You Have Heard Part 2
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Thank Clayton Peshek for teaching.
Two weeks ago we began looking at the case studies that Jesus presents in the Sermon on the Mount to show his disciples that he did not come to do away with the Law but rather he came to fulfill the Law.
I had planned to look at the first three last time I was with you but we only made it through the first one.
If you remember Jesus addresses the Old Testament teaching on Murder and anger.
Jesus calls his disciples to a higher standard than that set by the scribes and pharisees by saying that being angry with someone is just as wrong as murdering someone.
Jesus seems to be making the case that its not that Murder, anger and calling someone a fool are the same but that they are parallel to one another. They are more alike than different and because of that one leads to another if not corrected.
His points seems to be don’t get angry or don’t devalue the life of another and if you do you better go make it right before its to late.
Ok so that’s case study number one. Now let’s look at the next case study starting in verse 27 of Matthew 5.
“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 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.
Ok what to things is Jesus comparing? Adultery and lust?
In the next example, Jesus refers to the commandment against adultery, and then raises the standard again, saying that anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart (5.27-28).
To understand what Jesus is saying here, we need to understand what lust is. Lust is not a look of admiration or affection for the beauty of another person. But lust goes much further than this. It is a “disordered sexual attraction that sees people as simply physical objects to be used for one’s own pleasure.” Lust is dehumanizing. Lust is incredibly selfish because it treats the other person as an object who “doesn’t matter at all except as a means to fulfill your own desires.”
Now, Jesus addresses this example to men, but obviously it applies to both men and women. It’s significant that He frames it the way He does though, because in the Jewish culture of His day, certain rabbis claimed that men did not initiate lustful looks or adulterous acts but rather, they were enticed by women. Because of this, women were often secluded and isolated from men. Jesus sees this as nonsense. Thus he very pointedly places the responsibility on the male to exercise sexual restraint.
I am not saying that there is no responsibility on females but two much blame gets put on the women in our society.
It is important to notice that Jesus never blames the women for men's lust. To often I believe we are guilty of that.
Instead Jesus says that if you are looking at a women and lusting after her than that is your fault and you need to take the appropriate action to stop this behavior.
Jesus says to the men that it is your eye and your hand that's causing the problem so you fix the problem and stop blaming someone else.
Now this doesn't mean that a women can’t dress inappropriately but that is between her and God.
The way in which a women dresses is no justification for a man’s sin. We can’t blame our sin on someone else.
Jesus point is that we need to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. They are our problem not someone else's.
More often than not when I hear lessons surrounding this topic its always more about what someone else needs to do so that I don’t sin. And that is the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying here.
Jesus says that it is your responsibility to make sure that your eyes look where they are supposed to look. Its your responsibility to make sure your hands and body do what they are supposed to do.
Jesus goes to extreme lengths to show how important it is to practice self control and take responsibility for our own actions.
Jesus says that if our eyes or hands cause us to sin, we should pluck them out or cut them off, as it would be better to be maimed for life than to be condemned for eternity. This is not to be taken literally, as we could put out our eyes and still struggle with the sin of lust. Jesus is using hyperbole here to stress the need to control ourselves at all costs.
The scribes and Pharisees felt good about themselves because they had refrained from physically committing adultery, but again, Jesus raises the standard. If a sexual act is wrong for us to do, then it’s also wrong for us to think about doing.
MDR
Finally let’s quickly look at one more case study. This one has to do with Marriage and Divorce.
Now its important to understand that Jesus statement in verses 31-32 is actually condensing the ideas that happened in a whole narrative later in the gospel of Matthew. So its important that we read them together in order to understand the context behind Jesus words. So lets do that. Lets first read what Jesus says here then we will turn over to Matthew 19.
“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 (become adulterous), and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
What we see is that the Sermon on the Mount teaching is condensing and drawing out the main idea of Matthew 19. This is not Jesus comprehensive teaching on this subject. It is a specific response to a specific question and the question was , Is it lawful to divorce for any reason. That is the question.
This was obviously a trap question brought on by the Pharisees.
So to answer this question Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
In Jesus’ day, there was a significant debate between religious leaders as to what the qualifications for divorce were. The school of Rabbi Shammai held that the “indecency” referred to in Deuteronomy 24.1 referred to sexual unfaithfulness and nothing else. The school of Rabbi Hillel defined “indecency” in much broader terms: a wife being disrespectful to her husband’s parents, going out in public with her head uncovered, even cooking a bad dinner! You can imagine which school of thought was more popular—it was the one that let husbands (who had all the power) divorce for any reason they chose! And they justified this by the Law of Moses, which did provide a process for divorce.
But we can also see which school of thought Jesus was closer to, as He says that anyone who divorces except for sexual immorality makes their spouse commit adultery (because the assumption is that both parties will get married again). The word translated “sexual immorality” here is the Greek word porneia (πορνεια), which refers to any physical sexual act outside of marriage.
As Jesus will discuss later in more detail in Matthew 19, God intended marriage to be for life, and He did not intend for men and women to get divorced for just any reason.
Just like the previous scenarios the religious leaders were patting themselves on the back and justifying themselves, while thinking that they were rule follows rather Jesus shows them that they are actually rule breakers.
You see the pharisees thought that they were justified for leaving their spouse for someone else simply becasue they gave them a certificate of divorce.
They were like well I didn’t keep her around for a second wife or keep her in bondage I let her go so they were patting themselves on the back thinking that they were doing a good things and Jesus says no. That is not the original intent for marriage.
To leave your spouse in order to be with someone else is always sin. Jesus says when you do this you make yourself and your wife adulterous.
Jesus teaching in all of this is that you have to be faithful to the people that you make a commitment to and if you look at someone else to lust after them you have commited adultery becasue you have been unfaithful to the one that you made a commitment to.
Jesus says if you leave them to go be with someone else, just becasue you gave them a certificate of divorce does not mean that you have been faithful to God, the law or your spouse.
Jesus is encouraging us, teaching us and commanding us to be faithful to God and to one another with our thoughts and our commitment to one another.
Yet again, we see Jesus raising the standards for those who would be citizens of His kingdom, as His vision for marriage and sexual behavior was pristine and unparalleled.
Case Study number 4
Alright lets look at case study number four. (Matthew 23:16-22)
“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.
In this fourth case study we continue to examine the ways Jesus interprets the law, where He will use the formula, “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you.”
After speaking on a variety of topics already, He now turns His attention to the taking of oaths. When Jesus quotes the Law and speaks of swearing falsely, He is not talking about using curse words; He is talking about the practice of swearing with an oath and often times when one swore with an oath it accompanied by a curse.
Maybe when you were little and you really wanted to make someone believe you, you might have said something like, “Cross my heart and hope to die”, or “On my mother’s grave.” Those are oaths.
The Old Testament law that Jesus quotes here is not from one specific location, but it does sum up general teaching that people were to be truthful: they were not supposed to say things that were false.
Over time though, this commandment had been perverted to the point that elaborate rules had been developed for ways you could make an oath or a vow, and that only oaths that contained God’s name were binding. The thinking was that if someone said, “I swear on the name of God,” then they had to be truthful, but if they said, “I swear by the hair on my head,” that vow was supposedly not as binding, because it didn’t reference God in any way.
For example look with me at Matthew 26:69-75
Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
This is were Peter denies being one of Jesus disciples after Jesus was arrested. And Peter tells them , Nope its not me I don't know that man. But then after the third time of being asked Peter gets frustrated and this times he denies it with an oath and he invokes a curse on himself and swears by something or someone that he is telling the truth.
This is the very thing that Jesus is saying do not do.
Jesus point is all vows should be truthful not just the ones that invoke my name. In fact he says it is impossible to make a vow by excluding me or my Father.
How does He make the point that its impossible to exclude God from our vows? 34-36
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.
The Jews had found ways to swear that weren't as binding as swearing by God so that they could twist the truth or easily get out of what they said. So they would swear by heaven or the earth or their head.
But Jesus says to them, Who dwells in heaven, who made the earth, who's city is Jerusalem, who is it that determines the color of your hair?
Jesus point is even when you swear by other things you are still invoking the credibility of God because I am the creator of all things. So you better tell the truth.
Jesus point to his disciples and to us is if we are going to be citizens of his kingdom. When we lend our name or word or credibility to something than we lend God’s as well. So Jesus says even when you are swearing by other things your still invoking the Name of God so just stop doing it.
Instead just let your Yes be Yes and your no be no. Just tell the truth.
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
Further discussion:
Does this mean that it is always wrong to take an Oath?
If you’ve ever watched a courtroom drama TV show, you are familiar with the practice of swearing in witnesses before they take the stand. In light of Jesus’ words in the SOTM, is it wrong for Christians to take such an oath? Some Christian groups have thought so, most notably Anabaptists and Quakers. At the same time, we must recognize that Jesus Himself testified under oath when He was on trial (Matthew 26.63-64), and Paul took oaths on multiple occasions (Romans 9.1-2; 2 Corinthians 1.17-18). With that in mind, we should not be too literalistic here. As John R.W. Stott says, “What Jesus emphasized in His teaching was that honest men do not need to resort to oaths; it was not that they should refuse to take an oath if required by some external authority to do so.
