The Teachings of Jesus, Week 5: On the Mosaic Law - Relationship with God (Matt 6:5-7:6)

As Jesus continues His teachings on the Mosaic Law, He now enters into a discussion about how one relates to God. What is the relationship between the individual and the Father?

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Mt 6:5-15, ESV)

Prayer has become a funny thing among Christians. Like too many things, it is a battleground between denominations. Some see prayer a lot differently today than those in the first century appeared to see it. Perhaps that will be a future post. But as for today, there are several fascinating things that Jesus says here about prayer.

Before we begin, it is important that we understand the context of first-century Judaic prayer. Formal prayer time was held three times each day—morning, afternoon, and evening. During this time, prayer was often done in groupings of ten men, and public prayer was quite common. So when Jesus talks about prayer we must keep in mind that prayer was an integral, public part of their lives—and generally speaking it involved a recitation of psalms and/or an inviting of God’s blessing on the individual or the world.

That said, let us see what Jesus had to say to His listeners about prayer.

First, He says that prayer is a private thing. When He says about those who pray to gain attention, “they have received their reward,” He is implicitly saying that they will receive no answer to their prayer, because they did so with the wrong reason. If their prayer was motivated even a little bit by a desire to receive attention from others for their holiness, then said attention is the reward they receive—they are not rewarded with God interacting in their prayer life. Instead, Jesus recommends a private, quiet, secretive prayer life: a time where the temptation to impress others is non-existent. Now this is not to be taken as a new Law; after Jesus’ death, we see Peter and John walking to the Temple at prayer time to have their morning prayers. So do not think Jesus is abolishing praying in public as a strict rule. Instead, He is attacking the meaning behind the prayer—why are you praying? If you are standing on street corners to pray and preach, then you are primarily focusing on gaining attention for yourself—and therefore, you have received your reward and God needs do nothing for you.

Second, He also attacks the Gentile mode of praying. Jewish prayers tended to follow a sort of liturgy, and to be heavily based in the psalms and traditional blessings. On the other hand, Gentile prayers were poetic and oratorical, completely non-liturgical. Jesus also makes a point to decry the vanity of praying beautiful, lovely prayers to impress those around you. Again, then primary focus is upon the purpose of the prayer—if you are trying to weave words together to impress or motivate others, then that will be the entire result of your prayer; God will not get involved.

Jesus then gives us the Lord’s Prayer, or “Our Father”, as an example of how He prays.

People tend to fall into two opposite errors when dealing with the Lord’s Prayer. Some use it as a specific formula—I must pray these words, in this precise order, many times over. Having been raised Catholic, I cannot help but remember time with the rosary, publicly praying and doing so with mindless repetition of the Our Father over and over, as though it were a spell or incantation where the words had value in and of themselves. Yet on the other hand, I have been a part of some Baptist churches which made such a big deal about not being ‘vain and repetitious’ with their prayer life that none could even recite the Lord’s Prayer!

As usual, true value lies between these extremes. Jesus gave us this model prayer, and it has been taught as a part of childhood Christian education for two thousand years; to abandon it now is equally as wrong as to elevate it to an incantation. Instead, we should all know the Lord’s Prayer; it probably wouldn’t hurt to pray it routinely or even daily to focus our prayer life; but also it must be remembered always that it is a model—not an incantation—meant to teach us how to pray, not to replace all of our prayers “from the heart”.

So, what does Jesus teach us in the Lord’s Prayer? There are five primary statements that Jesus makes in this prayer: He (1) blesses God’s name and calls it holy; (2) supports God’s will being done on earth and heaven; (3) requests daily provisions; (4) requests forgiveness for our sins; and (5) requests protection from evil. This is what Jesus said prayer is supposed to be about. Ask for God’s will to be done in your life and those around you, ask for Him to forgive your sins, and ask Him to protect you from evil.

Notice that when Jesus prays about His daily life, there is not a lot of detail here. He does not spend hours pouring over lists of prayer requests—indeed, Jesus specifically says in verse 8 that God already knows what you need before you ask Him; other places in the New Testament confirm the same, saying that the Holy Spirit within you intercedes with prayers on your behalf constantly. Jesus says that a simple request for today’s needs is sufficient.

Far too often do Christians miss this. They take the statement that “You have not because you ask not” to an extreme. I have seen Christian women who blamed their own poor prayer lives for the reason that their husbands or children were not saved; I have seen people for whom prayer is full of anxiety because they must do it right, and frequently enough. Please stop! God knows what you need and hears your spirit crying out. That is not what prayer is about, so you need not worry about naming everything on the list!

The bulk of the point of prayer certainly seems to be the last two requests—forgive our sins as we forgive others, and protect us from evil. People are very uncomfortable with what Jesus says about forgiveness, but He repeats Himself for clarity: both in verses 12 and 14-15, He specifically says that how you forgive others is how God will forgive you. We Christians don’t like to hear that, because we like to hold a grudge! But the reality is, as C.S. Lewis once said, how well we forgive seems to be the key point around which the entire heart of Christianity turns. Jesus is very clear here that we can ask God to forgive us only to the extent that we have forgiven others, and that if we do not have forgiving hearts He will not forgive us!

From a practical standpoint, I think where I see this need the most is in our general attitudes toward life. If, as Jesus will later say, you are focused primarily upon loving God and loving others, then this is not much of an issue; if you and your pride are third place in the priorities, then you cannot hold a grudge against the person who wronged you. You forgive them and move on with your life—for you want God to forgive you as well. You forgive your husband for his laziness around the house, because you want God to forgive you for your own laziness in your spiritual life; you forgive the mean boss, because you want God to forgive you for your meanness; you forgive the selfish driver who cut you off, because you want God to forgive your selfishness.

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6:16-18, ESV)

With fasting, we see almost precisely the same thing. Now of course a fast is an abstinence from food or drink, and can be done in diverse ways. It can be restraint for a period of time, such as Lent or a season of life where you wish to focus spiritually; it can be a long-term abstinence from something like alcohol or haircuts or whatever (think of the Nazrene periods of some Jewish men’s lives); or it could be lifelong monastic virtues like the Essenes demonstrated.

On a standard “fasting” day in Judaism, where everyone fasted, the fast looked something like this: no food at all during daylight hours; nothing but water to drink all day; a small piece of bread is allowed in the morning, before the sun rises.

Regardless of how the fast occurs, Jesus here says that it is just like prayer—do it quietly, without telling anyone about it, so that you can be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

And please, Christians: if you are trying to lose weight, call it a diet. It isn’t a fast. The fast is about your spirit, not your waistline.


“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Mt 6:19-34, ESV)

This section is a fascinating one when taken all together. Generally people break this up into three topics—versus 19-25, 26-33, and verse 34. This is wrong! Note that verse 26 starts with, “Therefore”, as does verse 34. This ties the entire section together, which puts a slightly different spin on it.

This section deals with wealth and greed. Before I get to the Scripture, I would like to say a few words for context. Today, in a free market economy, wealth and greed do not necessarily always go together. Some people become wealthy due to some brilliant invention (e.g., Bill Gates); others by inheritance (e.g., the Walton family). And of course, many become wealthy through greed (e.g., Wall Street, Enron, etc.)

But in the ancient world, you generally could not have one or the other. Unless you were born into a wealthy family, the only way you could become wealthy was to be greedy. The ancient world, you see, was not a free-market international economy; in fact, it wasn’t even a free market nationalistic economy. Economies in pre-industrial societies were naturally almost entirely local. There was only so much water to go around; there was only so much wine; there was only so much food. This is what is called a “limited goods society”. So every person naturally sees themselves as having a fair share (think of the Jews and the manna falling from heaven). Everyone is expected to take what they need and share the rest.

So a wealthy person, then, generally gets there by greed—he is taking what belongs to someone else. This is a horrible affront in a limited goods society: each should take only that which they directly earned. This is one of the reasons the Bible strictly forbids loaning money at interest: the loaner is doing nothing to earn the money, and thus has no right to expect more back than he loaned.

Think of the stock market today, for example—one person makes money only if someone else loses money or value. That is an example of what the ancients considered greed: profiting by getting more than your fair share of things. Oh, sure, the person “earns” it in a manner of speaking: they are good at their jobs, or have a good stock tip, or take risks at the right times, or whatever. But it is still greed…it is a desire to get away with something. It is living large on the company expense card because you can; it is hard-ball negotiating with your boss for a raise above the level of salary you agreed originally to take. These are the kind of things that Jesus’ listeners would have considered greedy—and sadly, many (most?) of us in modern America fall into this category.



In this passage, Jesus continues His discussion on our relationship to God by saying that we all must choose whether we serve God or “mammon”. Mammon was the Sumerian god of wealth, and his name was synonymous among the Jews with greed.

So here, Jesus is telling us that those who live greedily and lust for money find it impossible to properly relate to God. As we discussed last week, we are all immortals—so to spend your time hoarding and lusting for money (which can help you only in this temporary world) shows a profound mis-priority in one’s attitude toward God.

Jesus uses an analogy here of a “bad eye”—that is, blindness—which makes one’s view of the world dark. What He is saying is that greed is like spiritual blindness: you become so obsessed with money that you cannot properly connect with God.

I find it interesting that this was not included in last week’s passage, but in the midst of Jesus’ teachings on relationship to God. Greediness is wrong not because it hurts others, but because it destroys the fabric of your spiritual relationship.

What many Christians miss is that the passage doesn’t end in verse 25, but continues on. When Jesus speaks about not being anxious, He is still talking about money! Yet so many Christians take verse 26, rip it out of its context, and say, “See? You shouldn’t be depressed about _____! Jesus said don’t worry!” What poor analysis of Scripture!

What Jesus is clearly saying in this passage, in context, is this:
• Focus your efforts on building eternal treasure rather than earthly treasure, because:
• Greed destroys your relationship with God. As a result:
• Stop worrying about having a bank account to pay for future food and clothing and drink. God knows you need them and will take care of them.
• Let tomorrow take care of itself—you just worry about today.


Read the entire thing in context and you clearly see that Jesus is not at all talking about depression or mental health or anxiety. He is clearly discussing greed for the entire thing. He is saying in verses 26-34 that you need not set aside money against future concerns such as clothing or food, for God knows your needs and will take care of you. Instead, spend your money today (on Godly things, of course!)

This is an important thing for us to remember in this time of economic downturn. Our tendency is to build a big bank account for security. My wife keeps me honest about being freely generous, but even so I begin to get nervous if I do not have at least 3 months net salary in the bank…how ridiculous! Jesus says not to worry about next month’s rent, God will take care of you as He sees fit. So instead of worrying about money, be free to worship God rather than greedily seeking financial security.

Notice how this echoes Jesus’ prayer in the “Our Father”—“give us today our daily bread”. Just ask for today’s security; let tomorrow take care of itself. Then you are free to focus on God today, instead of always planning for tomorrow’s events.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (Mt 7:1-6, ESV)

In this final statement on the relationship between man and God, Jesus speaks about an attitude of judgmentalism. He previously spoke (as we discussed last week) that we will be forgiven proportionally to how we forgive others; here we see the same concept at play.

Here, Jesus tells us that if we judge others, we will be judged. The measuring cup that you use to decide the sinfulness of your neighbor is the same cup that God will use against you. To judge others is to pronounce yourself clean, Jesus says—which is hypocritical.

Many people say, “I’m not being judgmental! But some things are still sins and need to be called out.” Really? Can you show me that in Jesus’ words? Or in Paul’s? Jesus doesn’t say, “Judge not…unless it’s something really bad.” His command is simple and plain: do not judge other people.

When people say, “I hate the sin but love the sinner”…I tend to roll my eyes. This is not a realistic situation. The minute you judge someone else’s behavior as being bad, you put yourself between God and man. Leave the judgment up to the Holy Spirit—that is His job, after all. Your job is to love and forgive.

Let me put this in very practical terms. Follow Jesus’ logic from last week’s post and this one. Let’s say that you know a homosexual who is unrepentant—clearly outside the bounds of Scriptural purity. You’re not particularly mean to them, but you judge them, refuse to be around them, think better of yourself than them. Let’s follow Jesus’ logic:
1. You judge them for sexual sin—sex outside of a heterosexual marriage. (Initial premise)
2. You have judged them, so you’ll be judged by the same measure. (Matt 7:1-6)
3. The root of sexual sin is lust; the lust is the sin, not the sex. (Matt 5:27-30)
4. Therefore, you are judging them for their lust. (Logic, from #3)
5. Therefore, from #4 and #2, you are condemned before God equally as them, if you have ever lusted.

Do you see the danger of judgmentalism? If you judge someone else for selfishness, then God judges you for when you are being selfish. If you measure someone else’s worth based upon their actions, then God will measure your worth by your actions.

Jesus is setting a horribly wonderful standard here: one which leaves no room but to follow His earlier advice and be forgiving of everyone, so that you may be forgiven for everything.

Now of course, this does not mean that the sin is okay. Jesus is not suggesting that we enable sin. But what He is saying is that we do not look at others and see a sinner above whom we now stand.

Instead, when we look at others we are to see ourselves, and that Jesus loves them enough to die for them—so you should certainly love them enough to talk to them kindly! Maybe your lust does not reveal itself as homosexuality…but it is still lust. Maybe your anger did not result in murder…but it is still anger. Maybe your greed did not lead to embezzlement…but it was still greed. The important thing is the sinful seed within your soul, not the social acceptableness of the plant that grew from it.

So when you are confronted with sin, be very, very cautious about judging the person committing it. Instead, play it safe and assume that Jesus actually means precisely what He says—that He will judge you just as you judge your neighbor.

The final word Jesus gives on the topic of your relationship with God is the famous (and often misunderstood) “pearls before swine” comment—“do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine.” People often take this as a stand-alone comment, which leads to all kinds of strange interpretations—is Jesus saying not to preach to certain types of people? Of course not.

First, understand that the “dogs what is holy” comment is probably a reference to Proverbs 26:11—that a dog returns to his vomit and a fool to his folly/unrighteousness. Further understand that by pigs he is talking about something that is ritualistically unholy in Jewish religion, and pearls are items of tremendous value.

So what is Jesus saying here?

Recall that Jesus has just finished telling us about the Gospel, and admonishing us not to judge others. By not judging others and loving them, we are treating all people—no matter how bad the sinner—with respect. But loving and not-judging others does not mean that we put ourselves in positions to be harmed by them. We can love someone and not judge them without putting ourselves in a position to fall into folly, or to be trampled underfoot by unrighteous people.

For example, does a wife forgiving her abusive husband mean that she can’t get herself away from him? Does not judging the sex offender down the road mean that you let him babysit your children? Does loving the atheist mean that you must debate him about evolution? \

Jesus here is clarifying that yes, we are to be loving and forgiving and judgment free—and that is a radical command. But that does not mean you have to be reckless and it does not mean that you should necessarily be going around sharing the Gospel with people who have no desire to hear the truth and simply want to turn it into a fight.

A pearl is a thing of value to us, but a pig cannot see its value. So don’t waste your energy throwing your valuable Gospel before those who do not appreciate it and will just use it to attack you.

Love them—yes. Share your faith with them—sure. Forgive them—definitely. Be careful not to judge them—correct. But that does not mean that you have to put yourself in a position that will get you harmed or ridiculed or mocked. If I ever meet Bill Maher on a flight somewhere, I’m not going to try and convert him from atheism; but that doesn’t mean I have to be hateful, or mean, or judge him. I can still talk to him, laugh when he says something clever or funny, and be kind to him. I just am not going to spend my energy trying to evangelize someone who is only interested in the Bible as a weapon against Christians.

Conclusion

Having completed His discussion in the last passage about our relationships with each other, Jesus now talks about our relationship with God. He says that our times of prayer and fasting are examples of private worship, not to be shared with others lest we do so for the wrong reasons. He says that we should not be greedy, but be content with what we have today and trust God to take care of tomorrow. And He says not to judge others, because we too are sinners and the way we judge others is how God will judge us.

On Church Discipline (Internet Monk)

There is a pretty interesting conversation going over at Internet Monk regarding Mark Driscoll's method of church discipline.

Let me start by saying that I was not there. I do not know how bad this situation was. But I agree wholeheartedly with the comments made by the IM community regarding the harshness, legalism, and anti-gospelic nature of the Mars Hill response. It would not be hard to imagine the letter to church members regarding excommunicating this member as being identical to a posting on a medieval Catholic church door.

The Metric-ization of the Church

This month, a ridiculous amount of my time—as with nearly every manager and director in American business—will be focused on the setting of objectives for our employees next year. In this process, most companies generally try to develop “metrics” or “key performance indicators (KPIs)”—measurable ways of tracking how well you are doing your job. It serves as a scorecard; every quarter you should know whether you are winning or losing the “game” of meeting objectives for the year. And the game is important: at the end of the year, it will be their performance toward these metrics that determine how much of a raise and bonus each employee receives.

It is commonly said in companies that the metrics must be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. This very data-heavy method of reducing your year’s work into 5-10 objectives can be a challenge. For instance, I have a team working for me, which is responsible for installing all of our molds for new products worldwide. So they each have an objective which is: “For all 2012 launches, the time from mold arrival on site to first-off-tool start of production shall be 30% reduced from 2011 average—that is, average of all mold setups from 2012 shall be 8 days or less.” So no matter what else happens this year, that very specific set of cold data will determine how much or how little I can give them for a raise next year.

This metric-ization of performance reviews has become widespread and industry standard. And it has some real value to it. If done properly, it can be a good way to align your organization. If done poorly, it can cause serious problems. (Example: Once my company decided to judge the quality technicians based upon how many defects they “missed” that were found in a later stage. As a result, each quality tech was so overly cautious that production could not even finish a single process. Getting a product approved to move to the next step became nearly impossible.)

As more and more business and marketing principles from private industry have leaked into the Church in America, we find a natural tendency to want to measure our success in similar ways to our corporate culture. How do we know if our church is succeeding or failing? How do we know if our youth pastor is doing good work? How do we know if we compare favorably to other churches in the area, or need to learn from them?

We are obsessed, as a culture, with success and its measurements. It is why we play fantasy football; it is why sabermetrics is the thing to know in baseball; it is why we all have SMART KPIs in our businesses. It is why we have Tiger Mothers and Dragon Fathers. It is why we “teach to the test” in schools so that our kids’ scores look better (and if they actually learn how to think or reason in the process, that is a nice secondary bonus). We are a data-driven culture, and the data is the only thing that matters. So it is natural that this would leak through to church life.

It is also a very, very bad thing that it has done so. I can say this from experience; I once was in an advising role in a church and found that we continued to justify bad spiritual decisions because it helped our church “grow” in the particular points of data that we were using to judge ourselves.

The fundamental problem with trying to develop KPIs for the Church is that the work of the Holy Spirit is not data-based. Spirituality is, by its very definition, extra-worldly. And therefore we cannot directly measure anything that tells us about our church body’s spiritual growth. There is no combination of factors which says, “If our church achieves X, Y, and Z this year, then we have done the Lord’s work.”

Most churches gage their success (either openly or subconsciously) by the Big Three in church metrics: worship attendance, number of professions of faith/baptisms, and monetary giving. The theory goes that if more people are coming to church then you must be doing something right; if people are claiming conversion experiences then you are adding to the roster in heaven; and if they are giving their money, then they are supporting the ministry with the thing most dear to their hearts—their wallet.

But are those assumptions true? Is this a good method of determining the spiritual health of our Church body?

Scripture seems to indicate that, most of the time, only a small percentage of those who profess faith (“the remnant”) is actually devoted to Him. So clearly, numerical growth (either in attendance or in professions) is not necessarily an indication of spiritual success.

Jesus says (both in the Sermon on the Mount and in Revelation) that it is the poor in spirit who are receiving God, not the wealthy, and that a church may be financially poor but spiritually wealthy. So clearly it is not financial giving which is indicative of your church’s spiritual health.

It is not simply those who are professing faith or have improved the righteousness of their lives; the Pharisees beat us by a mile on such accounts, yet Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”.

In fact, Jesus often tells us that those who on earth appear to be the least valuable are actually the most valuable in the kingdom of heaven; the poor are the richest; the smallest have the biggest influence. So clearly if we are “measuring” our church success in the same manner that we measure success in business, then we are not likely to be properly measuring the success or failure of our ministries.

Frankly, I think any attempt to “judge” the health of a church based on any kind of data-based metric is likely to lead to bad decisions. If your pastors are saying, “God is really at work here—just look at all the people who attend now,” or, “You can tell that God is behind us because look at how much more people are donating than they used to,” then you are likely to be misled a bit on the legitimacy of your approach. Such metricization tends to lead to simply building bigger, wealthier, trendier churches to attract bigger, wealthier, trendier clientele…er, I mean, worshippers.

We must avoid metricization of the Church at all costs. The Church is about matters of the Spirit—and this can never be analyzed through a spreadsheet kept on the associate pastor’s PC.

So then, if you are trying to determine if your church or ministry is succeeding or floundering, what do you do? I suggest reviewing James 1:27 and Acts 2:42,46—two passages which describe purity in the church. From these passages, ask yourself the following about your church/ministry:

• Is your flock devoted to studying the teachings of the Apostles (the New Testament)?
• Is your flock meeting regularly for fellowship outside of ministry/church walls—sharing meals and building “glad and sincere” friendships (Acts 2:46)?
• Is your flock devoted to prayer?
• Is your flock caring for those who cannot care for themselves—the poor, the widows, the orphans, etc.?
• Is your flock avoiding being corrupted by the sinfulness of the world?

These are the measures of spiritual success. But even within these, I encourage you, avoid trying to make it about data. Keep these five questions in your church staff meeting room, or ministry office, and every month as leaders prayerfully consider each question. Do not turn these into measurements and try to figure out how much time each member spends praying on average!

We have a saying in the business world: “What you measure is what you get.” (Or, as some say it: “If you don’t measure it, it can’t get any better.”) In that regard, the business world is onto something: if you keep the five questions above in the forefront of your ministry strategy, then you will always be growing spiritually and succeeding in God’s eyes—and you can know you are a success, whether your flock is 10 people or 10,000.

The Teachings of Matthew, Week 4: On the Mosaic Law - The Treatment of Others (Matt 5:21-6:4)

As we reach this passage of Scripture, we have just heard Jesus introduce His sermon. He began by pronouncing blessings on the crowd (Mt 5:1-12). Then Jesus told the Jews around Him that they had lost their place of influence in the world (Mt 5:13-16), and they were about to find out why: further, He gives them the assurance that what He is about to say is not an overthrowing of the Law but a completion of it (Mt 5:17-19)—and indeed, He says that He is about to raise the bar higher (Mt 5:20).

Jesus then proceeds to teach on the proper application Mosaic Law from verses 5:21 through 7:6. It seems to me that Matthew has clearly organized Jesus’ teachings into two discrete blocks: first, on how to interact with other people (5:21-6:4), and second, on how to interact with God (6:5-7:6).

We cannot overstate the radical nature of what Jesus is about to say here. He is speaking to a group that have known, since they were children, that they have been set apart as special before God—and yet, they have failed to uphold God’s high standards time and time again. Over time this has led them to their current status in the world: a small, unimportant people on the edge of the Empire; poor and uncultured; notable to the Empire in no way except for their strange monotheistic beliefs.

The Law is the one thing the Jews have going for them. It is the thing in which they take the most pride; the security to which they cling the tightest. And Jesus is about to tell them that they have been going about it all wrong, for centuries.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” (5:21-26, ESV)

Jesus certainly leads with a ‘bang’, doesn’t He? And here we see a common theme which shall run throughout all His teachings: the Jews have “missed” the spirit of the Law. They read, “You shall not murder” and focus on containing their wrath so that someone is not killed. But, Jesus is saying, they have missed the spirit of the Law—to love and forgive and seek forgiveness, so that murderous anger never develops.

The letter of the Law was, “Do not murder”; the spirit of the Law was, “Do not be angry at others or allow others to remain angry at you.” The anger is the seed which, when harvested, leads to murder. And here Jesus says that you are guilty for planting that seed, regardless of whether it survives to harvest time. So even if you do not end up murdering someone, the fact that you are angry enough with them to do it (if you could have gotten away with it) is the same in God’s eyes.

Obviously, this is a much tougher standard than the Law. It is one thing to control one’s behaviors; to discipline one’s emotions is much, much tougher.

I find it fascinating here that Jesus puts the ownership for the disagreements on both parties. Notice that in verse 22, He says that those who are angry with their brothers are sinning. Then in verses 23-26, He says that those who have caused their brothers to remain angry at them are also sinning. So it seems that the Christ-follower finds himself a sinner on both ends: if I make someone else angry, it is my fault; if someone else makes me angry, it is my fault.

That may not seem quite fair at first, but the beauty and power of this simple passage is profound. My wife and I have seen it in our marriage. We long ago agreed that for every argument, no matter how one-sided, both parties are at fault. When it is over, both of us apologize to the other for something. Either for the action that triggered the argument, or for allowing the action to bother us so much, or for allowing the argument to escalate, or all of the above: both of us were at fault for allowing it to become an argument. It truly does take two to argue.

So think to your work, or your family life, or your church life. If there is someone with whom you are in an argument, what is Jesus commanding here? He is not saying that your hurt it not real. He is saying that you should make things right between each other, and immediately. So urgent is the need, in fact, that God says it is more important than attending worship.

How can that be? I think it is because we too often lose the perspective that Christ had. We are immortals, you and I. Let that sink in. The greatest engineering feats in the world will be dust (indeed, so will the world itself!) before your relationship ends with that person with whom you are angry. What were you two arguing about? Money? Politics? Housework? Grades on a test? Who stole whose parking space? Please. What are these concerns to an immortal? You two will watch from heaven as nations rise and fall, as all our greatest earthly achievements crumble to dust. Is it really important who is at fault for your minor spat?

Keep the perspective. Forgive freely and easily. Resolve within yourself that you will hold no grudges, and give no one the reason to hold a grudge against you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that of your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (5:27-30, ESV)

This is not a favorite passage among men—and I am no exception. I know men who, every time they see a mildly pretty face, have to make some comment about it when the woman walks away. Thankfully, I (and most Christian men I know) are not quite that lustful. But it would be a lie to say that when I see a particularly striking woman, or a billboard on the side of the road, or a sex scene on a television show, that lustful feelings never enter my mind.

Now many preachers go into a false teaching on this passage, I believe. These preachers (being, not coincidentally, all men) use this passage as an indictment of women. Some use it to argue that women should all dress like the Amish, so as not to inspire lust in men. Others (like Mark Driscoll) have used it to argue that wives should keep themselves looking sexy for their husbands, so that he won’t lust as much. Both of these are, if I may be so bold, profoundly stupid and seem to show a lack of understanding of lust. Has lust gone away in Islam, where women are covered from head to toe? No! Though statistics are hard to come by, it appears as though violent crimes against women occur 20-30 times more frequently in Islamic countries than America (most of which are motivated by sexuality—beatings for being too immodest with their dress, or genital mutilation, or rape, etc.) Indeed, in some countries with decent data, such as Qatar, it appears that one in fifty women have been groped or molested in public marketplaces. So certainly the lust of man cannot be removed simply by women dressing modestly. Clearly, modesty does not remove man’s lustfulness. As for Driscoll’s argument that lust would be removed somewhat if men had hotter wives—this would imply that men with beautiful wives never have affairs. Of course, Tiger Woods is a great example of how untrue that statement is—as are thousands of men every year.

Men are not lustful because women dress slutty. Men are not lustful because they are unsatisfied at home. Men are not lustful because of the pervasive pornography in our country. Men are not lustful because their hormones kick in as teenagers and are often unfulfilled until their twenties or thirties.

Men are lustful because of the Fall. Because God designed us to love beauty and become aroused by our partners and have wonderful sex lives—in fact, “Be fruitful and multiply”, His key commandment after the Fall and the Flood, contains within it the divine requirement to have lots and lots of sex.

But like everything in our fallen nature, it has become corrupted by our distance from God. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are brought into the world in chains. Our willpower to do righteousness is bound by our sinful natures as fallen beings.

That is the root cause of why men are lustful. We are lustful because the desire for sex is good, but is unleashed in unholy ways in our hearts from the Fall. All of those other things—pornography, immodesty, dissatisfaction, hormones and the longer wait for marriage—are contributing factors, sure. They make it worse. Often unmanageable. But the root cause lies with the man’s sinful nature, not with the actions of women, or pornographers, or anyone else.

It is a simple matter of economics, men. If there was no demand in your heart for lust, then how women dressed would not bother you. So please stop blaming bikinis for your lustful ways. Start to take some responsibility for your own actions.

Now, how to take responsibility? Well, Jesus’ prescription is about as radical as one can get! Here He says that if you have a wandering eye, just pluck that sucker out and you won’t have to worry about it any more. Or, if you find yourself masturbating a lot, cut off that hand. (And please, don’t tell me that Jesus isn’t referring to masturbation. He clearly is—He is talking about lust, and ways in which your right hand can cause you to sin in lust. I know we don’t like to think about Jesus teaching on masturbation, but He did. Get over it. It isn’t going away because we are uncomfortable talking about it; we need to address it as Christians, as Jesus did here.)

The key undercurrent here, as with Jesus’ teaching on anger, is the spirit not just the letter of the Law. The problem, Jesus says, is lust—not adultery. Adultery is the harvest of the seed of lust. So we must address the lust itself, in radical ways if necessary.

Jesus says that lusting after someone is the same as committing adultery with them. Imagining sleeping with them is the same as doing so.

Do you see the implicit “out” in this situation?

If you lust about your wife, have you done her any wrong? If you imagine sleeping with your wife, have you done her any wrong? No—because she is yours to sleep with anyway. Her body is yours, and yours is hers. Song of Solomon indeed is graphic in its approval of sexual passion between partners.

So it is that, when I read this passage, I have drawn the following conclusions. Lusting after a woman in all its forms (pornography, masturbation, imagining her during sex with your wife, etc.) is always wrong. It is a major sin—adultery—and should be confessed immediately and addressed urgently. But lusting after your wife—in any of the above forms—commits no wrong whatsoever.

So, I believe, Jesus is not saying here, “Do not be passionate about sex”; He is saying, “Do not be passionate about sex with a woman to whom you are not married.”

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (5:31-32, ESV)

In our culture of broken homes and marriages, it does not take a Biblical scholar to demonstrate the negative effect all of these divorces have had on the fabric of our society, and upon our children. So I will not take any time speaking to this. Instead, let us focus on the one reason that Jesus allows divorce—sexual immorality. What does He mean here?

One thing can be said with absolute certainty—His definition certainly includes fornication. Speaking to the people He was, Jesus would have had to have been explicit if He was allowing premarital sex. No, it was assumed at the time that a woman was a virgin at the time of marriage, and indeed the proof of such was a big, big deal. On Jewish wedding nights, often some of the guests (such as the fathers of the couple) would be waiting outside their bedroom door as they consummated their marriage. As the virgin bride’s hymen was broken, the blood spilled onto the bedsheets was proof that she had remained virtuous. That bedsheet was seen as physical proof of the righteousness of the marriage. So when a couple consummated their marriage and found that the woman did not bleed, and had not been a virgin—this was grounds for immediate divorce…and banishment from the good graces of the community.

(Does this help explain the extraordinary sacrifice and love that Joseph had for Mary? For he was betrothed but not yet married to her, and was well aware that her pregnancy would be taken to mean that either he had sinned by fornicating with her, or she had sinned by fornicating with another. In either case, great shame would have been heaped on his family. For him to stick with her through it is one of the great testimonies to love that I have read.)

So we can say with certainty that, if you find that your wife has a history of fornication, you have the right to divorce her.

Now, what about if she committed adultery? That is the other potential for a definition for “sexual immorality”. It is important here that you understand a bit of context about the Jewish world at the time Jesus spoke this passage. There were two primary theories going around in Judaism at the time regarding divorce—one led by a rabbi named Hillel, and one by a rabbi named Shammai. Hillel followed the Roman’s view where the husband, being paterfamilias, could issue a divorce for virtually any reason—even a bad meal. Shammai was the more conservative teacher on the topic, holding that a husband could divorce a wife only in the cases of fornication or adultery. Indeed, some among Shammai’s school not only allowed divorce and remarriage in this case, but often required it. Adultery was seen as damaging to the marriage as idolatry is to the relationship with God.

This debate was exceptionally well known and commonly held at the time—it seems impossible that Jesus could not be aware of it, or expect His hearers not to be intimately familiar with it. In His statement, Jesus clearly lays out the two opposing theories and so it seems quite clear that He is siding with Shammai; this clearly implies that adultery, as well as fornication, are valid reasons for divorce in God’s eyes. (Note: For what it’s worth, I do not think “emotional adultery” counts here, but I have no proof for this.)

Further, I think it not a stretch to assume that another other commonly held reason for a valid divorce—accepted by both Shammai and Hillel—applies. It was assumed by all first-century Jews that physical neglect or abuse was a valid cause for divorce. Though Jesus does not explicitly mention it, I think that the wide acceptance at the time would likely have led to His discussing the topic if He disagreed.

Thus I would conclude: it is certainly acceptable for divorce if premarital sex is discovered; it is almost certainly acceptable for divorce if one spouse has committed adultery; it is highly likely that divorce is permissible in the case of abuse. For any other reason—“irreconcilable differences”, “falling out of love”, or whatever—no divorce would be permissible.

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” (5:33-37, ESV)

Here, Jesus tells them that they should not make oaths. Jesus here makes an interesting point—oaths are meaningless, and have a subtle unrighteousness in them. As He brilliantly points out here, you often have no control over whether the oaths that you make are achievable, so while they may sound important they are not really adding anything to your statement. Saying, “I swear on my mother’s body” doesn’t really add any validity to your statement—for you have nothing whatsoever to do with your mother’s body, whether you say the truth or a lie. Worse, as Jesus points out: if you have to swear an oath for someone to believe you, then does this not imply that you will lie if you do not swear an oath? Consider our legal system—people swear on the Bible because somehow we believe this will transform them from liars to honest.

Again, Jesus sets a higher standard here: do not be honest only in contracts, but in all things. Let your ‘yes’ always mean ‘yes.’

A personal dislike of mine is the prevalence of church covenants today. The only one I have ever signed—and the only type I intend on signing—was one which basically simply said that I believe in the core doctrines of the Church and will try to live by them. Anything more would be, per Jesus above, wrong.

Your covenant with God in the New Birth is the last oath you ever have to make.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other one also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (5:38-42, ESV)

Few passages of Scripture are as powerful, or so succinctly capture what Jesus was all about, than these four verses. Think of the additions to our language alone—phrases like “turn the other cheek”, and “go the extra mile” are simply part of our common tongue now, having been said here thousands of years ago.

Now let us start by saying—eye for an eye was a pretty bold and just law, and it is right for it to be in the Law. It restricts payback for an offense to be proportional to the crime committed. Before this, you could repay crimes however you saw fit; after “eye for an eye”, you could only repay crimes to the limit that you were yourself wronged. So the law is good—indeed, today we have a similar law against “cruel or unusual punishment”, which is addressing the same concern.

Reading in the context of our past verses, you see that Jesus isn’t saying that “eye for an eye” goes away—far from it, He is saying that His followers must be held to a standard above that. Eye for an eye is the letter of the law…turn the other cheek is the spirit of the law.

This has broader implications than just laying down during a fight. What Jesus is really saying here is that when someone wrongs you, do not seek the compensation you are legally owed; instead, serve that person even more.

It is about serving those who wrong you, loving them, forgiving them—rather than “getting yours” back. That is why He includes in the same topic being beaten, sued, kidnapped, and begging from the poor. He is showing that your perspective should not be about “getting what’s rightfully mine”, and instead, “How can I give what is mine to everyone else?” And in particular, Jesus tells you to focus that energy on serving the one who is evil and doing wrong to you.

So to use a modern application: let’s say your neighbor’s teenager is learning to drive and destroys your mailbox. The neighbor offers, rightly to pay for the damage. Jesus would say not only should you refuse, but you should look at how you can help them! Do not seek out repayment for ‘wrongs’ done to you just because they are legally allowed; instead, try to be a servant to all.

What a bold, bold statement. And it’s about to go to a whole other level.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:43-48, ESV)

Let me start at the end—“You must be perfect”. Some, in their attempts to institute a Christian Law and deny grace, take this out of its context and make it about works-based righteousness. Clearly, the context here forbids that. When Jesus is speaking of being perfect here, He is tying it to the fact that God shows love to both the good and the evil. That is the way in which we must seek God’s perfection—in our love and service and forgiveness to all. So please stop saying that Jesus said “be perfect” in terms of righteous behavior; He says you must be “perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect” with regard to forgiving your enemies. That is the perfection He extols.

Is Jesus saying that it is wrong to hurt your enemy? No. He did not come to destroy the Law. Instead, He is saying that there is a better spiritual place: to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you.

My thoughts cannot help but go back to September 11, 2001. That day was transformative for me, so whenever I think of being persecuted by evil men, I think of the terrorists attacking the Twin Towers. How did I respond? How did others? By and large, the Christian response was not one of love or prayer for the terrorists and their funders. Most of us sought vengeance. Others sought safety—but were okay with silently allowing the vengeance of others. We were wrong. How might things have been different if we as a nation had collectively mourned our losses, improved our security at home, but most importantly routinely prayed for the Muslims who so hated us? Did our actions inspire more hatred or more love? It is certainly something to consider, when we discuss foreign policy. I am not saying that Jesus was a pacifist—but I am saying that not going to war should be the Christian default, and only when the calling is clear can we consider it otherwise.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (6:1-4, ESV)

If you think that Jesus is being symbolic when saying that people sounded trumpets before them, you are wrong. In the ancient world the gap between the rich and poor was so great that free-market economics did not function. There was no way to fund public buildings like gymnasiums, schools, temples, and the like unless a wealthy person paid for them for the community. And such people—patrons—would parade through the streets at grand openings and the like, trumpets blaring, so that the people could give him their reward: their loyalty and public praise as a great man.

Well, Jesus did not like it. Not one bit. This statement may have been as shocking to His first-century listeners as “love your enemy” is to us. That was how client-patronage worked: the patron (who had everything) gave something to the client (who had nothing), so it was only right that the client paid him back by giving him public praise in a parade or when voting or the like. Jesus here is not saying you shouldn’t give them praise—He is not talking to the client who received, but the patron who gave. To the patron, He says: you should give quietly, expecting no praise from man, so that you can receive praise from God.

Why? Because again, the heart is what is important to Jesus, rather than the action. Giving money is all well and good. But why did you give it? To please God, or please men? If it is to please men, then you will tell men about it, and seek their praise rather than God’s. And you will have it, Jesus says—but only it.

What Jesus does not say here is, “Do not give to charity.” In our selfish day—where we in America account for over half of the world’s wealth—Jesus’ assumption here that we will all give generously is by no means a reality. We must all start giving much more sacrificially than we do: and not go around telling people about it in order to get praise.


Conclusion

In this section, Jesus has expounded for His hearers on the Mosaic Law, and set the stage for the introduction of grace to the world. The New Covenant is of course not yet in place, but still Jesus is showing that the spirit of the Law and the way the Jews had tried to follow the letter of the Law do not match.

Recall that during His introduction, Jesus told the audience that the Jewish people had lost their influence in the world, and this section we discussed today is why, according to Him: because they lost the meaning of the Law and tried to only adhere to its letter. They avoided murder when they were supposed to be avoiding anger. They avoided adultery when they were supposed to be avoiding lust. They embraced Roman concepts of easy divorce, when they were supposed to divorce only for the most extreme of circumstances. They agreed to oaths, when they were supposed to always be honest. They sought revenge when they were supposed to be seeking peace. They hated their enemies when they were supposed to be loving them. They gave to charity for the sake of men, when they were supposed to be giving for the sake of God.

That is why they lost their influence, Jesus said: they tried to follow pious rules, but forgot the spiritual grace and mercy and love that undergirded those rules.

I said at the beginning that Jesus was speaking here on the Mosaic Law, and He was. But do you see how applicable His points are to us today? Do we not, having been given grace, fall back into the exact same pattern of trying to follow God’s commandments while giving no thought whatsoever to the spirit of the rules? Have we not embraced legalism in modern Christianity just as much as the Jews embraced it in the Law? And have we not lost that same love for God and man that is supposed to be informing all of our actions?

Women's lib and stay-at-home moms

There was recently an interesting post about re-entering the workforce by a woman over at Her.menuetics blog. It got me thinking about the topic of the feminism movement and stay-at-home mothers. (Full disclosure: my wife, a brilliant CPA, has chosen to stay home and homeschool our 6 year old.)

Let me say what too few Christians do: that the women's liberation movement, from Susan B. Anthony down to today, has been marvelous and wonderful for humanity. The treatment of women in Middle Eastern countries and third world countries today is deplorable, and it is hard to remember that, not too long ago, this was a standard. Further, as a hiring manager, I have found that women bring amazing diversity to the team and have enjoyed having women work for my teams in the past. One of the best engineers I've ever had--with whom I still keep in touch, though she has moved on now--is a woman who was bright, thorough, and an excellent communicator. So I fully support any woman who wishes to work, and think it is a crime that they are not compensated as well or highly as their male peers.

Now, all of that said...the feminist movement unfortunately has begun to attack any woman who is not "advancing" their cause. And that is unfortunate.

Women's liberation frees women to enter the workplace--as it should. But in no way should it obligate women to work. We are blessed that I was promoted and my wife could afford to stay home and invest in raising our children. It was her choice, not mine (if anything I was a bit hesitant at the beginning). But she found that she was much more interested in assuring that our kids got a top-rate education and spending time with them than she was doing someone else's taxes. She loved her work and was great at it--but she chose, of free volition, to do something else.

Why is that a bad thing? Yet to hear many feminists speak, my wife is somehow a traitor to the cause. Her decision to stay home means that employers trust other women less, pay them less, etc.; or, some say, she is wasting her considerable talent.

(Of course, my wife responds--what is a better use of her talent? To help an already-rich client save a few thousand dollars on their taxes, or to help our children have good morals, a loving home, and a good education?)

The broader point is that women's "liberation" has begun to reduce the liberty of the woman: it was once only acceptable for a woman to stay home and be a homemaker; now it is only acceptable if you do not stay at home and be a homemaker. Do you see, then, that the lack of liberty is the same in each situation?

One argument that I have heard is that the work a woman does at home is less valuable. If you press them on this, they will say that it is less valuable because it does not produce income. What a silly argument...do you think my company pays me because my job is valuable? No! It is me--the employee--who makes the job valuable or invaluable; they pay me because otherwise I wouldn't give them my talent. They have to pay you to come to work, because otherwise you wouldn't show up on Monday. My wife doesn't get paid to stay home, because she loves staying home. No one has to pay her a salary to make her choose to do it. Do not misunderstand: your salary exists for no other reason than to provide you enough incentive that you will show up to work when you otherwise wouldn't. So the lack of pay has nothing at all to do with whether your work is valuable, but everything to do with incentivizing you to spend you time at the company; the very fact that they have to pay you to create that incentive inherently shows that you find it less valuable than staying at home.

I for one am thrilled that my wife chose to stay home and invest in our children. And I will be completely fine and supportive when (if) she decides to re-enter the workplace. But we CHristians should help the feminists remember that point of women's liberation is truly to liberate them--not to exchange one set of shackles for another. So instead of degrading stay-at-home moms,feminists should be extolling their virtues, and showing them for the wonderful, self-sacrificial, loving caregivers that they have chosen to be.

The Teachings of Jesus, Week 3: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount Introduction (Mt 5:1-20)

As we finally begin to get into the meat of Jesus’ sermon on Mosaic Law, He begins with an introduction. Jesus’ introduction to His sermon on the Mosaic Law can essentially be broken down into three parts:

1. Conveyance of blessings (Mt 5:1-12)
2. Context for the sermon (Mt 5:13-16)
3. Purpose statement of the sermon (Mt 5:17-20)


1. Conveyance of Blessings (Mt 5:1-12)

Jesus first begins, as many Jewish sermons did, with a conveyance of blessings on the crowd.

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’ “ (Mt 5:1-12, ESV)

As one our church’s pastors recently shared during a sermon, it is interesting to note that if you were to make a list of “evidences that God has blessed you”, you would probably come up with the exact opposite of what Jesus says above. You say that you are blessed because of comfort and no deaths in the family and living in a peaceful nation, and freedom of religion. Jesus says, you are blessed when you are mourning, when you are persecuted, when you are lacking in power, when you have to make peace during times of trouble.

A few comments are valuable here, as many Christians get wrongly anxious about this passage.

First, a word about blessings. Very rarely does Greek literature outside of the Bible use a term like blessing; it is largely a Hebrew concept. To be blessed by God meant that God was showing you favor, loved you, conferring grace upon you. It meant that God was providing for you in a positive, active way.

Second, what Jesus did not say is, “This is the only way to be blessed.” He does not say, “Go and become these things so that you can be blessed.” To draw that conclusion is a logical fallacy—Jesus says, if you are these things you are blessed; this does not imply that if you are not those things, you are not blessed.

Third, Jesus makes no commands here at all. He is simply stating a fact—people in this condition receive blessings. God takes care of these kinds of people and shows them love. As a typical Jewish preacher, He is blessing the crowd—even if it is a bit of an unusual blessing.

Fourth, his listeners would have been just as surprised to see this list as you and I. This is a very non-typical blessing. If you look at Acts 14:8-20, for example, when Paul is telling his listeners to count their blessings from God, he names things like joy, food, and a good living (healthy crop production). You see similar lists elsewhere in Scripture. The first century was not so different from our own; and just like today, if a set of believers gathers together to count their blessings, you are much more likely to hear a list of things like, “I have a good job” than “I got laid off”; or “I have a great family” than “I just suffered a miscarriage”. Few people would see these as blessings, despite what Jesus says here.

That is, I believe the entire point of Jesus conferring blessings in this manner. The crowds who followed and surrounded Jesus were not people with comfortable lives who wished to maintain the status quo. Jesus was nothing if not revolutionary. First-century Jews sought the Messiah—a person whom they (wrongly) supposed would overthrow the Roman government and set up a new, dominant Kingdom of Israel—and they hoped Jesus was the person. It is those who desired massive change—either due to famine, or poverty, or mourning, or powerlessness, or sickness—who sought out Jesus.

And so, as Jesus looked out over those huddled masses of the poor and cast-offs of society, what blessings did He offer? He did not promise a change at all, did He? Rather, He pronounced them blessed in their current state. Jesus is saying that those qualities which most people wish to avoid in life, God is actually blessing them even in that state. As my friend Josh Hurlburt (who knows the pain of mourning) has said, “God does not bless you in spite of mourning; He blesses you through the mourning.”

After all, do not forget—the roles of mourner, peacemaker, persecuted, and meek are precisely the roles that Jesus Himself demonstrated during His life. So it should not be surprising that, though it makes little sense to us as humans, it is through these times that we see as suffering that God works His mightiest blessings.


(Aside note: I would like to make one further comment, which has little relevance to the subject of Jesus’ post, but which reaffirms the interpretation that Matthew arranges his teachings topically rather than chronologically, as most scholars agree. Notice two things here. First, if this Sermon happened immediately after His baptism and temptation in the desert, where did all of the crowds come from? He already has a massive following by the time of this sermon. But second, and more importantly—notice His last blessing: “blessed are you when others revile you…on my account.” If this was truly Jesus’ first major teaching, how could any of His followers have been reviled and persecuted? Clearly this collection of teachings is something which spanned His ministry, not something which occurred only once, right at the beginning.)


2. Context for the sermon (Mt 5:13-16)

Having conferred His blessings on the crowd, Jesus says the following to His (entirely orthodox Jewish) audience:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.“ (Mt 5:13-16, ESV)

This can be considered a statement of the purpose or context of Jesus’ talk. He is about to begin a discussion on the Mosaic Law, to a group of first-century Jews. He refers then to their special place as the Chosen People of God.

Jesus points out that as the Chosen People, the Jews were meant to show God’s glory to the rest of the world, and uses a few analogies to demonstrate it. Like salt, Jesus says, the Jews should be adding flavor and preserving the world. Like a city on a hill, their special status should be visible to all the world. Like a lamp, they should be showing their status to the world.

Implicit in this statement is that Jesus is telling His listeners that the Jewish people have lost their status as a leader among the nations, but instead they were a forgotten afterthought—salt without taste, or a lamp hidden by a basket. Instead of being a shining beacon of God’s power, Israel had become a minor, unimportant province on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.

(Aside note: This section is often taken to refer to Christians (as in the kids song, “This little light of mine”). And that gives me a great opportunity to share that although the Sermon on the Mount is written to Jews on the Mosaic Law, it does have a tremendous applicability to Christianity. Perhaps nowhere in Scripture is the Christian ethic and “spirit” of the Law as clearly stated as in the coming chapters. So though I will speak to Jesus’ primary and present audience throughout this passage, do not mean that this makes it somehow less applicable to the modern Christian—just in slightly different ways and contexts.)

So here, Jesus tells them that Judaism is not where it is supposed to be, and that its influence is lost in the world. This provides a good context, as in the coming passages He is going to tell why they have lost their influence, and how to fix it. So remember this context as you read the coming passages where Jesus expounds on the Mosaic Law—much of what He says is within the context of explaining why and how the Jews have lost their influence in the world.

3. Purpose statement of the sermon (Mt 5:17-20)

Having conferred His blessings on the crowd, and given the context of the modern Jewish state, now Jesus tells the crowd the purpose statement of the sermon:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:17-20, ESV)

Here, Jesus makes His purposive statement, His thesis of the teachings that He is about to give on the Law. He states that the Law is not being abolished, it is being fulfilled in His teachings. Based upon this passage, I see no way around the fact that the Mosaic Covenant remains in effect for Hebrews until the end of time.

Jesus in fact states that not only is He not relaxing the Law with the coming sermon, He is increasing it—He is asking for things that the scribes (Sadducees) and Pharisees are not even achieving today. He says that what He is about to say reinforces and fulfills the Law’s demands by God.

Summary

Jesus begins His teachings on the Mosaic Law with a very clear, well-organized approach. He begins by conferring blessings (which we typically call the Beatitudes); then He provides the context of His sermon (the Jews have lost their planned influence in the world); and then He provides the purpose of the sermon (to fulfill the Mosaic Law, not to overturn it).

Next week, we will get into some of His specific teachings on the details of the Mosaic Law.

The Teachings of Jesus, Week 2: Jesus on the Mosaic Law (Mt 5:1-7:29)

As mentioned last week, the first major section of Jesus’ teachings are focused upon the Mosaic Law. In the next five weeks, we will explore each section of these teachings. First, though, a few comments on the contextual background before we explore Jesus’ teachings on the Mosaic Law.

The Law at the time of Jesus

In general, Jesus’ sermon can be taken in five parts: first, an introductory statement (beatitudes, salt and light, etc.); then He teaches on the Mosaic Law’s statements of treating others; He then talks of one’s relationship to God; and then wraps up with final comments and a statement of His authority to say such things.

It is important as we embark upon the coming weeks’ study to have a slight introduction to the Mosaic Law, and how it was seen in Judaism at the time of Jesus.

The Law of Moses was first given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, with God delivering the Ten Commandments and the teachings throughout the book of Exodus and Leviticus. It is most clearly formulated in Deuteronomy (which literally means the “second telling” of the Law).

By the time of Jesus, the laws of Moses had been divided into 613 individual commandments, or mitzvah. Of these, 365 were negative commandments (“thou shalt not”) and 248 positive commandments (“thou shalt”).

The Law was seen as extremely important by the Jews. The Jews were set apart by God based their selection into holiness by God. However, the relational aspect of holiness was insufficient; to go into God’s presence, to participate in holy rituals, and to ensure God’s blessings on your life, you also needed to be in a place of ritual purity. If you could not adhere to the 613 commandments (as most Jews did not, being strongly Hellenized by the time of Christ), then significant purity rituals (such as baptisms) were required to bring one back into a state of purity before God.

To understand everything that Jesus said in this passage, though, you must understand not just what the Law is, but a bit about the philosophical parties in Judea at the time that He taught. There were three groups of note that we should be introduced to before starting our investigation: Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes.

The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes


The most obvious and frequent opponent of Jesus were the Pharisees. The term “Pharisee” means ‘separatist’ or ‘set apart’. The Pharisees saw the merging of Jewish culture with Hellenized Rome, and feared the end of what it meant to be Jewish. Thus they emphasized an ethic of Jews setting themselves apart from society completely—they emphasized that Jews should be keeping all of these ritual purity laws, all of the time, even outside of the Temple (whereas most Jews only attempted to do so on holy days and in preparation to approach the Temple). Thus the Pharisees were extremely pious, extremely legalistic, and extremely knowledgeable about the Scripture and the 613 commandments of their faith.

In that regard, perhaps the best modern analogy I can draw is to say that the Pharisees had a similar approach to cultural engagement as the fundamentalist Christians do today—the Pharisees believed, as do the fundamentalists today, that the best approach to win the “culture war” is to maintain a strict purity and strict separation from the prevailing culture of the day.

It would be wrong, however, to assume (as we often do) that the Pharisees were unpopular: in fact, they were by far the most popular of the Jewish philosophical classes. They were generous, wise, and extremely active in social justice—they truly did try to follow the 613 commandments. But because of this, they were also quite rigid, xenophobic to the extreme, and quite holier-than-thou. They invested a great deal in the Law, and as we shall see, Jesus’ yoke of freedom was not among their favorite things to hear.

The Sadducees are the second major philosophical branch of first-century Judaism. The Sadducees were, essentially, a religious-political party of Jews who were exceptionally influential. If the Pharisees were the fundamentalist revivalists appealing to the common man, then the Sadducees were the elites scribes and learned scholars, dictating from their ivory towers.

The Sadducees were mostly comprised of the priestly classes and Jewish aristocrats and royalty; not all priests were Sadducees, but they dominated the priestly ranks. Sadducees typical representated Judea in matters of state, collected taxes for the Romans, led the army, served as leaders of the synagogues, and presided over the sacrifices on feast days.

It is also likely that the Sadducees held a majority of the Jewish Council, or Sanhedrin (though the Pharisees were a strong minority).

The Sadducees are most noteworthy for being what Christians would call completely Arminian—that is, they believed in complete free will of man, and that God does not predestine any for good or evil. They also denied that there was an afterlife, choosing to interpret passages about 'heaven' as literally referring to the skies and planets above us.

Much less powerful than each of these, though still important, are the Essenes. The Essenes was a minor sect, who saw themselves as the remnant of true Israel. They lived in various cities but routinely congregated together. They lived a monastic life, imposing voluntary poverty on themselves; likewise, they underwent daily baptisms as a mikvah for remission of their sins against the Law. It is believed by many that John the Baptist was an Essenes, and the description of him in Matthew fits perfectly with this group. The Essenes were also responsible for preserving the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the oldest copies of the Bible and other writings from the time that have ever been discovered.

It is interesting how easily these three fit into modern theological parameters of Christianity. The Sadducees were like Arminians to an extreme—they believed that God could never preordain evil and that thus all men were completely of free will; they also interpreted the Hebrew Bible quite literally, and saw references to the “heavens” as meaning the sky and stars above us, rejecting any concept of an afterlife. On the other hand, the Essenes were like Calvinists to an extreme—they believed that God preordained every event, that there was an afterlife with the chosen ones already chosen, and they lived ascetic and morally pure lifestyles. In the middle were the Pharisees, who believed (like most modern Baptists) that we did have some measure of freedom to act, but that God already knows what we will choose; and, like modern fundamentalists, they believed that the Jewish culture should be strictly separated from the modern Hellenistic culture in order to retain its ritual purity.

So, without further ado, I believe we are ready to hear Jesus’ first teachings to the assembled crowd of Jews on the Mosaic Law.