Welcome to the John Mark Comer Teachings Podcast by practicing the way.

This teaching was originally given at Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon

as a part of the Gospel of Matthew Series. Do not come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to

fulfill them for truly I tell you until heaven and earth disappear not smallest letter, nor the least stroke of a pen,

will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.

Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly

will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers

of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

You have opened in your lap a collection of writings that we call the Bible.

We think of it as a book, but actually it's more of a library

with all sorts of writings in it. Most of it is story, but then there's a ton of poetry, a memoir or two or three, legal code, genealogy, a number of wisdom one-liners that are great like for 140 characters.

There's a play in there, quite a few letters, a number of biographies of

Jesus of Nazareth and a few other people, a theological essay or two, a genre of literature

we don't even have anymore called apocalyptic.

There's a whole lot in here about life after death.

Actually, there's very little about that.

There's a whole lot about life before death.

So much is in here.

And this library was written by a number of authors, well into several

dozen, not to mention all the editors who worked on the project, over a period of a thousand

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