Commands of Christ-23a

Look at Sam Storm’s commentary

Wednesday, May 25, 2022 Commands of Christ – 23

A Christian’s Relationships: Within God’s family

1. Why are family relationships special?

We spent a lot of time talking about family and Church family.

Just a further note about family that we didn’t discuss — family looks out for family.

Mess with her cubs, (or just get too close!) and a mama bear is a fierce protector — she will rip you to shreds!

What about us?

It used to be when there was a biblical nuclear family, we would see protection kick in by parents and siblings.

Now that role is being taken by gangs and others.

For the past few days I have been putting out info on books directed to destroy our little children.

If we are truly family, we will be calling out our kid’s names in prayer and doing everything in our power to protect them.

I did it in Tuesday prayer.

We obviously cannot take their protection for granted.

Texas school shooting

Let us begin to call out our church kids along with our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. — DO NOT take their protection for granted.

Plead the Blood over them — over their peers, over their future spouses.

It seems to me the devil is out to steal, kill and destroy our kids.

As I said a few weeks ago on Mother’s Day, babies, including babies in the womb, AND children are the ones God uses to bring His deliverance.

Read: Matthew 7:1-5

2. Our relationship with our brothers & sisters: Why does Jesus tell us not to judge others (Matthew 7:1-2)?

Sam Storms:

Whereas it comes as no surprise that most Christians have at least one favorite verse of Scripture, it is somewhat startling to learn that most non-Christians have one as well. Even more fascinating than the fact that non-Christians have favorite passages of Scripture which they have committed to memory is the curious fact that in most cases it is the same verse!

Non-Christians may know little of the Bible, but as certainly as night follows day they can quote for you Matthew 7:1—“Do not judge, lest you be judged yourselves.” And, ironically, this verse which they love most, they understand least. Never has a passage of Scripture been so utterly abused, misunderstood and misapplied as this one. Non-Christians (and not a few misguided believers as well) use this text to denounce any and all who venture to criticize or expose the sins, shortcomings, or doctrinal aberrations of others. One dare not speak ill of homosexuality, adultery, gossip, cheating on your income tax, fornication, abortion, non-Christian religions, humanism, etc. without incurring the wrath of multitudes who are convinced that Jesus, whom they despise and reject(!), said that we shouldn’t judge one another!

Storms quotes Professor Allan Bloom who…

(Talks about how college students absolutely hate moral absolutes.)

“The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. [Let me add: We’ve gone WAY beyond the demand of tolerance — we must CELEBRATE sin or face the wrath of the prevailing power.] Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness—and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger.… The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all” (25–26).

In brief, for many (if not most) students today, “there is no enemy other than the man who is not open to everything” (27).

How might these verses expand on Jesus' statement about the merciful ( Matthew 5:7 )?

Matthew 5:7 (NASB95) “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

If we show mercy, we will be more likely to receive mercy.

What does it mean to be merciful in judging others?

Galatians 6:7–8 (NASB95) Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

3. According to Jesus, why are we often unfit to be judges (Matthew 7:3-4)?

We fail to prepare ourselves to render judgment — and thereby give fleshly judgment.

We OFTEN fail to think before we speak.

We don’t pray.

WE CERTAINLY fail to consider ourselves and our own sins FIRST, before we render judgment of others.

What Jesus says in Vs.3-4

Romans 2:1 (NASB95) Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

Galatians 6:1 (NASB95) Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

2 Samuel 12:1–8 (NASB95) Then the LORD sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said, “There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 “The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. 3 “But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb Which he bought and nourished; And it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, And was like a daughter to him. 4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, And he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, To prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; Rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. 6 “He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.” 7 Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 ‘I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!

We often fail to consider that WE will receive the same level of judgment (from others? from God?)

Question 3. The picture of somebody struggling with the delicate operation of removing a speck of dirt from a friend's eye, while a vast plank in his own eye entirely obscures his vision, is ludicrous. Yet when the caricature is transferred to ourselves and our ridiculous faultfinding, we do not always appreciate the joke. We have a fatal tendency to exaggerate the faults of others and minimize the gravity of our own.

4. Some have assumed that Jesus was forbidding all judgment, even in law courts. How would you respond to this suggestion?

Storms:

First of all, let us note what Jesus is not saying. Stott reminds us that

“our Lord’s injunction to ‘judge not’ cannot be understood as a command to suspend our critical faculties in relation to other people, to turn a blind eye to their faults (pretending not to notice them), to eschew all criticism and to refuse to discern between truth and error, goodness and evil” (175).

Neither does this verse “command the sons of God, the disciples of Jesus, to be amorphous, undiscerning blobs who never under any circumstance whatsoever hold any opinions about right and wrong” (Carson, 98). That Jesus was not forbidding us from expressing our opinion on right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsity, can be demonstrated by noting two factors: the immediate context and the rest of the NT teaching on judging.

Immediate context—Virtually all of the Sermon on the Mount both preceding and following this text is based on the assumption that we will (and should) use our critical powers in making ethical and logical judgments. Jesus has told us to be different from the world around us, to pursue a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees (because theirs is a “bad” or inadequate righteousness), to do “more” than what unbelievers would do (because what they do isn’t enough, another judgment), to avoid being like the hypocrites (now there’s a word of judgment if ever I saw one!) when we give, pray, and fast, etc. “But how can we possibly obey all this teaching unless we first evaluate the performance of others and then ensure that ours is different from and higher than theirs?” (Stott, 176).

Not only this, but immediately following this word of exhortation in 7:1 Jesus issues two more commands: [Vs.6] don’t give what is holy to dogs or pearls to pigs (again, powerfully critical words of judgment!), and [vs. 15] beware of false prophets (there it is again!). “It would be impossible to obey either of these commands without using our critical judgment. For in order to determine our behavior toward ‘dogs’, ‘pigs’ and ‘false prophets’ we must first be able to recognize them, and in order to do that we must exercise some critical discernment” (Stott, 176). Furthermore, such critical judgments can only be made if there is an absolute standard against which such behavior can be measured.

The rest of the NT—I simply direct your attention to such texts as Mt. 18:15–17; Rom. 16:17–18; 1 Cor. 5:3; Gal. 1:8; Phil. 3:2 (where Paul refers to his enemies as “dogs, evil workers, false circumcision”!); Titus 3:10–11; 1 John 4:1–4; 2 John 9–11; 3 John 9–10; and especially John 7:24 where Jesus himself says, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

Question 4. … If, then, Jesus was neither abolishing law courts nor forbidding criticism, what did he mean by "Do not judge"?

(John Stott)

It is not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous.

Jesus does not tell us to cease to be human (by suspending our critical powers which help to distinguish us from animals) but to renounce the presumptuous ambition to be God (by setting ourselves up as judges).

5. What steps must we take to truly help a brother or sister (Matthew 7:5)?

Question 5. Again, it is evident that Jesus is not condemning criticism as such, but rather the criticism of others when we exercise no comparable self-criticism; nor correction as such, but rather the correction of others when we have not first corrected ourselves.

Read: Matthew 7:6

6. Our relationship with "dogs" and "pigs": This is startling language from the lips of Jesus. What kinds of people do you think he refers to as "dogs" and "pigs" (Matthew 7:6)?

Matthew 15:21–28 (NASB95) Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.” 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.” 24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.

Why is it futile, even dangerous, to talk with such people about the gospel?

Question 6. By giving them these names, Jesus is indicating not only that they are more animals than humans, but that they are animals with dirty habits as well. The dogs he had in mind were not the well-behaved lapdogs of an elegant home but the wild pariah dogs, vagabonds and mongrels, which scavenged in the city's rubbish dumps. And pigs were unclean animals to the Jew, not—to mention their love for mud. The apostle Peter was later to refer to them by bringing together two proverbs: "A dog returns to its vomit" and "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud" (2 Peter 2:22). So then the "dogs" and "pigs" with whom we are forbidden to share the gospel pearl are not just unbelievers. They must rather be those who have had ample opportunity to hear and receive the good news, but have decisively—even defiantly—rejected it. We cheapen God's gospel by letting them trample it under foot. At the same time, to give people up is a very serious step to take.

LifeGuide Topical Bible Studies - Sermon on the Mount.

Read Matthew 7:7-11

7. Our relationship with our heavenly Father: What encouragement does Jesus give those who ask, seek and knock (Matthew 7:7-8)?

How can we be assured of these promises (Matthew 7:9-11)?

Question 7. All three verbs are present imperatives and indicate the persistence with which we should make our requests known to God. The force of Jesus' parable (Matthew 7:9-11) lies in a contrast rather than a comparison between God and men. It is another a fortiori or "how much more" argument: if human parents (although evil) know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will our heavenly Father (who is not evil but wholly good) give good gifts to those who ask him (Matthew 7:11).

Read: Matthew 7:12

8. Our relationship with all people: The Jewish Talmud stated: "What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else." Likewise, Confucius told his followers: "Do not to others what you would not wish done to you." How does the golden rule (Matthew 7:12) go beyond these commands?

Question 8. Not doing hateful acts is one thing (the Talmud and Confucius). Positively seeking someone's good is another (Jesus). Self-advantage often guides us in our own affairs; now we must also let it guide us in our behavior to others. All we have to do is use our imagination, put ourselves in the other person's shoes and ask, "How would I like to be treated in that situation?"

If someone asks about the Talmud, you can tell them that it is a collection of ancient rabbinic writings that form the basis of religious authority for traditional Judaism.

9. In what sense does this rule sum up the Law and the Prophets?

10. Think of a relationship that is presently strained or broken. How can this passage help to mend that relationship?

LifeGuide Topical Bible Studies - Sermon on the Mount.