Month: September 2018

Is anger in your heart as bad as murder?

Matthew 5:21–22 (ESV) “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

In the next few sections of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus interprets some well-known teaching from the Law. The first two are drawn from the Ten Commandments. In each case Jesus quotes the commandment and then extends the commandment to include the inner thoughts as well as the external actions. As McKnight points out, Jesus does not disagree with the original command, but he does object to the way the command has been interpreted by other Jewish teachers. For Scot McKnight, Jesus’s interpretations reveal “a fuller expression of God’s will for God’s people” (Sermon, 76). Jesus focuses on the underlying motivation for murder, specifically anger. In each of the three parts of this saying, as the level of anger rises, so too does the penalty.

First, Jesus says a person who is angry with a brother is “under judgment.” The penalty for taking another person’s life varies in the Law. If a person accidentally kills another they may face a penalty but they would not be subject to capital punishment. But the penalty for premeditated murder was execution. Numbers 35:16-21 gives a series of examples of killing to properly define murder and in each case the murderer is to be put to death. The shocking element of this saying is equating anger and premeditated murder. Although anger is always considered foolish in the wisdom literature, it is never thought to be the moral equivalent of murder.

Second, if anyone calls his brother raca he is liable before the council.  Raca is fairly common Aramaic word (רֵיקָא or רֵיקָה, or ῥακά in Greek) meaning “numskull” or “fool” (BDAG). Sometimes pastors will state the word is particularly foul; I have occasionally said raca is a four-letter F–word in order to tease out the shock value. But even with this there is some flexibility, some people would have to be extremely angry to drop an f-bomb on someone, others use the word so frequently it is no longer a shock.

However, at the time of Jesus the word may not have had quite that level of insult. It was “a colloquial term of rather gentle cheek and generally used in familiar surroundings” (BDAG). The ESV therefore translates the word as “insults” his brother to avoid the confusion of the use of an Aramaic word.

Appearing before the “council” is an allusion to the Sanhedrin, analogous to highest court for the Jews. This is to say something like “you will be taken before the Supreme Court if you insult your neighbor.”

Finally, Jesus warns his disciples that calling someone “you fool” result in the dangers of hellfire!  We would expect that the third statement in the progression is the strongest expression of anger, especially since the judgement attached is the fires of Hell. The phrase “you fool” is not very strong in English, but in Jesus speech it may have been. The Greek word (μωρός) is where the English word “moron” comes from, but it would be a mistake to import the contemporary English sense of the word here. Jesus means something like a “foolish rebel.” Moses used this word in Numbers 20:10 when he was extremely angry with the people of Israel who continued to test God by complaining about water.

Jesus wants to shock his listeners, the word spoken in anger is so insulting it brings immediate apocalyptic judgment. The “fires of hell” is the usual translation for the word ghenna, the Valley of Hinnom. This valley associated with Molech worship before King Josiah destroyed the altars and turned the location into a garbage pit. Since the garbage was always on smoldering and stinking it became a metaphor for eternal judgment.

Jesus clearly says if you are angry enough to use insulting and hurtful language, then you are in danger of not entering into the kingdom of Heaven (the opposite of entering into Gehenna).

This does not mean “never get angry” since there are many things in this life which ought to anger us. Even Jesus was angry with the money changers at the temple. God is frequently angry with his people in the Hebrew Bible. It is the cause of our anger which is a problem, but also what we do with that anger once it rises. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says his disciples will deal with anger differently than the rest of the world. They will seek reconciliation rather than revenge. More importantly they will deal with the internal causes of anger before lashing out at people.

Is Jesus telling his disciples to never get angry? How does the true disciple of Jesus live in a world which is deeply troubling and avoid the kind of anger Jesus describes here? How can a true disciple of Jesus respond to the troubling evil we witness in daily life (via the national news, through popular media, etc.) Social media makes it so easy to respond in anger without penalty, should the true disciple of Jesus simply avoid contact with the world?

Jesus begins by making it clear he is not abolishing the Law, but rather demonstrating how to keep the Law properly. It is possible, Scot McKnight suggest, that Jesus has been accused of breaking the Law or teaching things which nullified the Law. There are several examples of the Pharisees questioning Jesus about certain practices such as eating with sinners (Matt 9:1-11), fasting (Matt 9:14), and Sabbath (Matt 12:1-13).

The word fulfill in in contrast to annulling the Law, “far from undercutting the role of the Law and the Prophets, is to enable God’s people to live out the Law more effetively” (Nolland, Matthew, 218). For Jesus the Law is God’s eternal word. The heaven and earth itself will pass away before the Law does.

Jesus is not abolishing the commands of the Law at all. The righteousness of the true disciple of Jesus must exceed even the Pharisees. The Pharisees were known for “building a wall” around the Law so that they would not break the Law in ignorance. For example, the Law did not require a tithe on herbs such as mint, dill, or cumin. But the Pharisee tithed on everything, including these plants. Later in Matthew Jesus will call this “straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel” (Matt 23:23-24).

Sometimes the Pharisees are mis-characterized as hyper-legalists who demanded all Jews following their interpretation of the Law. Contemporary preaching makes them sound like Puritans (or the men from A Handmaid’s Tale). It is important to understand the motivation for much of the teaching of the Pharisees: they wanted to obey the Law since it was God’s holy and perfect will. They did not obey out of fear, but as a response to God’s grace given to all Israel. For a Jew living in the Second Temple Period, the Pharisees were not the “bad guys” (in contrast to contemporary Christian preaching).

To have “more righteousness than the Pharisees” does not mean “have more rules than the Pharisees.” They increased the number of rules and traditions to build their wall around the Law, Jesus wants his disciples to seek the heart of the Law. What are the principles found in the Law which reflect the heart of God? What are the principles behind a particular command which God demands of his people at in time in salvation history?

Scot McKnight suggests this section of the Sermon on the Mount is a new way of reading Scripture. For McKnight, Jesus is setting himself up as a lens through which Scripture should be read. Jesus “had the audacity to think he was the messiah and taught a Messianic ethic” (Sermon on the Mount, 67). This messianic re-interpretation of the Law was radical and resulted in conflict with the Pharisees and other religious leaders. Imagine if Jesus showed up in a typical Bible College or Seminary classroom (or a plenary session at the Evangelical Theological Society) and told the professors they were reading the Bible wrong and were “blind guides”(Matt 23:16) or hypocrites who look good on the outside but are “full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matt 23:27-28). I am certain they would question Jesus in the same way the Pharisees did (Where is your authority? Where did you get your degree? Where are your scholarly publications?)

This is not a kind of “find Jesus in the Old Testament” hermeneutic. Jesus fulfills the entire theological story of the Old Testament. He is the climax of the story since everything in the Law and prophets point towards him.

Jesus really is teaching his disciples how to understand the Law and apply it in a new context (like the Pharisee), but not by multiplying commands. Jesus demands his disciples go deeper than a list of rules and seek the true heart of God behind the Law. He will give two examples of this new way to read the Law in the next two paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount by re-reading two of the Ten Commandments.

Light also is a positive image: the world is in darkness and Jesus’s followers are to be a light in that darkness. A “light in the darkness” is part of the messianic age, the suffering servant was to be a “light in the darkness.” Zechariah alludes to this in Luke 1:79, his son John will shine a light for those living in the darkness. They are in the dark because they live “in the shadow of death.” The Gospel of John describes Jesus as the “true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9) which overcomes the darkness (1:4-5).

Jesus offers two metaphors for the way his disciples were to be light in the world, a city and a lamp. First, a city on a hill cannot be hidden. it can be seen from a distance and any light from that city will be seen clearly in the darkness. Jeremias (Parables, 217) understands the saying as a word of comfort for the disciples, the “citizens of the … eschatological city of God … whose light streams through the night needing no human efforts.” Second, when a lamp lit, it was normally placed on a stand or in a niche in the wall so the light can illuminate the whole room. In makes no sense to hide an oil lamp under a basket, the point of a lamp is to shine light in the darkness.

The point of the two illustrations is that it is impossible for the Christ-follower to hide their light, and even if they could manage to hide their light, it makes no sense to do so since their entire purpose is “being a light.”

If the “Salt of the Land” referred to the disciples as a preserving agent within Judaism (as opposed to the Pharisees), then “Light of the World” refers to the function of Israel as the light to the Gentiles. Jesus uses κόσμος rather than γῆ, so the whole world (Jew and Gentile) is in view rather than just the Land of Israel.

Pennington points out that Scot McKnight is unique in his assertion the two words refer to different things. He argues they are in parallelism and therefore have the same reference. Pennington, Sermon on the Mount, 164, note 74. Late he says “both the salt and light metaphors are communicating the same idea, that Jesus’s disciples are not the heralds of the new and lasting covenant being effected by Jesus” (p. 165). While it is true Jesus’s disciples are heralds of the new covenant, is that what this passage is actually saying? He argues that salt and light overlap in the area of covenant, salt used with bread to conclude a covenant agreement, and light as associated with the messianic age of the new covenant.

Israel was supposed be so devoted to God, living out a wise lifestyle, that the nations would see them and be attracted to God. They were the “light of the world” in the Old Testament, but they failed to be devoted to the Law and failed to live out a wise life and rarely attracted Gentiles to the God of Israel. There are some examples of Gentiles honoring the God of Israel (Nebuchadnezzar, for example, perhaps Nehemiah, Esther and Mordecai), but for the most part Israel did not act as the “light to the world.” Ultimately, the “light to the whole world” is the messiah, especially in Isaiah 9:2, a passage quoted by Matthew 4:16 (cf., Isaiah 42:6, 9).

Finally, the followers of Jesus are to let their light shine in the world so that people will see this and glorify the Father. This too was supposed to be a function of Israel in the Old Covenant (Deut 4:5-8). If Israel is obedient to the Law, then the nations will see this and consider Israel to be a great and wise nation.

The followers of Jesus are to be the preserving agent in their culture; they are still the only light in this dark world, the only want that light can be seen is if it is active in the world in some real and tangible way. Good works is “a translation of the Jewish מַעֲשִׂים טֹובִים, the thought is of those demands of God that are not legally prescribed by the Torah, such as especially works of charity and alms giving” (Luz, Matthew 1-7, 208).

There are many examples of Christians who live out their faith in a way which benefits the whole culture and demonstrate to the culture the light of Jesus Christ. Some Christians live out a Christ-like lifestyle in a way which makes life better, healthy, etc. so that people are attracted to the Light.

But there are far too many Christians who are not unlike the Pharisees in the first century, so committed to a narrow way of thinking they are no longer benefiting their culture and they are more like a dim lamp underneath a basket!

Like the third beatitude, the “earth” (γῆ) in Matthew 5:13 refers to the land of Israel. If I am right about salt as a preserving agent, then Jesus is telling his circle of disciples they are the ones who will preserve Israel (and not the Pharisees).

The worthless salt is “thrown out and trampled (καταπατέω) under people’s feet.” Although this is the type of thing one might do with worthless salt, there may be a hint of coming judgment on people who do not hear Jesus’s message. Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns against giving sacred things to dogs and casting “pearls before swine” (Matt 7:6). This is a troubling verse for many reasons, but on the surface it appears to warn disciples they will be attacked (trampled and torn to pieces) when they preach the Gospel to some types of people. In Luke’s version of the parable of the sower, some seed falls on the path and is trampled (Luke 8:5) In Matthew 13:4 the seed on the path is eaten by birds and Jesus interprets this as the “evil one” snatching away the word of God.

Although the phrase does not appear in Matthew, in Luke 21:24 Jesus says “Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles” (using the cognate verb πατέω). Revelation 11:2 is a possible allusion to this verse, the Gentiles will trample (πατέω) Jerusalem for 42 months. But Gentiles trampling Jerusalem appears in clear eschatological texts the Hebrew Bible as well. For example, in Daniel 8:13 Daniel asks how long the sanctuary and host will be “trampled underfoot?” Although it is not the same word as Matthew 5:13, the LXX uses a related verb, συμπατέω. Daniel 8 refers to the desecration of the Temple prior to the Maccabean revolt, but Jesus uses the language of Daniel 9:27 to predict the coming fall of Jerusalem (Matt 24:15).

Perhaps Jesus implies a contrast between his (true) disciples and those who are not his disciples. The “not the salt of the earth people” are the Pharisees and other leaders in Jerusalem who are not hearing Jesus nor accepting him as the messiah. After the Sermon on the Mount Jesus demonstrates his authority through a series of miracles (Matthew 8-9), but there are also a series of stories describing resistance to Jesus. The “teachers of the Law” think Jesus is blaspheming when he forgives sin (9:3), the Pharisees complain Jesus is eating with sinners (9:11), the disciples of John the Baptist question Jesus on fasting (9:14) and even John himself wonders if Jesus is really the messiah (11:1-19). Whole villages reject Jesus (11:20-24), the Pharisees condemn Jesus for breaking the Sabbath (12:1-14) and eventually declare his power of demons proves he is an agent of Beelzebul (12:22-37). After refusing to give the Pharisees a sign (Matt 12:38-45), even Jesus rejects his own family in favor of his true followers (12:46-50). By the end of Matthew it is the Pharisees who are judged as blind guides, those who cannot preserve Israel any longer and are in danger of being cast out (Matt 23).

With this overview of Matthew in mind, the saying in Matthew 5:13 may be an encouragement to the disciples to be the preserving agent within Second Temple Judaism and a veiled threat to those who reject Jesus as messiah. That the Pharisees are the ones to be tossed out and trampled is a typical ironic reversal of expectations: those who think they will enter the Kingdom of Heaven will remain outside while others enter the Kingdom before them.

I find this a remarkable warning to contemporary Christianity. There are far too many people who claim to be following Jesus but they are more like the Pharisees. It is very easy for a church or a Christian to become so wrapped up in what people think counts toward religion and piety and completely miss the whole point of following Jesus. This might take the form of religious practices which lose their meaning, or the kind of political activism which mixes a poor understating of the Bible with a radical Americanism. To what extent is Jesus’s warning to those about to be cast out and trampled underfoot a call to the modern Christian church?

“Salt, city, and light can be used for almost anything, and the history of interpretation shows that this indeed is what has happened” (Luz, Matthew 1-7, 205).

The second section of the Sermon makes two remarkable statements about the followers of Jesus. They are the “salt of the Earth” and the “light of the world.” Both metaphors have become common in western culture, although the meaning of “salt of the earth” has changed. For example, the common dictionary definition is “a simple, good person” just as Jesus’s followers were simple fishermen. But this completely misses the point of what Jesus intended in Matthew 5:13.

So what does Jesus mean by these two metaphors? As is common in the teaching of Jesus, he is looking back to the Hebrew Bible and interpreting as a prophet by applying texts and metaphors to himself and his followers.

Since salt is a preserving agent in the ancient world, the followers of Jesus will in some real way act as agents of preservation. Salt has several different uses, from purification (Exod 30:35) to adding flavor to foods (Luke 14:34, “lost its taste”). Scot McKnight suggests the exact nuance of “salt” is less important than the loss of saltiness (McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, 57; Davies and Allison list eleven possibilities, Matthew 1-7, 472-3). Whatever the use of salt Jesus as in mind, salt is worthless if it is not salty! The verb μωραίνω sometimes has the nuance of “foolish” here the aorist passive refers to something which has become tasteless, or possibly “become insipid.”

Can salt actually lose its saltiness? It seems unlikely for the chemistry of salt to change into something else simply through disuse, so scholars often refer to Dead Sea salt, which is only about one-third salt. The other minerals can lose their taste when they dry out. It is possible the reference is mixing salt and other things, so that the salt is no longer effective.

Or, is “salt losing its saltiness” a metaphor for an impossible thing, like hiding a city on the hill? If it is impossible for a city on a hill to be hidden, perhaps the point is that in the unlikely event salt goes bad, it gets tossed out. This may be an eschatological allusion, tramping under foot may be part of judgment.

“The salt is thrown out, according to the everything-in-the-street law, which was the principle of garbage disposal in the ancient Orient. Understand that the disciple will be excluded from Jesus’ following … will be trodden underfoot; an image of the scorn—even on the part of humans—that is the lot of disciples who have fallen away from their fervor” (M. J. Lagrange, cited by TLNT 2:536).

This metaphor implies the follower of Jesus can become less effective, so that they are “worthless.” Looking ahead to the end of the Sermon, Jesus says many will come to him on the Day of Judgment expecting to enter into the Kingdom of God, claiming to have prophesied and cast out demons in his name, but he will say to them “I never knew you” (Matt 7:21-23). Not everyone who appears to be a follower of Christ is actually a follower, just as not everyone in a church today has a real relationship with Jesus.

This saying is spoken directly to Jesus’s followers, the ones who are sitting at his feet and listening to his teaching. They are the ones who are told they are a preserving agent designed to keep their culture from decaying into foolishness. It is perhaps not insignificant the word Jesus uses is also used by Paul in Romans 1:22, those who claimed to me wise had become fools when they worshiped idols. The follower of Jesus potentially can decay from a wise person (with their house built on the rock) into the foolish person (with their house built on the sand), as Jesus will conclude the sermon in Matthew 7:24-26.

This is not particularly comforting. Jesus says it is possible for his followers to become “worthless” and no longer of any value. On the one hand, this may be part of a common theme throughout Matthew that there are some followers of Jesus who are not “true followers” and will be separated out for judgment at some point (Judas, for example). But on the other hand, this is a warning to all the followers of Jesus to maintain their effectiveness as disciples of Jesus.

In what ways might the church (or an individual Christian) “lose their saltiness”? Is it possible some parts of the western, Christian church has already become ineffective for the Gospel and has become worthless? What are some ways the Church heed this warning?