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Gospel commentary index Lectionary Year A

Ian Paul | August 20, 2025January 15, 2026 | Biblical Studies | 13 Comments

On this page, you can find an index to all the commentary articles on the gospel lectionary readings for the whole of Year A, together with links to the video discussions between Ian and James. The articles will be reposted with updates during the year—but they are listed here for convenience and planning ahead.

Living in Love and Faith—a personal reflection

Ian Paul | February 3, 2026February 3, 2026 | Sexuality | 38 Comments

Paul Chamberlain writes: I’m a priest in the Church of England, the vicar of a parish in Portsmouth Diocese, the Area Dean of Gosport, and a member of General Synod. Same-sex attraction is part of my story, although my wife and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary later this year, and we have two teenage boys.

My story

I became aware my same-sex attraction when I was a teenager, and have always had Christian friends with whom I have been able to talk about it. I first publicly spoke about my same-sex attraction in 2019, in a sermon on sex and sexuality. Prior to this, I spent the previous couple of years telling my parents and others, who I felt should hear directly from me, rather in a public message. If you want to know more of my story, you can listen to this edition of the Living Out podcast.

I told my story of same-sex attraction in 2019, because I wanted to share my positive experience of being same-sex attracted in evangelical churches. I was (and am) very conscious of a narrative in parts of the church which says that holding a traditional/orthodox view of sex and marriage is toxic to same-sex attracted people. This has not been my experience, and I wanted to be able say so.

I also wanted to be able to contribute to the wider Church of England discussions on sexuality in a grounded way—not as an abstract theological “issue”, but as something which has affected, and continues to affect, my life. Since I first told my story publicly, I have been grateful to find others doing the same, and continuing to hold to the traditional teaching of the church. The Living Out podcast, among other places, shares some of their stories; they are very much worth a listen.

The Church of England has been discussing human sexuality, and our responses to it, for 50 years. In the last decade we have had the Shared Conversations (2014–2016), and the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process (2017 to the present). I joined General Synod at the start of the current quinquennium, in 2021, and have since sat through the many, many hours of presentations and debates on Living in Love and Faith. Looking back, I estimate General Synod has had nearly 40 hours on LLF in the last 4 years; that’s a lot of time on this one subject. However, despite all these hours spent discussing, we are no closer to a settled position on these issues than we were a decade ago; we in the Church of England remain significantly divided.

Will God actually provide for our needs in Matthew 6?

Ian Paul | February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 | Biblical Studies | 3 Comments

The Sunday lectionary gospel reading for the Second Sunday before Lent in Year A, is Matthew 6.25–34, a section of the so-called Sermon on the Mount. The epistle is the remarkable exposition by Paul of our hope of new creation in Romans 8.18–25—often called the pinnacle of the New Testament. The video discussion of Romans 8 can be found here, and the video discussion of Matthew 6 can be found here. Both are reposted at the end of this article.

In Matt 6, Jesus appears to argue that the followers of Jesus should live a carefree life as they seek the kingdom of God, not being concerned with future provision, but living day to day in simple trust. It thus raises significant questions about whether this is realistic teaching, or an unrealistic aspiration—since even Jesus’ first listeners needed to plan ahead if they were to live and thrive, in the seasons of planting, growth and harvesting of an agricultural economy, still more for us in a post-industrial context. And the illustrations Jesus uses might seem to lack credibility; should we really seek to learn from the birds, who die by the thousand in the winter because of shortage of food? A careful reading of the text might help us answer some of these questions.

This section of the Sermon consists of a number of sayings, some of which appear to have only a loose connection with each other, though the teaching from Matt 6.25–33 appears to function as a coherent unit, with a logical shape and flow to it. Around it we have sayings about not laying up treasures (v 19), the eye as the lamp of the body (v 22), the two masters, God and mammon (v 24), on not being anxious (v 34), and on not judging (Matt 7.1). Their discontinuity, and the fact that they come in different places in Luke (Luke 12.33, 11.34, 16.13, 12.22, and 6.37) demonstrate that Matthew has brought these teachings together in one place, but that they were not necessarily taught together by Jesus originally.