The Gospel of Matthew Quotes

“Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church’ service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.”
― William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28

“The first servant owed his master 10,000 talents – and a talent was the equivalent of fifteen years’ wages. That is an incredible debt. It was more than the total budget of the ordinary province. The total revenue of the province which contained Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria was only 600 talents; the total revenue of even a wealthy province like Galilee was only 300 talents. Against that background, this debt is staggering. It was this that the servant was forgiven. The debt which a fellow servant owed him was a trifling thing; it was 100 denarii, and a denarius was the usual day’s wage for a working man. It was therefore a mere fraction of his own debt. The biblical scholar A. R. S. Kennedy drew this vivid picture to contrast the debts. Suppose they were paid in small coins (he suggested sixpences; we might think in terms of 5-pence pieces or dimes). The 100-denarii debt could be carried in one pocket. The 10,000-talent debt would take an army of about 8,600 carriers to carry it, each carrying a sack of coins 60 lb in weight; and they would form, at a distance of a yard apart, a line five miles long! The contrast between the debts is staggering. The point is that nothing that others can do to us can in any way compare with what we have done to God; and if God has forgiven us the debt we owe to him, we must forgive our neighbours the debts they owe to us. Nothing that we have to forgive can even faintly or remotely compare with what we have been forgiven. As A. M. Toplady’s great hymn ‘Rock of Ages’ has it: Not the labours of my hands Can fulfil thy law’s demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears for ever flow, All for sin could not atone.”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 2

“We may take it into the sphere of the home. One of the earliest interpretations of this saying of Jesus was that the two or three are father, mother and child, and that it means that Jesus is there, the unseen guest in every home. There are those who never give of their best except on the so-called great occasion; but, for Jesus Christ, every occasion where even two or three are gathered in his name is a great occasion.”
― William Barclay, New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew 2

“Whenever religion becomes a depressing affair of burdens and prohibitions, it ceases to be true religion.”
― William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28