Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Last week’s section ended with Jesus urging the disciples to righteous that exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees. He goes on to offer six concrete examples of what it means to have greater righteousness. Each of these six examples follow the same pattern – what was said (divine passive, by God through Moses) and what is now being said (by Jesus to his disciples).
• “You have heard” refers to hearing the reading of scripture in a synagogue. Jesus is not just giving a better interpretation of the reading, as a rabbi might. Rather, he is relocating the authority of scripture from the written text to himself – i.e. to God’s presence in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection. [Pastor Kjersten’s note: my pastor at this point would talk about how the hermeneutic, the lens through which we read scripture, is Jesus. Then she would tap the frame of her glasses. Like glasses make our sight clearer, we read all of scripture through the lens of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so we know how to live out the law of Moses.]
• The first three examples follow a set pattern: reaffirmation (statement of the law, reassuring those who feared Jesus was attempting to do away with the law that Jesus came “not to abolish but to fulfill”), radicalization (the fulfillment of the law is not simply a reaffirmation of what is already there, but a move to the radix, the root of the command), situational application (how the radicalized law is to be lived out in community, how to live as imperfect people in an imperfect world).
• V. 21 – 26: Love Shows No Hostility. Reaffirmation: “You shall not murder,” one of the Ten Commandments. “Whoever murders shall be judged is not directly quoted in scripture, but is a paraphrase that can be implied by several texts. Radicalization: the increasing bar is not about civil authorities, but the will of God. God does not want hostility of any kind between God’s people. Interestingly, this bar is set so high, that even Jesus seems to not be able to meet it (Matt 23:17, “You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?”). Application: Since one cannot meet the level of never having hostility toward another, the way to live in this is to always work toward reconciliation. The description cannot be taken literally; a worshipper could not simply leave one’s gift before the altar and walk away in the middle of worship to make amends with someone who could be several days travel away. But the hyperbolic description leads one closer to God’s ideal.
• V. 27 – 30: Love Is Not Predatory. Reaffirmation: “You shall not commit adultery,” one of the Ten Commandments, where it refers specifically to a married woman having sexual relations with a man other than her husband, considered a violation of the husband’s exclusive right to his wife. It would not be considered adultery for a married man to have sexual relations with a woman not his wife. Radicalization: Jesus presupposes the patriarchal setting of both the Ten Commandments and his own time by addressing this to men. This is in itself radicalizing, because women were often considered the offending party. Application: Again the text recognized the will of God was greater than could be achieved. So it offered a remedy for failing, while still recognizing the severity of the action with a move to the hyperbolic.
• V. 31-32: Love in Marriage. Reaffirmation: This is a continuation on the comments about adultery. Earlier, Jesus addressed adultery as being more than a violation of a married man’s property rights, now Jesus challenges the legal understanding on divorce. Radicalization: Divorce is not what God wants for God’s people. Because of how this has been used in modern times as a club against people (frequently women), it is important to consider the tradition Matthew was coming from. 1) There is no Torah command against divorce. Divorce was considered legitimate, the question was with remarriage. Divorce was strictly the prerogative of the husband, so it had to be legal to protect the status of a divorced woman. 2) Deuteronomy permits a man to divorce his wife if he found “something objectionable” about her (Deuteronomy 24:1). At the time of Jesus, rabbinic schools were divided on how to define “something objectionable.” The stricter interpretation limited it to sexual sin or gross impropriety, whereas the looser interpretation was anything that displeased the husband. In either case, divorces were easy to obtain and led to a lax attitude toward marriage. 3) The traditional view was that if a divorced woman remarried, she would be committing adultery. Jesus expanded the guilt so that the one who had the ability to divorce (the man) also carried the guilt for the adultery.
• V. 33-37: Love Is Unconditionally Truthful. Reaffirmation: Oaths must be kept (Leviticus 19:12, “And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord”). Radicalization: Not just oaths, but ALL words must be truthful.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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