Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

After the events we discussed yesterday and read about again today, the triumphant

entry into Jerusalem and the cleansing of the temple, Jesus and His apostles go to the

outskirts of Jerusalem to spend the night, maybe even at the home of their friends Mary,

Martha, and Lazarus, who live in the village of Bethany.

The next morning as they're heading back into the city, they pass the fig tree Jesus

cursed.

Peters like, whoa, check it out, it's withered down to the root.

And while this is actually a bad sign as far as the imagery for Israel is concerned, Jesus

takes the opportunity to redeem the image.

He turns it into an object lesson for Peter, pointing out aspects of faith and prayer

and forgiveness that he expounds on more elsewhere in Scripture.

Since Jesus covers these topics at length in other spots, we won't dive into them much

here except to offer this quick reminder.

The first rule of Scripture interpretation is that Scripture interprets Scripture.

So we have to be careful not to isolate these passages from everything else Jesus says

when he teaches on these things, or we'll end up with an incomplete doctrine and

a skewed theology.

These verses on prayer aren't just giving us the power to make things happen if we believe

them strong enough.

This is not putting the Onus on you to create enough faith in yourself.

And the verses on forgiveness can make it sound like some kind of work we have to do

...