There are people with filthy minds who can see in any situation material for a prurient snigger and a soiled jest. All the world knows of the Christians who were flung to the lions or burned at the stake; but these were kindly deaths. To such a pass did things come that special taxes were levied on the unmarried, and the unmarried were prohibited from entering into inheritances. Because they did not let him wear a business suit when he stood before the jury but he was in jail attire, they set him free. To stand up against force is not exactly our part; we may leave that to others. See John 18:23. Skandalon is a form of the word skandalgithron, which means the bait-stick in a trap. As a legal term it meant to repay or cancel a debt or to grant a pardon. This applies to loans as well as gifts (cf. For many generations this Scribal Law was never written down; it was the oral law, and it was handed down in the memory of generations of Scribes. The plain instruction is, Suffer any injury that can be borne, for the sake of peace, committing your concerns to the Lord's keeping. by Shawn Brasseaux. The result was that, however good a man, however fine a citizen a Christian was, he was automatically an outlaw. It is necessary only because of the evil of the world. Here is the characteristic ethic of the Christian life, and the conduct which should distinguish the Christian from other men. The whole machinery of the eternal and invisible world is continually being called into requisition to succour us against" foul fiends," as Spencer puts it, and surely we may do much in these scenes of human existence. Here, you're through, woman. Coming as it does immediately after the passage which deals with forbidden thoughts and desires, this passage compels us to ask: How shall we free ourselves from these unclean desires and defiling thoughts? --D C McCasland (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Now there is nothing that so summarily banishes a doubt, and silences every question of the natural man, as the simple but happy assurance that what God says must be true, and is the only right thing. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. It is not, as the authorized version has it, "By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;" for it is unquestionable that justification is not by His knowledge. The Law laid it down: You shall not commit adultery ( Exodus 20:14). The Scribes were the men who worked out these rules and regulations. In regard to all three cases, He bids His disciples submit to the indignity, yield the coat, and go the mile. In the great Boulder Dam scheme in America men lost their lives in that project which was to turn a dust-bowl into fertile land. Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. The Rabbis laid down five principles which ought to govern giving. The reply was that it was indeed so. (a) The Christians were accused of cannibalism. That is to be our great model. There were slanders enough waiting to be invented by malicious-minded men. Fourth, Jesus told His disciples to give what others request of them, assuming it is within their power to do so (Matthew 5:41). Nehemiah The Bond That Cannot Be Broken ( Matthew 5:31-32 Continued), 2. The mistake spoken of lies only in blundering scribes, critics, or translators, who have failed in doing justice to that particular place. I go out to the ironmonger and I buy a screw-driver. Coat - The Jews wore two principal garments, an interior and an exterior. And of course there were often foggy mornings where you turned your lights on, not to see, but just to let other people see you. But in the way that the law was originally intended, because it was intended to govern the spirit of man, the law was actually intended to make the whole world guilty before God and to show man's guilt. Reprinted by permission. The Code of Hammurabi makes a curious distinction between the gentleman and the workman. ", The tragedy was that practice fell so far short of the ideal. It is stated in Deuteronomy 24:1: "When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house." But when Jesus interprets it as God intended it, "But I say unto you, whosoever looks about a woman to lust after her, commits adultery in his heart", then suddenly the chest is sucked in and we think, wow. Here, then, occurs the number usual in all these systematic partitions of Scripture; there is the customary and complete seven of Scripture. Somehow we don't think of the poor in spirit as being very happy people, and yet Jesus, in beginning his description of the child of God declares. It is a commandment of which we should say first and foremost: "This means me.". There were occasions when Paul as it were, put himself upon oath. One relinquishes control of his possessions when he freely lends to others. The same thing that Paul said, "Oh wretched man that I am! There is a contempt which comes from position and from money, and pride in material things is also an ugly thing. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. But this is no uncommon thing. One night they held an all night prayer meeting. In the very earliest days the vendetta and the blood feud were characteristic of tribal society. The third illustration requires some background knowledge of customs in New Testament times to appreciate (Matthew 5:41). (Amplified Bible - Lockman), NLT: If you are ordered to court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41 He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. And now Lord, may thy Holy Spirit be with us as we go, watching over, keeping.And Father, we know not what the day is going to bring forth but in the midst of the turmoil that is now engulfing the Middle East, midst of the bombs and the artillery and rockets, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. There is a certain disconnection in the Sermon on the Mount. It is certainly true that there is no other passage of the New Testament which contains such a concentrated expression of the Christian ethic of personal relations. If any say, Flesh and blood cannot pass by such an affront, let them remember, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Jesus sweeps it away entirely, and goes much further than even its abrogation. (Matthew 5). It is indeed, I might say, when souls are thus blessed that Satan's temptations are apt to come. The radiance which shines from the Christian comes from the presence of Christ within the Christian's heart. If this be so, assuredly there must be some key to these phenomena, some reason sufficient to explain why sometimes Matthew adheres to the order of events, why he departs from it elsewhere. If ever we are at variance with someone else, we must get the situation put right straight away. I doubt not myself that the design was thereby to intimate the solemn sentence of God on the connection with Athaliah of the wicked house of Ahab, the wife of Joram. Telos ( G5056) means an end, a purpose, an aim, a goal. Then, set free and at rest in our souls, we return to learn of Him, to look upon Him, to follow Him, to hear His word, to delight ourselves in His ways. Read full chapter Matthew 4 Matthew 6 H. G. Wells somewhere said, "A man may be a bad musician and yet be passionately in love with music." When indeed was this not done? Having obtained the mercy of God, then we indeed should be merciful, but here he puts it the other way. If he has made the tooth of a poor man fall out, he shall pay one third of a mina of silver." It is a warning thing to remember that, as by God's grace we keep our hearts clean, or as by human lust we soil them, we are either fitting or unfitting ourselves some day to see God. It will always mean that all Christian discipline and all Christian punishment must be aimed, not at vengeance, but at cure. In that brief verse there are three clues to the real significance of the Sermon on the Mount. He will become completely detached from things, for he will know that things have not got it in them to bring happiness or security; and he will become completely attached to God, for he will know that God alone can bring him help, and hope, and strength. The word was very commonly used by the Jews ( Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6). Why? He'd wonder, hey you're different man. We must begin our study of this beatitude by investigating certain matters of meaning in it. And we'll not cover it tonight fully but we'll wait till chapter nineteen. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and don't get into these long deceitful kind of well, I would be very happy to do it and I'll tell you what. Well, we have obtained mercy and that's really what makes us merciful. Nowadays it carries with it an idea of spinelessness, and subservience, and mean-spiritedness. It is very much easier to go about declaring that there should be no such thing as war between nation and nation, than to live a life in which we personally never allow any such thing as bitterness to invade our relationships with those we meet with every day. There was the school of Shammai, which was the strict, severe, austere school, and there was the school of Hillel which was the liberal, broad-minded, generous school. AMEN. I hunger, I thirst after the ideal but I haven't been able to attain it. 1 Corinthians If a man committed a sin unawares, if he was swept into sin in a moment of passion when self-control broke, then sacrifice was effective; but if a man deliberately, defiantly, callously and open-eyed committed sin, then sacrifice was powerless to atone. Oh, what a withering refutation of the foolish men of the West! In the gospel of Luke it is not to Joseph, but to Mary. The meaning of this beatitude has been sought along three main lines. The Jewish Rabbis held that the highest task which a man can perform is to establish right relationships between man and man. It seems a surprising way to begin talking about happiness by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." But these guys were practicing righteous constantly, this righteous standard of the law. The light which can be seen, the light which warns, the light which guides, these are the lights which the Christian must be. Bitterness breeds bitterness. Man reaches only true manhood when he is always conscious that he is the creature and that God is the Creator, and that without God he can do nothing. And it was manifested, as Jesus said, when the Pharisee went into the temple and said, "Oh Father, I thank you I'm not like other men, for I fast and I pray" and you know, he's telling God all of his good things. It came from the traditions of the scribes. These words in Hebrew underwent a four-stage development of meaning. The aggaroi originally described couriers who had authority to press into service men, horses, ships or anything which came in their way and which might serve to hasten their journey. The man who has to suffer something for his faith can throw back his head and say, "Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.". (verses Matthew 7:1-4.) We must never look on life as a kind of battle between the past and the present. All that he wanted was an opportunity for so short a time to rest and to relax, and to lay down the terrible tension of living. Does God give to all who ask Him? (iii) It very commonly appears in company with another Greek adjective--akiratos. 1 Thessalonians The disciple is to meet evil with a manifestation, not of anger, hatred, or intent to inflict retribution, but of readiness to submit to more. So, strike one. Again Jesus statement is radical. And no wonder; for no matter how truly our Lord had been the Son of Mary, He had not thereby an indisputable legal right to the throne of David. Don't be surprised they didn't receive you, they didn't receive me"( John 15:18 ). We will inherit the earth as God intended it. Gracious Giving ( Matthew 5:38-42 Continued), Finally, it is Jesus' demand that we should give to all who ask and never turn away from him who wishes to borrow. Had He anything to confess? To put it bluntly, the Greeks married a wife for domestic security, but found their pleasure elsewhere. Did you hear what he did? Then why did Jesus have any controversy with that? The voice of God had said, "I hate divorce" ( Malachi 2:16). The woman in the eyes of the law was a thing. The End Of Oaths ( Matthew 5:33-37 Continued). 5:29-30 If your right eye proves a stumbling-block to you, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better that one part of your body should be destroyed, than that your whole body should go away to Gehenna. A wife might become a Christian while her husband did not. (i) Giving must not be refused. In, view of this custom it was by no means uncommon to see a plaintiff and a defendant on their way to court together in a Greek city. In Greek there are two words for poor. for only in his service do we find our perfect freedom, and in doing his will our peace. I mean, he did that, she was gone, she had no recourse, she was out.That's why this custom of dowry became popular. He did not observe the handwashings that the Law laid down; he healed sick people on the Sabbath, although the Law forbade such healings; he was in fact condemned and crucified as a law-breaker; and yet here he seems to speak of the Law with a veneration and a reverence that no Rabbi or Pharisee could exceed. As Browning had it in Christmas Eve and Easter Day: I fought with beasts, and three times saw. . Both are true, but with distinct design. Young's Literal: to him who is asking of thee be giving, and him who is willing to borrow from thee thou mayest not turn away. This is a typical Hebrew way of expression. What is in the attitude of your heart, that's what God is looking upon. How ugly you are! If we do some fine thing, which demands some sacrifice from us, it may well be that we are not altogether free from the feeling that men will see something heroic in us and that we may regard ourselves as martyrs. They are not such as any of us, or perhaps any man, would beforehand have thought of introducing, and into such a genealogy, of all others. But I say to you: Do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God, nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King, nor by your head, for you cannot make one hair black or white. Doubtless there may have been a special reason for the omission; but whatever may be our judgment of the true solution of the difficulty, it is evident that a priest who was giving his own genealogy would not put it forward in a defective form. It does not reveal your character in one way or the other, but your behaviour with respect to the left cheek will show immediately what you are. man, insists upon having thy coat, or upper garment, let him take In short, if you were sued and lost your shirt (chiton) and your coat (himation), by Jewish civil law your adversary had to return your coat "before the sun set" (see Exodus 22:26, cf similar though in Deut 24:12-13) so you could sleep in it. (i) Salt was connected with purity. We will regard all promises as sacred, if we remember that all promises are made in the presence of God. And the sum of all is, that Christians must avoid disputing and striving. If the inner man rises in hot indignation against the evil and its doer, he is resisting evil more harmfully to himself than is many a man who makes his adversarys cheeks tingle before his own have ceased to be reddened. Not only does indiscriminate almsgiving do little but injury to society, but the words must embrace far more than almsgiving (McNeile). and had long or short sleeves. There is no time in history when the marriage bond stood in greater peril of destruction than in the days when Christianity first came into this world. They were tortured on the rack; they were scraped with pincers; molten lead was poured hissing upon them; red hot brass plates were affixed to the tenderest parts of their bodies; eyes were torn out; parts of their bodies were cut off and roasted before their eyes; their hands and feet were burned while cold water was poured over them to lengthen the agony. Suppose there is a group of people, and suppose it is suggested that some questionable thing should be done. They now felt free to take personal revenge on anyone who did them wrong. The tragedy of so much so-called goodness is that in it there is an element of hardness and coldness and austerity. The next mile is of prime necessity; it is in your option to go or not to go, and your action will determine whether or not you have entered into the inner heart of Christ, and are His disciple, not in word only, but" in deed and in truth.". When Jesus paid that visit, the Cross was only a few days ahead. John asked. 40"If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt , let him have your coat also . It kept the meat from rotting or putrefying.And Jesus is saying to his disciples, ye are the preserving influence in a world in which you live. The Valley of Hinnom is a valley to the south-west of Jerusalem. If you have come into a true confirmation of God in your own life, the result immediately always is that of poverty of spirit. (NLT - Tyndale House), Philips: If anybody forces you to go a mile with him, do more - go two miles with him. Nor is this the only mistake, as we have seen, in the passage as given in the authorised version; for the whole clause should disappear from the account in Luke, according to the weightiest testimony. Now, there's an interesting thing; pornography, and about many of these other horrible things that are happening and you should know it.A man in our church who is the head of the Los Angeles police department in the division of child exploitation told me personally that whenever they make a raid on any of these child pornography places, where they're taking the pictures or where they're publishing the material; he said whenever they make a raid they always find an abundance of satanic literature and the aspects of satanic worship there. But even then the answer of Matthew is after a divine sort. And what of Solomon himself, begotten by David, the king, of her that had been the wife of Uriah? And in that loud, operatic voice she would say, "Praise the Lord, brother". Little fella had just accepted the Lord and was heading off for a summer camp that did not have a religious base. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. With Him all things are possible; and faith receives all with assurance. Robert Louis Stevenson once entered in his diary, as if he was recording an extraordinary phenomenon, "I have been to Church to-day, and am not depressed.". The basis of the Roman commonwealth was the patria potestas, the father's power; the father had literally the power of life and death over his family. Matthew There is something gracious and lovely in the idea that giving must not only remove actual poverty; it must do something also to remove the humiliation which poverty brings. For them there will be one less struggle to be encountered on the way. The Rabbis loved to point out that loving-kindness was one of the very few things to which the Law appointed no limit at all. In God there is this universal benevolence even towards men who have broken his law and broken his heart. Salem Media Group. In these verses the law of retaliation is expounded, and in a manner repealed. Legal obedience is not enough (Matthew 5:21-48; Luke 6:27-36; Luke 12:57-59) . 131. It is not "justify" in the ordinary forensic sense of the word, but rather instructing in righteousness, as the context here requires, and as the usage of the word elsewhere, as in Daniel 12:1-13, leaves open. Matthew 5:42Should believers literally give anything to anyone who asks? "Get thee hence, Satan," was the real language of the Lord to Satan, and is so given in closing the literally last temptation by Matthew. Let it be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.So he's just talking about equitable judgment, but it is addressed to the judges, not to individuals. (Matthew 5:38-42). There is one further point in this beatitude, a point which only emerges in the Greek. Coat (2440) (himation) was general term for any garment but here appears to refer to the outer garment, mantle or cape which was different from the tunic, over which the coat was worn. The words of Jesus sound so strange to us: "If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. Next, we have the call of the disciples, as we have seen. The Christian struggle and the Christian glory still exist. We'll send you an email with steps on how to reset your password. His going to Capernaum was the accomplishment of the word of Isaiah 9:1-21, specifically mentioned for the instruction of the Jew, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, "The land of Zebulun, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. "Did we not cast three men, bound, into the fire?" You see, the whole section here now as Jesus is speaking about the law. The Sermon on the Mount was not for the multitudes. A student who has reached a mature knowledge of his subject is teleios ( G5046) as opposed to a learner who is just beginning, and who as yet has no grasp of things. He was rejected, and most emphatically, by those whose responsibility it was most of all to receive Him. Prince Albert died and Victoria was left alone. (NASB: Lockman), Greek: to aitounti (PAPMSD) se dos, (2SAAM) kai ton thelonta (PAPMSA) apo sou danisasthai (AMN) me apostraphes. And God has deemed it meet to recount even this to us, so that we may know and enter into His own delight in His rich grace as He speaks of the ancestors of the Messiah. What Jesus is saying is this--the truly good man will never need to take an oath; the truth of his sayings and the reality of his promises need no such guarantee. God is already there. Jesus is quite clear about this basic fact--we cannot be right with God until we are right with men; we cannot hope for forgiveness until we have confessed our sin, not only to God, but also to men, and until we have done our best to remove the practical consequences of it. The last chapter (Matthew 7:1-29) presses on us the motives of heart in our intercourse with men and brethren, as well as with God, who, however good, loves that we should ask Him, and earnestly too, as to each need; the adequate consideration of what is due to others, and the energy that becomes ourselves; for the gate is strait, and narrow the way that leads to life; warnings against the devil and the suggestions of his agents, the false prophets, who betray themselves by their fruits; and, lastly, the all-importance of remembering that it is not a thing of knowledge, or of miraculous power even, but of doing God's will, of a heart obedient to Christ's sayings. You're the preserving influence. In actual fact this is even truer than at first sight appears. Bless those that curse you, pray for those that despitefully use you, love your enemies. Words Of Insult ( Matthew 5:21-22 Continued). The Greeks always called Cyprus he ( G3588) makaria ( G3107) (the feminine form of the adjective), which means The Happy Isle, and they did so because they believed that Cyprus was so lovely, so rich, and so fertile an island that a man would never need to go beyond its coastline to find the perfectly happy life. My friend, who is a very powerful man and of commanding presence, took it quietly, waited his opportunity of doing this man a kindness, and I believe it was the means of his conversion also. It was used to keep things from going bad, and to hold putrefaction at bay. This also is contrary to the above canon of the Jews i, which says; "If a man should pull another by his ear, or pluck off his hair, or spit, and his spittle should come to him, or "should take his coat from him", or uncover a woman's head in the street, he shall pay four hundred "zuzim", and all this is according to his dignity; says R. Akiba; even the poor in Israel, they consider them as if they were noblemen, who are fallen from their estates, for they are the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.''. The idea behind this was that, if God's name was used, God became a partner in the transaction; whereas if God's name was not used, God had nothing to do with the transaction. "Not one jot or tittle will in any wise pass until it is all fulfilled.". Hence (inasmuch as these words of the third trial would be wholly incongruous in such an inversion of the historic order), they are omitted by him, but preserved by Matthew, who here held to that order. But we'll get more into this when we get to the seventeenth chapter or the nineteenth chapter when we look at the law of Jesus and divorce, because Jesus does then begin to amplify it there a bit. These things are not pleasant to think about, but these are the things a man had to be prepared for, if he took his stand with Christ. It has nothing to do with what we might call abstract, philosophical, metaphysical perfection. In former times such an insult would never have been attempted, for the whole country knew that Billy Bray was an inveterate pugilist. 2 Chronicles We are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19). Our Lord said that, if someone conscripted you to carry his burden the required mile and you came to the end of the mile and the soldier released you, you should gladly carry it further. Seneca speaks of women who were married to be divorced and who were divorced to be married. Let us think of the situation. As they pushed the barrow up the hill the box, which was the coffin, fell off the barrow and burst open. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.(A). Christianity is caring. It is not likely that death awaits us because of our loyalty--to the Christian faith. Beyond that there lay the Court of the Priests into which the layman could not go. The practical object is equally obvious. 5:31-32 It has been said: Let every man who divorces his wife give her a bill of divorcement. Agape ( G26) does not mean a feeling of the heart, which we cannot help, and which comes unbidden and unsought; it means a determination of the mind, whereby we achieve this unconquerable goodwill even to those who hurt and injure us. To the later Jews these great principles did not seem enough. Leviticus The reason may well be that we ourselves have erected that barrier, through being at variance with our fellow-men, or because we have wronged someone and have done nothing to put things right. The people, too, were all moved at the very thought of Messiah's birth. Again it is easy to see with what a shock the ancient world must have heard the demands of Christian chastity. Now you have heard that it was said by them of old time ( Matthew 5:21 ). ", Ideally the Jew abhorred divorce. We have here, then, the Eastems worshipping the Babe, not the parents; as in the other case we have the blessed man of God blessing the patents, but not the Babe: a most striking token of the remarkable difference which the Holy Ghost had in view when inditing these histories of the Lord Jesus. "These died that the desert might rejoice and blossom as the rose.". 5:1-2 "Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. Jesus calls for a revolutionary response in a difficult situation - cheerfulness. The Greek said, "I thirst for of water." May we fill up the measure o four possibilities, and so be perfect, as Thou, our Father, art perfect in love. When personal relations go wrong, in nine cases out of ten immediate action will mend them; but if that immediate action is not taken, they will continue to deteriorate, and the bitterness will spread in an ever-widening circle. Again, it is evident that, as the text stands in the received Greek text and our common English Bible, "Get thee behind me, Satan," is another mistake. It came from the traditions of the scribes. The interior, here called the coat, or the tunic, was made commonly of linen, and encircled the whole body, extending down to the knees. God treats all men alike whether good or bad, gives rain to the good and bad people, causes his sun to shine on good and bad people; God isn't partial in these things. He changes his place of sojourn from Nazareth to Capernaum. It was always intended as a guide for a judge in the assessment of the penalty which any violent or unjust deed must receive. Matthew 5. "A child," said Plato "loves (stergein) and is loved by those who brought him into the world." They had a saying, "Three classes go down to Gehenna ( G1067) and return not--the adulterer, he who puts his neighbour openly to shame, and he who gives his neighbour an insulting name." Well he would be in any church, but when he gets out in the world it's another story. He was clear that he had come "not to make life easy, but to make men great.". Zephaniah Accordingly, his own life was the witness of what he felt morally of Israel's then state. O wretched man that I am! ( Galatians 1:20). It lays it down that only the man who committed the injury must be punished, and his punishment must be no more than the equivalent of the injury he has inflicted and the damage he has done. A new person had moved into the neighborhood, and Dorcas learned that she was an immigrant. Most people suffer from what Robert Louis Stevenson called "the malady of not wanting." Further, to these Easterns intimation is given of God, and they returned another way, thus defeating the design of the treacherous heart and cruel head of the Edomite king, notwithstanding the slaughter of the innocents. Accordingly, in the gospel of Matthew, the Spirit of God fixes our attention upon these facts. It was not so easy to rekindle a lamp in the days before matches existed. I was almost tempted to write little cards and say, Did you know you left your lights on this morning and you would've had a dead battery tonight but I came over and turned them off for you.
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