up question specifically because he "wanted to justify himself" (Luke 10:29). In both cases, Jesus's response exposed the true condition of their hearts: He told the young man to sell his possessions and follow Him — and the young man walked away sad. He told the teacher a story about a Samaritan, flipping the teacher's question from "who is my neighbor" to "to whom have you actually been a neighbor?" Luke explicitly says Jesus told that parable against those "confident in their own righteousness" (see Luke 18:9), which likely captures both men's underlying motive. Paul describes this same tendency in Israel generally: genuinely zealous for God, but not according to real knowledge, seeking to establish their own righteousness rather than submitting to God's (a paraphrase of Romans 10:1–3). Jesus makes clear that no one inherits eternal life through their own effort: "with people, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible" (a paraphrase of Matthew 19:26). Salvation is God's work alone, received by grace through faith (see Romans 3:24–25); everyone who tries to justify themselves will fail (a reference to Romans 3:23). As Peter declares, salvation is found in no one else, since there's no other name given under heaven by which anyone can be saved (a paraphrase of Acts 4:12). So for anyone genuinely asking what they must do to inherit eternal life: strictly speaking, there's nothing to do — no effort justifies anyone — but if you've been given the grace to trust in Jesus as Savior, acknowledge that salvation comes from God alone, and give Him all the glory.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The parallel this comment draws between these two very different men is worth noting for how differently their self-justification manifests, even though Luke identifies the identical underlying motive in both. The young man's obstacle was tangible and visible — his wealth; the teacher's was subtler, hidden inside a seemingly reasonable theological question about the scope of a command he'd already claimed to keep. That range suggests self-justification doesn't always look like obvious moral failure — sometimes, as with the legal expert, it looks exactly like careful, technical theological precision, deployed specifically to narrow a command's scope just enough to make it something already accomplished.