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Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

God is not impressed with our money, He’s impressed with our heart. He doesn’t care how many dollars you give, He wants you to acknowledge that He is the owner of everything. We give him a 10% off the top to demonstrate that everything we have comes from Him and that we don’t rely on money to survive, we rely on Jesus. When you give, do so from a position of generosity, not obligation. Give with a cheerful heart, not begrudgingly. You’ll be blessed if you do!

Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

The vineyard is the Kingdom of God. The workers of the vineyard are the leaders of Israel. God sent prophets to Israel, they killed them. He finally sent them His own Son, they killed Him too. Most Christians aren’t aware of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD70. I believe God used his disciples to replace the leadership of the temple system and that he used the Roman army to destroy their temple within a generation of Jesus’ death, just like He said He would. Always take God at His word. Listen to Him, He has a beautiful vineyard to share, but it’s His vineyard.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.

God is not a man, neither is God a woman. God is neither male nor female, though the masculine definite article is used when referring to God, but that is an issue of language, not so much gender. Jesus, of course, is a man, but God doesn’t have a gender. That doesn’t mean you can refer to God as either male or female, the inclusive gender is male, that’s why God is always properly referred to linguistically as male. The Holy Spirit is a person and God. He is also referred to using masculine pronouns because of who He is, He is not an “it.” Even though the word “spirit” in Greek is feminine, the Bible uses the masculine definite article for the Holy Spirit. I say all this to draw out the truth that BOTH GENDERS reflect the image of God. In Genesis 1:27 we learn that God created humans male and female in His image, not just men, not just women. There are a lot of verses that refer to God using feminine imagery, Matthew 23 is a good example. Just like another hen gathers her chicks, that’s what God wants to do. Don’t think of God as a man, He’s much greater than that, He’s not human, He’s not created, He’s God. If Men are “blue” and women are “pink” God is “purple.”

Here are some passages where you can find female imagery referring to God: Numb 11; Deut 32; Psalm 22, 71, 131; Prov 8; Neh 9; Isa 46, 49, 66; Hos 11; Job 38; Matt 23; Luke 13, 15; John 3; Acts 17; 1John 4, 5

And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

You don’t get into a debate with Jesus. He used their own book against them. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the spiritual, heaven and hell, angels and demons, they didn’t believe, nor did they believe in the resurrection. Jesus gave them the proof. God is the God of Moses… presently. How is that possible unless there’s a resurrection? The only hope of life after death is the resurrection. That’s why Paul says without the resurrection we may as well go have fun. That’s the hope of believers. Not reaching some higher enlightenment, not simply a better life now, not some floating non-existence playing a harp on a cloud… the resurrection of the dead. That’s the Blessed Hope we await! The Lord will return because he’s our God.