Jesus could not reach them in their solitude and self-assurance. Only by his death could he hope to crack open their isolation from God’s love for them. Not all Pharisees were enemies of the Gospel.

Once again, the Pharisees want to trap Jesus. Matthew 22 is full of controversies. After opening with the parable of the wedding feast and the man without a wedding garment, there follow four ...

The Rev. Charles E. Whited Jr. is senior pastor of First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda. Raised in an atheist family, he became a Christian at the age of 18.

Throughout Matthew 22, Jesus has been on the receiving end of various theological debates — with the Pharisees over paying taxes to Caesar, and the Sadducees over the resurrection of the dead.

Like the Pharisees who spoke to Jesus with soothing words of adulation, Christians who engage in hypocrisy speak gently yet "brutally judge a person," the pope said June 6 at his early morning Mass.