Lesson 13 - Matthew Ch 5 cont

[Music] the richness and the depth of information this contained I guess better word instruction it's contained in the Sermon on the Mount is so breathtaking but it's also so foundational in the life of a believer in the father in the Messiah schewe that after much time of studying and researching I am still at a loss to explain why the other three Gospel accounts don't include it this is not to indict those those Gospels or declare them as somehow inferior to the book of Matthew however none of Christ's other addresses comes close to the Sermon on the Mount in providing the underpinnings and the expanded principles of our faith to my mind the only wide-ranging message from God and all the Bible Old Testament or New Testament that can equal it is Moses standing on Mount Sinai and teaching the Israelites of the laws and commands of God Gabe look it's no wonder that Mathew draws us a picture of Jesus as the second Moses the future prophet like me that Moses promised to the tribes of Israel now I should review our lesson from last week for a few minutes beginning with my statement that no other gospel contains the Sermon on the Mount now many Bible scholars disagree with me on that matter and they point to Luke chapter 6 which even they label as the Sermon on the plane because Luke has this sermon taking place on a large flat area a plane somewhere that's unspecified but it does refer to the hill country even so it says that Yeshua came down from a hill to this plane and then began talking to the people there now while there are many similarities there are also at least as many differences between Luke's sermon on the plane and Matthews Sermon on the Mount I'm convinced that these are two different sermons spoken by Yeshua at different times and locations even though some of the subject matter is the same not my conjecture as to why Matthew chose to explore Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount so extensively while the other gospel accounts skip it has to do with Matthews educated and pious Jewish background along with who he anticipated would be his readers it would be mostly Jews believers or maybe others that today we might attach the label as seekers now what about being a religious Jew would make Matthew more interested it's because the entire Sermon on the Mount is essentially an in-depth teaching on the Torah as given to Moses the teaching was so astounding Yeshua's Authority was so evident that as we will soon encounter Christ had to pause and he had to make it clear to his listeners that in no way was his intent to abolish change add to subtract from the god-given Torah nor was it to create a new one a Torah of Jesus now one of the important matters that I brought up last week was the yeshuaa chose his disciples they didn't choose him now the context here is all-important because this is one of the passages used to defend various views concerning what theologians call the doctrine of election now we're not going to take a long detour here to discuss this matter but in the past three or four centuries John Calvin's thoughts on this matter had become quite influential in many large branches of the church especially the more theologically conservative ones and in a nutshell he brings together the ideas of divine election and predestination to mean that God decides before were ever born which individuals will believed and be saved versus those who won't so our free will plays little role maybe no role in the matter of salvation I do not subscribe to this notion I think Calvin did and others do because they are taking this matter of Christ choosing his disciples a little bit too far and outside of its historical context and Yeshua's era various kinds of Jewish holy men and revered teachers had followings and the followings of these various leaders were called in Hebrew call me Dean and the more followers one of these religious leaders leaders could cobble together the more clout and veneration within the Jewish community he had so there was quite literally competition among these leaders to acquire followers to acquire disciples and as David Stern points out many of the Standard English words used in our Bibles to translate broad Hebrew concepts don't fully capture the meaning usually now the Hebrew term Talmud singular to the plural world word Tomi deem translated to the English term disciple it's just such a word in our day a disciple of a certain master whether it's from a religious aspect or a secular aspect even as it pertains to sports most often means that these followers have adopted a significant amount of the fundamental principles that a particular master and a field of endeavor teaches although usually they feel free to adopt other ideas from other masters or even at some point switch to a different master altogether these ideas are usually compartmentalized such that the disciple only applies what their master taught them to a certain area of their life but for at all Mead and Yeshua's era the relationship between disciple and master was far deeper fully encompassing their entire life there was a level of undying trust involved in which the goal of the disciple was to become as close to a clone of his master as is humanly possible in manner in ethics and in lifestyle so these potential disciples would make a conscious a considered decision about becoming a disciple of a certain master because it would be a life-changing moment for them which would guide the remainder of their days on earth however we find that Yeshua didn't compete with other masters for his disciples he simply commanded them to follow him now this was rare if not unheard of but neither were the 12 men that Yeshua commanded to join him characterized as some mindless robots who had no choice in the matter that is that in this instance their free wills went dormant or they were overridden as though they were put into a trance they heard Yeshua's commandment to them but any and all could have said no further those who became the disciples of various masters in the first century were searching for just such an opportunity and they tended to organize their lives accordingly to take advantage Paul is a good example of this he was a diaspora Jew who came from a well-to-do family he was educated especially sharp and he had adopted the religious doctrines of the Pharisees but he wanted more so he chose to go to the Academy of Gamliel in Jerusalem probably so that one day he might have the credentials to attract his own flock of followers sometime later on the road to Damascus he was introduced to another and much greater master Yeshua who spoke to Paul from heaven and told him to be his disciple Paul was certainly not seeking at that moment to be the disciple of another especially not of yeshua nonetheless what did he do he switched loyalties so when we add in now the historical Jewish backdrop we see the uniqueness of Yeshua choosing his disciples from among those not seeking a master or at least not a new one as opposed to disciples choosing from a variety of potential masters who were seeking to add to their flocks so in my opinion to form a spiritual law a church doctrine from this event on the Sea of Galilee when he Yeshua commanded for fishermen to follow him is not warranted especially a doctrine that says that only certain people from along from among all humanity have been divinely pre-selected from eternity past to participate in God's kingdom and of this the included and the excluded individuals have no choice in the matter this is misguided it's scriptural error and it even makes the activity of believers going out to spread the good news for our Messiah kind of pointless now the opening few sentences of Christ's Sermon on the Mount are sort of bundled together and it's given a special title called the Beatitudes depending on who you believe in what the chosen criteria is to qualify as a beatitude there are from 8 to 10 of these sayings of Yeshua we covered the first four in our previous lesson now rather than review each of them I only want to point out that I showed you how each could and probably should be understood by means of incorporating the Jewish interpretation concepts of shot and Ramez passat means the simple plain sense of a bible passage Ramez means that while we must take the passage literally there is also a hint towards something deeper something more far-reaching I contend that this is exactly how our Jewish Matthew intended us to approach especially the first eight recorded sayings now part of what divides Christianity today especially with a modern view towards this gorge the foretold in times is that most Bible academics and teachers want us to choose between the simple plain sense of the Beatitudes and many other Bible passages and the deeper sense of it or appropriate that is one ways correct the other way is incorrect this is not necessary when we see the wisdom behind the interpretation concepts of shot and Ramez that the learnin Jews used to plumb the depths of the Holy Scriptures both can be equally correct even if they apply to different times and different circumstances in history well the fifth II attitude is located in Matthew 5:7 so turn your Bibles please to that passage Matthew 5:7 if you have a complete Jewish Bible we are gonna be on page 12 28 it reads in the complete Jewish Bible how blessed are those who show mercy for they will be shown mercy now the idea of mercy is a reciprocal matter between God and man and it was not a new idea nor was it exclusive to Yeshua's teachings there are a number of biblical passages that express this concept that when we show mercy or pity or compassion upon our fellow man it is God who will reward us proverbs comes to mind proverbs 14 21 he who despises his fellow sins he who shows compassion to the humble will be happy in this passage that says the one who shows compassion to his fellow man is happy the Hebrew word that's most often translated to the English happy as a share that's share now another meaning for this word is blessed and like the concept of Shalom being blessed is a gift from God in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Sabbath 151 B is found whoever has pity on people will obtain pity from heaven this is from the Talmud same concept the point is that having mercy upon our fellow man is directly related to the second of what was understood to have been the two greatest commandments of God to love God wholeheartedly and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves therefore to not show mercy or pity or compassion different words for essentially the same thing that is to break the greatest commandment now matthew brings up this issue of mercy many times in his gospel and has yeshua directly dealing with it several times it was one of the most fundamental principles of life among the jews end of the earlier Hebrews in two later chapters Matthew quotes Hosea 6 on this matter of mercy Hosea 6:6 for what I desire is mercy not sacrifice is knowledge of God more than bird offerings Christ deals with mercy in in Matthew 23 among other places matter of fact in Matthew 23 verse 23 he says woe to you hypocritical Torah teachers and perishing Pharisees you pay your tithes of mint and dill and cumin but you have neglected the weightier matters of the Torah justice mercy and trust these are the things you should have attended to without neglecting the others this is a virtually identical thought to what we find in Hosea 6:6 what we ought to notice is that Yeshua calls mercy one of the weightier matters of the law that is well all the laws of the Torah are to be obeyed there exists a hierarchy whereby some laws do carry more weight in God's eyes thereby leading to larger consequences for our actions in regard to our fast feed fastidious obedience or disobedience towards them in the passat interpretation sense God wants our actions during our lives to reflect obedience to his laws and Commandments in fact he reminds folks that paying tithes making offerings in this case at the temple this is a good and required thing but when we neglect the more loving and fundamental obligations to our fellow man such as mercy well it represents a more serious offense against God than not paying our tithes as a for instance in the Ramez interpretation sentence the consequences for these weightier matters will occur at the final judgment at that time the measure of our mercy towards our neighbor is rewarded with the measure of God's mercy towards us and our lack of mercy is rewarded then with his lack of mercy towards us now while Christianity sometimes makes small of this God principle or even says it no longer applies for believers the truth is that old and or New Testaments God is the king in creator of the quid-pro-quo thought that'd get a chuckle if not a tomato one of the more famous statements in the Torah of how God operates his justice system is called lex talionis an eye for an eye now it's a statement of the principle of proportional justice for God worshippers it means that the level of our faithfulness towards his laws and commandments when we are alive on this earth will have a commensurate effect on our lives when we are living in the eternal realm even more there are some commands and laws that carry greater weight there in other words they're more important to him than others and how he judges us how he decides to place us and the hierarchy of his kingdom of heaven we'll also take into account which of his laws of commands we put more weight on note to the wise it's usually best to agree with God about these things and put the most weight on the laws that he does Yeshua says that these three matters carry the most weight justice mercy trust justice mercy trust now I could speak on this for a long time but I'm gonna fight the urge I didn't hear any thank yous but not instead I'm just gonna sum it up in each of these three matters of justice mercy and Trust it is God's definition of them applied in God's context that weird to take them too often we try to apply our personal sense of justice our personal sense of mercy our personal sense of trust to a situation but you know what that can miss the mark entirely and that absolutely offends God God's justice is such an immense topic the part that matters the most is that our offenses against him must be atoned for and that can only be done with the sacrificial death of an innocent creature that principle is the bedrock of the Levitical sacrificial system thus in order to atone for our sins in the highest possible way that includes all types God sent His Son Jesus Christ to be that innocent creature further his death was a once and for all sacrifice to atone for us but you know something God's justice is far more extensive than that it is part of the system of law that he created it explains what a crime is what word do we use for that in church sin it explains what a sin is to God to God what is not and what these levels are rather how these levels of offenses are to be dealt with it ranges from petty theft all the way up to murderer which brings upon the perpetrator minor slap on the wrist all the way up to execution mercy is complicated for one thing the English word mercy is an attempted translation of the Hebrew word and concept of has said and when this word appears in the Old Testament we're gonna see a variation of translations for it you're gonna see things like loving kindness mercy benevolence grace that just names a few in the Greek New Testament the translator will have already chosen a word that like English communicates only part of what that concept of has said is that God is communicating to us so in reality Matthew 23:23 where we'll find the word mercy in most translations as one of the three weightier matters in fact that way their matter is loving kindness mercy compassion pity benevolence grace all rolled into one and as for the way their matter of trust you know that's a similar issue only this time the issue is not displaying trust between ourselves and our fellow man rather it is about living our lives in a wholehearted trust of God and in his word in Greek the word that is translated as trust is pista s' and while trust is not a wrong translation I think a better word to more effectively convey its meaning to our modern way of thinking is faithfulness faithfulness our faithfulness towards God involves more than belief even more than trust it also involves an uncompromising loyalty so each of these three weightier matters is larger in their scope then it might appear to us in our English Bibles well the six beatitude is in Matthew 5:8 Matthew 5:8 how blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God now this or something similar does not occur and Luke's sermon on the plane and again with this saying Jesus is not introducing some new or shocking concept to the Jews we find virtually the same thing in the Psalms just one example but I want us to read today turn your Bibles to Psalm 24 and we're gonna read this rather short Psalm in its entirety to help us understand a little better what Christ is telling this crowd up on a hill in the Galilee so turn your Bibles to Psalm 24 so I'm 24 if you have a complete Jewish Bible is on page 8 11811 Psalm 24 by David a Psalm the earth is Aden eyes with all that is in it the world and those who live there for he has set its foundations on the Seas established it on the rivers who may go up to the mountain of awe tonight who can stand in his holy place those with clean hands and pure hearts who don't make vanities the purpose of their lives or swear oh it's just to deceive they will receive a blessing from Adonai and justice from God who saves them such is the character of those who seek Him of Yaakov Jacob who seeks your face lift up your heads you gates lift them up everlasting doors so that the glorious King can enter who is he this glorious King I don't I strong and mighty I don't i mighty in battle lift up your heads you gates lift them up everlasting doors so that the glorious king can enter who is he this glorious king I don't I say vote he is the glorious King so a person with a pure heart is defined here as one who has good character good character it is one whose character has been molded and shaped by God but what exactly does pure heart mean you see in modern times the use of the word heart is meant metaphorically as a place where love resides or if one has a wicked heart where he resides it is a concept that is also steeped in emotion it reflects how it is that we feel about ourselves or maybe someone else now none of this is bad or wrong but it's also not the biblical concept of the word heart biblically the heart is more or less what we now know the brain to be that is biblically when the word heart is used it refers to that place in the human body where the mind and the intellect reside and Yeshua's era of actually for some more hundreds of years the seat of our various emotions was not thought to be our heart but rather they were divided up our emotions were all divided up and they were placed in their minds and this is several of our organs depending on the nature of the emotion never was the heart in the Bible were the emotion of warm feelings towards others or God lived the heart was thought to be the place of rational thought the place where we perceive the world around us today even though we know that there's no emotions or thinking whatsoever occurring in the heart organ the term heart has become a metaphor for a place of warm loving feelings so if we were forced to choose only one English word to use instead of heart to understand what God's Word was getting at when that word heart was used the word would be mind to use modern definitions then the 6-3 attitude would be phrased how blessed are the pure of mind for they will see God the validation of this meaning that I propose comes to life by the way starting with Matthew 5:21 so what does the word pure mean in the biblical sense as it relates to the condition of our mind now we must first recall the purity rules of the Torah ritual purity is maintained by not contacting something that's impure however should the inevitable happen a wash and await cures it that is if a person has become ritually impure and all will one must be immersed in living water and then depending on the nature and cause of the impurity one must wait for a specimen specified amount of time to pass now obviously our minds can't be immersed in water for one reason a mind is an intangible thing what we think and what we believe is invisible except for our behaviors the result from it therefore while the most pious Jews including Jesus would immerse on a regular basis for all sorts of ritual purity reasons it was regularly done in a fast Didius adherence to a Torah law regarding ritual purity and honestly just too often performed merely as a mechanical custom the true worshiper of God however understands that the outward display and ritual washing are only effective if there is real and sincere inward thought of what God is wanting achieved the goal is a quiet private encounter with God not to make an impression upon the religious authorities or the witnesses in order to satisfy their rules or their customs now Matthew 5:9 expresses that their reward for having a pure mind is to see God seeing God on the surface and in the passat interpretation sense in that day meant to know God intimately in the here and now it meant to know his ways and to have a profound loyalty to him that has resulted in a personal relationship with him to see God is there for a Jewish expression since the principle from exodus 20:3 rather is that no one may see God and live now viewing with our eyes the person and the substance of y'avait is not the mental picture that's being drawn by this Jewish expression to see God yet in the Ramez interpretation sense this is not so much referring to the present life but rather to the eternal life when in fact seeing God is meant literally having a relationship with him will in the eternal realm move us from seeing God in the ethereal and invisible sense to seeing him in the tangible and visible sense man that's something this happens because if a person is pure of mind then he will accept God's justice and what's God's justice salvation in Messiah and if one is saved then he has joined God's kingdom and if one has joined God's kingdom then he shall in the eternal future dwell with God in the same way Adam and Eve originally did on earth in the Garden of Eden when they saw God face to face the seventh beatitude that's found in Matthew 5:9 how blessed are those who make peace for they will be called sons of God now because seed of Abraham Torah class Fellowship presents the Bible from a Hebraic heritage worldview I imagine that many who are following this lesson rather automatically assume by the mention of peace Anissa beatitude that this saying from Christ is meant to invoke among this huge crowd of Jews before him the Hebrew concept of Shalom I don't think it is for one glaring reason God God alone is the maker in giver of Shalom while in this passage the reference is to certain human beings who are the makers of peace Shalom is a spiritual concept about divinely given well-being in all of its facets health inner peace joy prosperity nearness to God restoration welcome and more it is not something that can be produced within a human within us we can't produce it it has to be implanted in us in a divine act of God's will therefore this beatitude can only be about peace in the more conventional sense that is familiar to most people in the world that is peace meaning and absence of conflict or strife peace that is internal or external if we back away from this passage and we look at God's Word overall every mention of peace in the Bible certainly does not mean the gift of divine will being a good example is from the mouth of Christ himself it's found in Matthew 10:34 because there we read don't suppose that I've come to bring peace to the land it is not peace I have come to bring but a sword another more familiar translation of the same passage is the King James Version think not that I come to send peace on earth I come to send I come not to send peace but a sword now although there are numerous other passages that I could have chosen to help explain the meaning of peace and this be attitude I like this one because I see a play on words occurring that gives us both ends of the spectrum of the biblical meaning of peace whether the proper interpretation of those of this verse is of Christ saying that he is not bringing peace on earth or that he's not bringing peace to the land specifically the Holy Land doesn't matter concerning the issue at hand because the type of peace that the divine Yeshua always brings is heavenly peace Shalom God produced well-being for humans answers Jesus he's not bringing that rather it is that his actions and his words will not bring about that well-being but will actually be a catalyst for human conflict he says that he's bringing a sword metaphor or not a sword is a military weapon for what purpose to fight to fight a conflict so let's take that understanding now back to our passage and Matthew 5:9 the peacemakers are not and cannot be Shalom makers rather the peacemakers are the ones who try to prevent or bring to an end human conflict whether that conflict is between individuals are between nations as with other Beatitudes Yeshua is not announcing a new idea a new plan rather he is merely saying what is already in the Torah but it was also part of Jewish religious culture at that time in percaya vote 112 now pirkei a vote you might not know this is just a compilation of the group of the sayings of great sages and rabbis but it's always about ethical principles Pirkei a vote well in Turkey about 1:12 reread this Hillel said be of the disciples of Aaron loving peace pursuing peace-loving mankind and bringing them near to the Torah so the fundamental importance of teaching peace teaching a lack of conflict was an established principle and virtue among the Jewish religious leadership and therefore among Jewish society so what then was Christ getting at when he said those words now Bible scholars just can't agree on it but I think we must look to the historical context for an answer during the early 1st century the Jews were an occupied nation some Jews were content to live with this unpleasant reality while others were vehemently opposed and because of the Roman occupation most Jews thought they were living in the end times and the prophets speak of those times as turbulent and full of wars and conflicts many Jews wanted to resist the Romans but not so far as to bring about retribution retribution or war some the zealots wanted an out white outright war of rebellion the prophets who foretold of the Roman occupation said it was God using a foreign power to punish Israel for their unfaithfulness to him therefore we're gonna find Yeshua urging the people not to rise up against the Romans but rather finding a way to live with it peacefully because the occupation was his father's doing no doubt among the diverse thousands at his Sermon on the Mount there would have been folks who adopted every view and hope concerning their own Roman occupation of the Holy Land there would have been zealots and active occupation resistors there listening as well as those who had sympathy with them or even we're considering joining them such was the times Yeshua was probably speaking to them when he said this as for the matter of these who remained nonviolent the peacemakers being called sons of God for their efforts the reality is that the kings of Israel were called sons of God as were angels so being a son of God was biblically applied in well more than one situation Paul also addresses this term in the book of Romans in Romans 8:14 we read all who are led by God's Spirit are God's sons I'm gonna borrow from my own lesson in Romans on this subject a believer is imputed to be God's Son because anyone led by God's Spirit as a son to him this is a Jewish expression it reflects a universally understood Jewish cultural concept pay attention to this this expresses a Jewish cultural concept of the value of a son over the value of a servant although several Bible characters will be called servants of God which by the way was a high status those called sons of God leapfrog them and that's a higher status yet so while priests were called servants of God a high status Israel's kings were called sons of God a higher status prophets were called servants of God Yeshua is called son of God thus the typical Levitical priests although indeed properly serving God do not necessarily have God's Spirit in them so that they can be called only servants but every believer in Christ is elevated in status above the Levitical priest because we have God's Spirit the Holy Spirit living in us so guess what we are sons of God and ladies please don't let this bother you the issue was not one of gender okay son versus daughter the issue is our status before God from the status standpoint women gain the same favored status of sons of God just as do males if you trust you shoe as your Lord King and Savior bottom line to be attitude number seven being a nonviolent peacemaker that is an expected part of the character of a disciple of Christ so from the passat interpretation sense then this B attitude is Messiah saying that following him means saying no to resisting rome and especially to fomenting trouble with them rather peace with the occupying romans as much as was within their control that was the godly choice this would have greatly disappointed many of the zealots in the crowd and convinced most Jews that Yeshua could not have been the Messiah because the traditional belief was that God's Messiah would be a gray warrior king like David who would appear and then lead the Israel to defeat the Romans had also to begin a new golden age of Israel's dominance in the region if not over the entire known world the Jews doing what Christ is commanding them will make them sons of God and great in God's eyes but not necessarily so in the eyes of other Jews but from the Ramez interpretation sets being sons of God in the present will propel us to being sons of God in a greater and ultimate sense in the eternal realm one such scriptural example that explains and supports what I'm telling you is found in Revelation 21 starting with verse 1 then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the old heaven and the old earth had passed away and the sea was no longer there also I saw the holy city New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband I heard a loud voice from the throne saying is with mankind and he will live with them they will be his people and he himself God with them will be their God he will wipe away every tear from their eyes there will no longer be any death there will no longer be any morning crying pain because the old order has passed away and then the one sitting on the throne said look I'm making everything new also he said write these words are true they're trustworthy and he said to me it's done I am the amz the beginning in the end to anyone who was thirsty I myself will give water free of charge from the fountain of life he who wins the victory will receive these things and I will be his God and he will be my son so the meaning of sons of God in the Ramez interpretation sense means that in the eternal future believers will finally attain the status and the fullest reality of what God ordained at the beginning of creation Genesis 1:26 then God said let us make humankind in our image in the likeness of ourselves that is to say we will upon the new heavens and new earth achieve a likeness an image to God and a degree of connection and intimacy with him that we have yet to experience we cannot on our current physical form and universe experience we will continue with the Sermon on the Mount next week [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

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Keywords: Jesus, Christ, Yeshua, God, Tom Bradford, Torah Class, Matthew, Seed of Abraham, Son of God, Bible, Bible Study, Christian, Hebrew Roots, Christianity, Jews, Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes, New Testament

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Length: 55min 20sec (3320 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020