Difficult Teachings

Jesus spoke to the people in beautiful parables and beatitudes to encourage and comfort but every teaching challenged every listener. What’s the hardest part about following Jesus? What teaching do you find particularly hard to live? Explore 40 of Jesus' most difficult teachings with Matthew Kelly. In a world that is confused about just about everything, the clarity of the Gospel is needed more than ever before. We are all being called to live the Gospel more fully than ever before.

Jesus provided his disciples teachings for how to follow Torah, God's word; he told them parables to help them discern questions of ethics and of human nature; he offered them beatitudes for comfort and encouragement. But sometimes Jesus spoke words that followers then and now have found difficult. In The Difficult Words of Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine shows how these difficult teachings would have sounded to the people who first heard them, how have they been understood over time, and how we might interpret them in the context of the Gospel of love and reconciliation.

It’s the early 1960s, and Anna has never seen a person with dark skin before. At first, she is afraid of her new second-grade teacher. But Anna quickly finds there’s no reason to be scared. Sister Anne is wonderful. She likes jokes, and she makes math and reading fun. But then someone sails a paper airplane to her, with a cruel message written on its wings. Sister Anne’s wise way of turning a painful incident into a powerful learning experience has a profound impact on Anna and her classmates. 

Where is the race? Is it in the big city where the buildings reach the sky? Do we drive or ride the train? Do we fly by plane? Do the racers look like me? I really must know. I want all my questions answered before I go! An easy and fun listen with simple text, Where Is the Race? is an educational springboard for discussion about race.