Jesus Words 12
CONTEXT / background
Not delete/replace law but FULFILL.
Resetting yrs of “teachers” giving the ok to division & walls
- OATHS
Penalty for perjury
A person convicted of perjury under federal law may face up to five years in prison and fines. The punishment for perjury under state law varies from state to state, but perjury is a felony and carries a possible prison sentence of at least one year, plus fines and probation.
Problem addressed by Jesus in Matthew 5 is unbelievability and untrustworthiness.
- EYE FOR AN EYE
Background of Eye for Eye :
/ limits to unchecked retribution / death spiral of revenge / when is enough enough ?
Cheek – backhand = public insult to ones honor
Following Jesus :
we value God’s honor rather than our own (Mt 5:16; 6:1-18), because our very lives become forfeit to us when we begin to follow Jesus Christ (16:24-27), we have no honor of our own to lose.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Matt/Avoid-Retribution-Resistance
Outer Garment = poor mans bedding
“Because the outer cloak doubled as a poor man’s bedding, biblical law permitted no one to take it, even as a pledge overnight (Ex 22:26-27; Deut 24:12-13). Thus Jesus demands that we surrender the very possession the law explicitly protects from legal seizure “
“Nothing a person can take from us matters in the end anyway; we must love our enemies and seek to turn them into friends.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Matt/Avoid-Retribution-Resistance
———
- LOVE ENEMIES
So the flow of the paragraph could be summarized as follows:
You have heard “love with partiality” but I say to you “love impartially” so you can be sons of the Father; for the Father loves impartially.
For example, Paul wrote:
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. -Romans 13:8
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” -Galatians 5:14
James likewise contrasted partiality with fulfilling the “royal law”:
If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. -James 2:8-9
Jesus Himself clarified that the sign of a true disciple was his love for others:
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” -John 13:35
ILLUS : Be perfect / no more halfway settling.
Military commercials:
Be all you can be
Aim high
CONCLUSION
TWO pronged reality :
1) Isa 6:5
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
2) Isa 6:6
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
9 He said, “Go and tell this people:….