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The Law in a New LightSample

The Law in a New Light

DAY 10 OF 11

Jesus Reframes the Law – 5

We are now close to the final reframing of the law in Matthew 5 -loving your enemies. This was always going to be the most radical reinterpretation of the law, as it isn’t just dealing with the community the people were familiar with but with their enemies – in this case, and most notably, the Romans. Loving your enemies is counterintuitive, to say the very least.

For now, we are looking at retaliation – which is halfway to love.

Retaliation is paying someone back for their action/s. Sadly, it is a normal human response, but Jesus said don’t resist an evil person, or a person’s evil, with evil. This has profound and costly implications for how we relate to others.

The OT standard/ruling referred to the limits on compensation for harmful actions. The evil person could normally expect judicial/lawful retaliation for their harm. But when we do this the cycle will never be broken, feuds will go for hundreds of years, as testified in so many places.

An eye for an eye limited the terms of retaliation rather than the encouraging of gouging out eyes and pulling out teeth. The words of Jesus assume an act of evil, a person acting without provocation (slaps, sues, forces, begs) to an innocent person, but … tit for tat, allowed by the law, even if within limits, is no longer the standard of behaviour for God’s people.

And who are those who slap, sue, force, and beg and borrow? The powerful, the rich, Govt agents on the one hand, and the poor – those above you in social and political rank, those of similar standing, and those below you, on the other hand.

Appealing to the law was another way of perpetrating disunity, even hatred – masking an attitude via apparently legal means. Jesus saw right through this. Is this how we live and do we continue to perpetuate the domain of the law?

Not only are we not to retaliate but we are expected to go further than asked – to exceed mere right. If a soldier demanded one mile from you go two. He could force the issue, but you can use/employ the issue. This behaviour de-escalates, it calms troubled waters, it brings peace where violence could be anticipated, and if it doesn’t do these things it still reflects the selfless nature of our heavenly Father.

Day 9Day 11

About this Plan

The Law in a New Light

Chapter 5 is the centre point of Matthew’s presentation of the sayings of Jesus, particularly as it relates to the Law. I hope you are as taken by the words and authority of Jesus as I have been. This is nothing less than our manifesto – kingdom behaviour, ethics, and call, all in these verses. What Jesus says is pure genius. How Matthew puts it together is inspiring.

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We would like to thank Simon McIntyre for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://www.simonmcintyre.net/