Read­ing Time: 2 minutes Intro­duc­tion    With par­ables based on con­crete and every­day life, Jesus con­tin­ues to por­tray the true image of the king­dom of God. The idea of a house­hold­er who goes out in search of labour­ers is def­in­itely not strange to us. Mov­ing along our vari­ous major cit­ies is a daily scene. We see labour­ers wait­ing to be hired for the day’s job. Hav­ing out­lined the pro­ced­ure for set­tling dis­putes and indic­ated that it is nat­ur­al that Jesus under­lines anoth­er aspect of the king­dom of God, Since…

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Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion This Sunday’s Gos­pel (18:21–35) is a fol­low-up to that of last Sunday (Matt 18:15–20). The theme of con­flict can­not be con­cluded without touch­ing on the theme of for­give­ness too. Accord­ing to Jesus, “If your broth­er or sis­ter sins, go and point out his or her fault, just between the two of you. If he or she listens to you, you have won him or her over. But if he or she will not listen, take one or two oth­ers from the com­munity along, so that ‘every…

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Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion Beloved read­er, wel­come to a new week! I hope you are gradu­ally identi­fy­ing your obstacles. It is good that at the begin­ning of the “ember” months, the Gos­pel presents us, with guidelines on how to resolve our con­flicts. Con­flicts are really ser­i­ous obstacles we should know how to handle. Con­flict is a double-edged sword. In the same man­ner, the effect of con­flicts depends on how we handle them. If we handle them adequately, prudently, and with intel­li­gence, they can for­ti­fy our lives and relationships.…

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Read­ing Time: 2 minutes Intro­duc­tion   In the Gos­pel of last Sunday (Matt 16:13–20), Jesus’ iden­tity (as the anoin­ted One of God – Chris­tos) was revealed and cla­ri­fied. In this week’s Gos­pel, Jesus unveils the sig­ni­fic­ance and con­tent of being God’s anoin­ted. It is not a post of hon­our, glory, exal­ta­tion, power, or mater­i­al acquis­i­tion. It is a pos­i­tion of ser­vice and ser­vice alone. This is a vital point on which every religious/Christian lead­er should reflect. Today, it is very clear that almost 80%–85% of religious/Christian lead­ers are confused…

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Read­ing Time: 2 minutes Intro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing presents before us a very vital theme: iden­tity. There are vari­ous and var­ied defin­i­tions of iden­tity. Gen­er­ally, iden­tity is the con­di­tion of being the same as some­thing described, claimed, or asser­ted, or of pos­sess­ing a char­ac­ter claimed. That is, if “X” is a teach­er and “Y” is a trader, both must show the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a teach­er and a trader. Fail­ure to do so res­ults in an iden­tity crisis and even­tu­ally the loss of one’s iden­tity. In oth­er words, if…

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