Remember that according to the Bible, the heart is not primarily the emotions but rather the seat of our fundamental commitments and trusts, and therefore it is the control center of the whole life. So to preach to the heart means to go right for the commanding commitments of people's lives that drive their desires, thinking, feeling, and action.

The targets of this story are not wayward sinners but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.

The church should be a place where people can be free to say that they are sinners.

Change happens not just by giving the mind new arguments but also by feeding the imagination new beauties

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.

Jesus was much more interested in the quality of the people's response to him than in the quantity of the crowd.

The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you.