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  "description": "Notes on Matthew 7:21-27",
  "path": "/friday-in-the-sixth-week-of-easter/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-15T09:09:45.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.parrott.ink",
  "textContent": "#\n\n## Readings\n\n  * 1 Samuel 2:1–10\n  * Ephesians 2:1–10\n  * Matthew 7:(21), 22–27\n  * Psalms: 85, 86; 91, 92\n\n\n\n## Matthew 7:21–27\n\n\"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.'\n\n\"Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!\"\n\n## Notes\n\nThe closing paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount.\n\nTwo conceptual notes before the verses.\n\n_This is not a passage about heaven and hell._ Jesus' subject across the Sermon on the Mount and across the gospels is _the kingdom of God_. The kingdom is something that _arrives_. The question on the table at verse 22 is not _did you make it to heaven_ but _did you participate in the life of the kingdom while it was being offered_. The \"I never knew you\" is about _now_ , not about afterlife geography.\n\n_This passage is anxiety-producing…but usually for the wrong people._ The folks who read it and worry _is this about me?_ are probably not who Jesus is describing. Self-reflection is itself a sign of exactly the kind of life this passage is calling for. The people who _should_ worry are the ones not asking the question.\n\n**Verse 21.** \"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.\" Saying the right words is not enough. _Lord, Lord_ is doubled for emphasis: earnest, pious, repeated. Doesn't matter. The category that matters is _doing_.\n\n**Verse 22.** Worth noticing what these people _did_. Prophecy. Exorcism. Mighty works. These are exactly the things that look most like signs of _true_ ministry, the supernatural credentials charismatic Christians are most likely to claim as evidence. Jesus is preemptively warning against confusing _spiritual gifts_ with _kingdom discipleship_. The two are not the same. You can have one without the other.\n\n**Verse 23.** \"_I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly_.\"\n\nThe word for _lawlessly_ is _anomia,_ literally _without-law_. A strange charge against religious enthusiasts who have been doing high-profile ministry. The shape of their lawlessness is _missing the central law_. Jesus has just summarized the law and the prophets a few verses earlier, at 7:12: _\"In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.\"_ That is the constitution of kingdom life. To behave _lawlessly_ in the Sermon on the Mount sense is to have skipped that central command, to have done the impressive ministry while forgetting how to _love people_.\n\nThat is the disqualifier. Not failure to believe. Not doctrinal imprecision. The absence of love.\n\n**Verses 24–27.** The closing parable. Wise builder on rock vs. foolish builder on sand. The diagnostic is _hearing and doing_ vs. _hearing and not doing_. Yesterday's parable of the sower made the same point with different vocabulary; good soil is _hearing and understanding_ , which is hearing-that-transforms. The builders work on the same logic. Rock is _enacting_ what Jesus has said. Sand is _only hearing_.\n\n## Questions for reflection\n\n _Jesus' disqualifying charge is not heresy or doctrinal error; it is anomia, the failure to live by the central command of love. Where in your life are you doing the impressive ministry while quietly skipping the central law?_\n\n_Both houses get the rain. The question is which one stands. Where is your foundation actually built: what you say about Jesus, or what you do about him?_",
  "title": "Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-15T09:09:44.685Z"
}