We'll soon finish our second week in the Gospels, closing up the accounts of Luke and Matthew. I always find the Gospels challenging because they are so tightly packed with Jesus' many different teachings that it's hard to choose a theme to dwell on and mull over, but this week Matthew 7:6 stood out to me:

"Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

I used to find this verse very odd. It makes up its own paragraph tucked between the famous "Do not judge" and "Golden rule" passages in Matthew, toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount. On a cursory reading, it just doesn't seem to fit - this visual of tossing valuable gems at the feet of an unclean animal right in between a warning about hypocrisy and a modern-day platitude.