Sermon Tone Analysis

Do Not Resist

Matthew 5:38-42   |   Shaun LePage   |   July 9, 2006

 

 

I.

Introduction

A.   The Hatfields and McCoys

1.     Three years ago this week, the Hatfields and McCoys shook hands.

CBS News picked up on the story and reported, “The actual fighting between the Hatfields and McCoys has been long over.

But representatives from both families decided to sign a truce…The two families became embroiled in one of the longest and most infamous family feuds in the history of America.

Although they ended the feud in 1891, Saturday, June 14, 2003, marked the official end to the Hatfields and McCoys’ feud when the families signed a truce, in an event broadcast by the /The Saturday Early Show/” on CBS.

2.     The famous feud started in the late 1870’s, but it burst into full fury in 1882, when Ellison Hatfield, brother of “Devil Anse” Hatfield, was brutally murdered by three McCoy brothers, stabbed 26 times and finished off with a shot.

The brothers were themselves murdered in turn as the vendetta escalated.

Between 1880 and 1891, the feud claimed more than a dozen members of these families.

The Hatfields claimed more lives than the McCoy’s did by the time order had been restored.

3.     How did all this start?

The first recorded instance of violence in the feud occurred after an 1878 dispute about the ownership of a hog: Floyd Hatfield had it, and Randolph McCoy said it was his.

But in truth, it was over land or property lines and the ownership of that land.

The pig was only in dispute because one family believed that the pig was theirs because it was on their property.

The matter was taken to court, and the McCoys lost because of the testimony of Bill Staton, a relative of both families.

In June 1880, Staton was killed by two McCoy brothers.

From that point on, the families began a cycle of retaliation against each other that escalated out of control.

Dozens of people died because of a dispute over a hog and some land.

4.     There’s an interesting footnote to this story: In the 1970s, the popular television game show /Family Feud/ reunited descendants of the two families for a week of competition with the overall winning family taking home a pig representative of the original creature at the center of the initial dispute.

(Wikipedia.org,

/Hatfield-McCoy Feud/).

B.    Well, it all ended nicely and it’s become a joke in our culture, but the truth is, the Hatfield and McCoy feud is a tragic story about the destructive nature of revenge.

C.   In the first twelve verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus described what a disciple of His should look like.

The Beatitudes—as they are now called—describe a kingdom-minded person.

A person whose heart is a reflection of the God in whom they trust.

Among the qualities listed there are “*gentle*” or “*meek*,” “*merciful*” and “*peacemaker*.”

The very opposite of one who seeks revenge.

Completely different than the one who would retaliate in violence.

D.   In Matthew 5:21-48, Jesus gave several practical examples of how His disciples should have a surpassing righteousness.

A righteousness that surpassed the scribes and Pharisees of His day.

Their righteousness was a shallow righteousness that was mainly concerned with looking good, not being good.

In verses 38-42, Jesus explains what this surpassing righteousness looks like when we are faced with an evil person.

II.

Body

A.   Matthew 5:38-42 (NASB95): “*You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’

39 “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

40 “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

41 “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

42 “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you*.

B.    “*You have heard*…”

1.     Direct quote from the Old Testament:

a)    Read Exodus 21:22-25

b)    The same principle is repeated in Leviticus 24 and Deuteronomy 19.

2.     The Law of Moses was civil as well as moral.

a)    In other words, Exodus 20 lays out the moral law—the Ten Commandments.

The chapters that followed laid out specifically how the Ten Commandments were to be applied to the new nation of Israel—the civil laws of that nation.

b)    “*Eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth*” is what is known as the /lex talionis/—that’s Latin for “the law of retaliation.”

(i)   Scholar J. A. Motyer writes in the /Evangelical Dictionary of Theology/: “This is often unthinkingly criticized as if it were a license for savagery, but reflection establishes that its intention was to secure as exact an equation as is humanly possible between crime and punishment” (p.247).

(ii) What that means is, “*eye for an eye*” was and is a good law.

Though it has been misused by the vengeful and ruthless and the vigilante, it is the basis of any good system of law.

(iii)    The point of the /lex talionis/ or “*an eye for an eye*” was to make the punishment fit the crime.

In other words, we don’t give someone the death penalty for stealing a Snickers, nor should we give a slap on the wrist to rapists and murderers.

Any society, any government must be fair.

We must develop a reasonable way to punish those who break the law.

c)    Here is the key:

(i)   The /lex talionis /was designed for government—for those in authority.

In Exodus, for example, these laws were specific instructions for judges (21:22)!

Judges, who were given the task of deciding how to punish lawbreakers, were not to give excessive and harsh punishments.

In this example in Exodus 21:22-25, if two men were fighting and they strike a woman and she gives birth prematurely, but baby and mama are not “injured,” the man was simply to receive a fine—“*as the judges decide*” the text says.

But, if the mama or baby died, the men were to give “*life for life*.”

The judge could give the death sentence to one or both of the men.

The punishment was to fit the crime.

This—in theory—was to protect the citizens of the nation from being treated unjustly by her leaders.

(ii) As we continue to read these laws, we find that it wasn’t a strict system of retaliation either.

There were other concessions to be made if there was an injury.

For example, if you knocked my tooth out, it wouldn’t do either of us much good for me to knock your tooth out.

It might make me feel better, but I’d much rather have some cash so I could go down and have Angela Wilson fix me up.

So sometimes there was a fine rather than a strict “*eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth*” system.

In fact, the very next example in Exodus 21 involves a slave.

Listen to Exodus 21:26: “*If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye*.”

So the slave didn’t get to poke his master’s eye out, but he was given his freedom.

The principle was still the same, though: The punishment should fit the crime.

(iii)    By the time Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, the scribes and Pharisees had taken these laws out of the court of law and began applying them to personal relationships.

“Lex Talionis” was being used for personal revenge rather than judicial restraint.

They were misusing these laws to try to justify personal revenge.

But this was never the point in the Law of Moses.

Listen to Leviticus 19:18: “*You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord*.”

Personal vengeance—getting even or striking back—was never condoned by God’s law.

It is not acceptable.

Nor is it a good idea as the Hatfields and McCoys demonstrated.

This is what Jesus was addressing.

His disciples were to rise above this system of personal revenge.

C.    “*But I say*…”

1.     “*Do not resist an evil person*.”

This is the main command.

The rest of this section is a list of examples—what this looks like on a practical level.

But before we look at those examples, what did Jesus mean by “*do not resist an evil person*”?

a)    Jesus was speaking again in hyperbolic terms—exaggerated terms.

Jesus could not have meant “*do not *(ever) *resist an evil person*.”

If He meant “(never ever) *resist an evil person*” then take the locks off your doors.

Those locks are there to resist an evil person.

They’re there to keep evil people from coming into your home.

If He meant “(never ever) *resist an evil person*” then it’s wrong for us to defend ourselves.

It’s wrong for a society to have a police force.

It’s wrong to have people checking luggage at airports so we can keep terrorists from sneaking bombs on the plane.

b)    Again, when we are attempting to interpret the Bible, we must look at the context.

We must understand the history behind the immediate context.