Lesson 17 - Matthew Ch 5 cont 5

[Music] we have been in Matthew chapter 5 long enough that a reminder of the setting in the background for the Sermon on the Mount is an order the setting is the Galilee it is the serene rural agricultural and shepherding center of the Holy Land and above the Sea of Galilee which was somewhat larger then than it is today our gentle rolling hills covered with mustard plants poppies a variety of grasses small bushes the trees are few not very large and somewhere in those hills a crowd of thousands of Jews gathered mostly the common folk from places as far away as Syria why did they come what drew them there it was to encounter Yeshua was it a religious encounter they sought not in the sense we moderns think of it in that era what we would call religion was not separated and compartmentalized away from all other aspects of their lives a God or a spirit was always involved in whatever activity was occurring these thousands of Jews however did not come because they thought they were going to meet their Messiah Matthew 4:23 through five - Yeshua went all over the Galil the Galilee teaching in their synagogues proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing people from every kind of disease and sickness word of him spread throughout all Syria and people brought to him all who were ill suffering from various diseases and pains those held into the power of demons epileptics and paralytics and he healed them huge crowds followed him from the Galilee the ten towns Jerusalem Judah and aver hardened across the Jordan seeing the crowds Yeshua walked up the hill and after he sat down his disciples came to him and then he began to speak and this is what he taught them so the people came why in hopes of healing of their physical ailments the teaching they would receive was a bonus now likely the place was near to Capernaum afar into whom because that was where Yeshua was currently residing at this time the Jewish people looked upon Jesus as a Sadiq a holy man that was a miracle-working healer Sadiq would come along every now and then without warning these men could indeed actually heal in the name and the power of the Lord God of Israel so when a holy man appeared the sick and the lame would flock to him now Christ had not yet publicly revealed his divine nature nor his mission as the Messiah that had been foretold in the Jewish Bible the Tanakh now I use the term Bible in a loose way Jews did not own or carry around neatly a neatly bound holy book as we do in our time for one reason the various books of the Old Testament were written down on rather bulky Scrolls and since each precious word had to be copied and recopied by hand there were a few Jews that had such ability or authority to do so and it was rare that even a well-to-do person might possess much more than a single book of the Bible therefore actual scripture teaching occurred only at the local synagogue where many could hear it at one time and even the scripture teaching took a backseat to the teachings of the traditions of the elders that the Pharisees who dominated the synagogues advocated and they insisted upon it now as his speech to the crowd began Yeshua first acknowledged who was present in a series of blessings next he paused and he made this crucial statement it was a sort of preamble prior to the remainder of his teaching and there in it he cautioned in a kind of pre-emptive strike that in no way should anyone think that what he would say abolished changed added to subtracted from the law and the prophets now that term was shorthand for the entire Tanakh what we call the Old Testament in wanting to be certain that he was not going to be misunderstood or misrepresented he elaborated by saying that not even one letter in one word of the Scriptures would be abolished or changed until the present heavens and earth passed away and further than anyone who disobeyed any part of the Holy Scriptures the law specifically and they taught others to do so would be eternally relegated to the lowest possible rung of society and status in the kingdom of heaven afterwards he began to teach often by stating one or another of the Ten Commandments and explaining that while doing them was still required the intent and the mental attitude that a worshipper approached in observing the commandment was every bit as important as the action itself reconciliation rather than revenge or even a lawsuit was what Christ's instruction in various situations was from having anger towards someone to the matter of collecting an unpaid debt we left off at verse 26 so open your Bibles please to chapter 5 verse 27 open your bibles to matthew chapter 5 let us start at verse 27 and that begins if you have a complete Jewish Bible on page 12 29 1 2 2 9 Matthew chapter 5 starting at verse 27 you have heard that our fathers were told do not commit adultery but I tell you that a man who even looks at a woman with the purpose of lusting after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart if your right eye makes you sin gouge it out throw it away better than you should you should lose one part of you that have your whole body throw in to thrown into Gehenna and if your right hand to makes you sin cut it off and throw it away better you should lose one part of you than have your whole body thrown into gate you know now it was said whoever divorces his wives wife must give her a get but I tell you that anyone divorces his wife except on the ground of fornication makes her an adulteress and that anyone who marries a divorcee commits adultery again you have heard that our fathers were told do not break your oath keep your vows - I don't I but I tell you not to swear it all not by heaven because it's God's throne not by earth because it's his footstool not by Jerusalem because it is the city of the great king don't swear by your head because you can't make a single hair white or black just let your yes be a simple yes your no a simple no anything more than this has its origin in evil now you have heard that our fathers were told I for eye and tooth for tooth I tell you not to stand up against someone who does you wrong on the contrary if someone hits you on the right cheek let him hit you on the left cheek - if someone wants to sue you for your shirt let him have your coat as well if a soldier forces you to carry his pack for one mile carry it for two when someone asks you for something give it to him when someone wants you to borrow something from you lend it to him now you have heard that our fathers were told love your neighbor and hate your enemy I tell you love your enemies pray for those who persecute you then you will become children of your father in heaven for he makes his Sun Shine on good and bad people alike he sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike what reward do you get if you only love those who love you I even the tax collectors do that and if you were really friendly only to your friends are you doing anything out of the ordinary even the Gentiles do that therefore be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect now I want to remind you of something I said from an earlier lesson yes we are crawling through these verses at a pace that would make a snail seem like Secretariat now the reason is that the Jewish cultural understanding that goes without saying to those who are in attendance an understanding that is embedded and Yeshua's words is not usually known to us in the West in the 21st century that cultural understanding provides the needed context for extracting correct meaning from Christ's statements therefore for us to grasp the meaning in intent and to apply it properly to our lives we must be open minded and willing to invest our time to be instructed in the ways and the customs of that ancient and foreign civilization Yeshua quotes Exodus 20:14 the seventh commandment thou shalt not commit adultery now this commandment is the proverbial can of worms since it's giving it Mount Sinai it is a direct commandment concerning sexual behavior and the operation of morality within it and since the command is brief later Moses will give further instruction on it now today in a time when even the fundamental concept of morality is questioned even angrily rejected by some sexual behavior has become little more than a playground of pleasure-seeking with nearly no boundaries whatsoever it is not unusual for those who seek such pleasures to argue about what the Bible says regarding it and they enjoy reminding Christians that the church long ago threw away the laws of God and they replaced it with Jesus and love so the conclusion is that this seventh commandment and all that offshoots all the offshoots that stem from it they no longer matter because Jesus did away with all those ancient sexual limitations now if you want to know why sexual immorality is now the norm in the West simply look to the pulpit it is Christian leaders its commentaries who are responsible for this avalanche of sex sin due to their tolerance of anything and everything due to the false doctrines and the denials of just plain biblical truth now understanding what this seventh commandment means and entails well that require some explanation before we get into how yeshua dealt with it so before we get to the second part of Christ's instruction about it I want to draw heavily from a teaching I did on Exodus 20:14 some years ago the seventh commandment is that a married person should not commit adultery now the first thing to understand is the entire concept of adultery by definition only occurs within the institution of marriage outside of marriage adultery has no meaning marriage is not only an important element for God's plan for mankind but it plays a role in God's relationship with mankind the fundamental concept of a marriage is that a union a hers as concerns human to human relationships scripturally speaking this marriage union is between a man and a woman when I say it again there is no provision for same-sex marriage in the Bible in fact such a notion is an oxymoron now while we too often think of marriage as a physical or maybe a sexual matter or in our American society as a financial or a legal matter in fact the Union God is dealing with in the seventh commandment is first and foremost a spiritual union a spiritual union certainly in the present world the physical aspects of marriage exist and not the least of reasons for it is the propagation of our species from you Hovey's perspective the sin of adultery is less about a husband or wife having a physical sexual union outside of their marriage than it is about our spirits entering into an unauthorized union with another God has authorized that a man and a woman before him may be joined in every level of union between themselves but only between themselves the only other union allowed within that marriage is with God now you've probably noticed that our union with Christ is often spoken of in the Bible using marriage terminology and its use is both metaphorical and real that fact should help us to be more aware of just how were to consider the essence of marriage from your whole face point of view and how we are to consider the nature of our relationship with Christ see just as an earthly marriage is meant to be a man and a woman coming into union with one another salvation is humanity's union with Christ now we who are Christ's are figuratively speaking in a state of betrothal Pam right now we are in the marriage process right now Christ is with us in spirit so we are in union with him in spirit but there will be a time in the future when we are Union union with him and much more much more tangible and complete way so even during our current earthly time of betrothal to Christ for us to come into union with someone or something that is forbidden is to place us into a state of unfaithfulness to Christ therefore this puts us in a state of adultery and our relationship with Christ the New Testament Greek word muy Coase which is typically correctly translated as adultery must be understood and it's Old Testament Hebrew sense in order for us to fully understand what God's telling us about adultery now when the Hebrews spoke of adultery they meant unfaithfulness to your partner your union partner it did not have to be an overt act of having sex with another person to be considered adultery although most often that is what occurred what constituted adultery and the proper proofs and Punishment sport changed considerably over time during the time of the patriarch adultery required the wife to have had sex with another man no proof other than the husband's suspicions were needed and he himself could put her to death the laws of Moses brought the requirement for conviction to a minimum of two witnesses by the time of Christ much more proof was needed a court of law would rule on the matter and death was still one of a range of possible punishments not long after Christ the death penalty was removed for the sin of adultery because it becomes so rampant within Jewish society that it was almost impossible to police and the number of women that would have been executed was so large as to make carrying out the death sentence unthinkable during all biblical times adultery was considered primarily a female crime and sin men were usually not subject to it now there are certain unions available to mankind that we are prohibited from entering into especially if we wish to also be in union with Christ in other words there are some unions that are mutually exclusive an extreme example would be that if we were to come into spiritual union with Satan we cannot also be in spiritual union with Christ those two relationships being mutually exclusive there are other forbidden unions all of them are destructive so we need to understand the very serious nature of this particular sin in a much broader context than we typically think about it now on Matthew 5:27 28 yeshua essentially explains how adultery comes about it is that it is always begins in the mind it's a product of our evil inclination if one first doesn't fantasize about it and embrace the idea it doesn't happen therefore when married men I other women in a lustful way then Yeshua says that from God's perspective the act of adultery has already occurred the thought being that embracing the idea inevitably leads to the doing of it the God principle is that just as anger is the initiating cause of murder so is lust the initiating cause of adultery now especially in the 21st century pornography is perhaps the number one expression of lust and the lives of males married or otherwise there can be no intellectually honest defense of the use of pornography as anything other than immoral lusting and therefore it is sin and there is no doubt that the widespread use of pornography has ignited this epidemic of adultery in our society yet I want to be clear the notion being spoken by Christ that the intention is to be considered as the deed that was nothing new or novel among the Jews the Academy of Shamai which represents the source of doctrine for one of the two greatest factions of the Pharisees of the time of Jesus also taught this same principle now although Yeshua quoted from and is discussing the seventh commandment his instruction about adultery actually approaches the matter through the worldview of the tenth commandment do not covet that is coveting is a sinful state of the mind coveting is a sinful intention it is the desire to obtain to obtain something forbidden coveting is not the action itself thus it is the disobedience to the tenth commandment that's where the intent occurs that ushers in the disobedience to the seventh commandment where the actual physical deed of adultery occurs Yeshua continues to expand on this matter of intention leading to doing of the sin he does this in verses 29 and 30 so verse 28 speaks of looking upon a woman coveting and verse 29 says that even if it is your right eye that you were using to look then you should gouge it out and get rid of it see in Jewish thought the right side of anything is the best side or the strongest side so it's the most valuable side therefore it's not only that you lose your eye you lose your best eye now naturally this is an expression because unless you have some damaged eyes for most people are two eyes see fairly equally well and why should someone who is prone to lusting after women gouge out their best eye cuz it's better to lose that eye than it is to have our entire body thrown into Gehenna and destroyed now even if doesn't one doesn't know what gay a gnome is man it sounds like a really bad thing bad thing nobody wants to have happened to them now many translations will use the word hell that didn't exactly wrong but it certainly didn't right Gavin gnome is actually a valley a valley that runs through the south of Jerusalem today it's simply known as the Hidden Valley in Yeshua's era it was Jerusalem's municipal garbage dump Jerusalem was a city with several thousand people living there and as you might imagine they generated tons of trash animal carcasses human waste items that became unclean through contact with blood or other bodily fluids it saturated them and so on every filthy and disgusting thing you can think of was thrown into that Valley the refuse was then lit on fire and the fires burned continually night and day sulfur was thrown on to it to try and disguise the nauseating odors it is well documented that in Prior times this same Valley was used for the same purposes but it was also used by the Canaanites for human sacrifice often of children the dead bodies of those murdered were simply thrown into the burning waste so it is easily seen that the threat of sending a sin that could cause you to be thrown to gain an ohm was about the worst punishment imaginable it is true that the idea of hell a place of fire and torment for the dead was associated with gate you know but hell was views as an underworld place where the wicked dead lived Judea crash Christianity would say it's a spiritual place of evil gay an omen the first century was as real and tangible as it gets in Christ day it wasn't evil but it was unclean and frightening ly disgusting now I suppose Christ's instruction that plucking your eye out and discarding it as a good solution to lust can only be labeled at our modern Western terms as exaggeration and hyperbole because he certainly was not suggesting self-mutilation the point was to illustrate just how serious of a sin adultery is at since the fuel of adultery is lust coveting and the source of that fuel was taken in through the portal of the eye then one should make every effort to avoid it even if it means destroying the portal now notice that Yeshua is talking to the men now remember in his day adultery was seen in Jewish society is primarily a crime committed by women men were largely exempt so this teaching was a was a battering ram to challenge in to smash this false doctrine that so favored males ironically it is men who are really attempt really tempted the most by lust because men man we are visually oriented creatures this is why pornography is such a great and destructive temptation for men it will never stop being a temptation as long as it exists and men don't you ever think you will be the one who can use pornography for whatever your reason and that it won't inevitably lead you to wrong sexual behavior because you are uniquely able to resist it it is no different than the person who believes they can use cocaine or crack or meth and they're going to be the one who will avoid becoming addicted is using pornography a sin of course it is because it is lusting it is coveting after women who are not your wife and yes single men it's similar for you it is lust and the fantasizing it produced it produces that leads to wrong sexual behavior once again lust is coveting it is exactly what Jesus is warning about so then in verse 30 Christ adds to this dramatic hyperbole by saying that if your right hand makes you sin cut it off just as with the lustful eye once again the meaning of right is best your best hand and while the eye is the portal to the invisible mind the hand is representative of the visible physical part of us that carries out what the mind instructs the body to do in another setting while with his disciples Yeshua repeats this same principle using similar illustrations and he does it in Matthew chapter 18 verse 9 if your eye is a snare for you gouge it out and fling it away better that you should be one eyed but obtainable life then to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fires of gay you know so Christ now moves on to the next subject in verse 31 but it's not altogether detached from this subjective verses 27 to 30 in the subject is divorce but it includes the possibility that under certain circumstances divorce can cause the woman to become an adulteress and anyone who marries her then becomes a participant in her adultery which then makes them an adulterer as well I want to pause here to comment that is that in the Bible especially so in the Old Testament because it is also but it's also the case in the New Testament it is men who divorced their wives not a not the other way around and it is the woman who generally bears the blame and any punishment involved we have to take this in the context of that era it was a society that was male-dominated to a degree that Western women in the 21st century have not experienced Jewish women at that time were not chattel but they also had little power by custom the lives of women were in the hands of men therefore when Yeshua speaks of divorce it is of course of a man divorcing his wife and says Jesus the only reason a man could legitimately and without consequence divorce his wife is if she has been unfaithful to him and noticed there is no thought of the man being unfaithful to his wife which in reality had a much higher probability of happening Yeshua's entire treatment of divorce finds its original source in the Torah in Deuteronomy chapter 24 let me read some of it to you starting with verse 1 suppose a man marries a woman and consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing because he has found her offensive in some respect he writes her a divorce document he gives it to her sends her away from his house she leaves his house goes and becomes another man's wife but the second husband dislikes her and writes her again gives a tour and sends her away from his house or the second husband whom she marries dies in such a case her first husband who sent her away may not take her again as his wife because now she's defiled it would be detestable to a denying you or not to bring about sin in the land I don't know your God is giving you as your inheritance now Deuteronomy deals with some nuances within a divorce situation making divorce and undesirable but not illegal occurrence Yeshua doesn't overturn it he doesn't change it he merely makes the case the divorce should not happen in the first place but if it does the only legitimate reason for a man to divorce his wife is hurt unfaithfulness damn now Matthew's description of Christ's words are frankly not very easy to interpret they're difficult I believe there are two main reasons for this this great difficulty first I suspect there's some kind of textual corruption of the Greek manuscripts that are the oldest ones we have second there are some unspoken cultural customs that the people of that era went by that we're just not familiar with we don't know what they were now if we take what is said perfectly literally then basically we have Christ saying that a woman who was divorced by her husband is automatically guilty of adultery that she becomes an adulteress is said to be caused by her husband now this hardly seems reasonable if for no other reason it does not here to the basic god principle there were each responsible only for our own sins not the sins of others in the case of a divorce involving a woman who had remained faithful to her husband the wife had a little to no say in the matter she certainly wasn't the party to cause the divorce or to initiate it so this situation doesn't jibe with Deuteronomy their divorce woman was not in any way labeled as an adulteress simply because her husband becomes displeased with her and decides the divorcer further Christ's words are that if the divorced woman gets remarried then her new husband also becomes guilty of adultery Deuteronomy in no way puts such a conviction of adultery upon a divorced woman's new husband now it's well known historically that divorce ran rampant in first century Jewish community men would frivolously divorce their wives go have a quick affair with another woman and then come back and remarry the same woman sometimes in a matter of a few days this is because that way the law of Moses was interpreted by many of the rabbi's it was that the man could technically avoid the sin of adultery a sin within a marriage by first divorcing his wife before he didn't went to had a brief tryst with another woman and then that then because a man divorcing his wife was not labeled as a sin for the husband in the law then he was home free now could it be this was the background for Yeshua's words I think it's a definite possibility I mean most everything we read in the Bible Old Testament New Testament also Christ's words took place in the setting and the circumstances of the times the only other possibility in my mind is the Essure was saying the divorce and remarriage destroy the concept of lifelong monogamy so no amount of rules about divorce no matter how fair changed the fact that the underlying meaning of marriage in the first place is a permanent bond between a man and a woman but I think that might be a little bit of a stretch not something as audience would have taken from his instruction well in verse 33 it seems as though Yeshua leaves the subject of the Ten Commandments and gets into some other standard rules within Jewish society however buried in it is a reference to another of the Ten Commandments nearly every Bible version has its own unique translation of Christ's words because the this interpretation too is a bit difficult the complete Jewish Bible version and a few others use both the words vow and oath and so some commentators try to approach this verse on the basis of distinguishing between the meaning of a vow versus the meaning of an oath however in most settings in the Bible distinction between vow and oath is paper-thin for all practical word the purposes of the words are interchangeable I think the Youngs literal translation is the best of the bunch Matthew 533 again he heard that it was said to the ancients thou shalt not swear falsely but thou shalt pay to the Lord thy nose okay whenever a person swore they swore something that meant that the person was certifying the truthfulness and the veracity of a statement or transaction at transaction by swearing by nature it invoked the name of that person's God it invoked the name of that person's God therefore among Jews to swear something automatically meant to invoke Jehovah's name as the guarantor of whatever the statement of the transaction was this was absolutely in line with a command of God given in the Torah Leviticus 9 12 do not swear by my name falsely which would be profaning the name of your God I am out an eye this gets fleshed out a little bit further a little later on in the Torah and Numbers chapter 30 verses 2 & 3 then Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel and he said here's what I deny has ordered when a man makes a vow to Adonai or he formally obligates himself by swearing an oath he is not to break his word he's to do everything he said he'd do but Yeshua says don't swear it all not even if you were not using God's name don't swear it all that is don't swear by anything don't swear by heaven don't swear by earth don't swear by Jerusalem Heaven is God's created place that's where his thrones located don't swear by earth because it is God's created places in the said in Isaiah 66 it's his properties matter of fact it's his footstool to be specific and don't swear by Jerusalem because it's the city of the great kings is a reference to God's created dwelling place all this seems logical within the religious sphere doesn't it all these things heaven earth Jerusalem are part of God's realm so they have a firm relationship to God but then Yeshua says also don't swear by your head clearly your head is not part of God's realm in the Mishnah generally speaking the rule was that oaths sworn by heaven earth even the temple were not valid Yeshua goes on to say rather than swearing and I'll just make you yes yes and you no no in fact he says to do anything more has its origin in evil those last few words especially are what have God caused all sorts of various opinions about exactly what Yeshua is instructing instructing frankly the main problem for the many denominations in deciding what to do with this statement has to do with the first and foremost doctrine of the Christian Church it is that the Old Testament along with all its rules laws instructions prohibitions etc dead and gone so there's no point to even looking at it for answers that false doctrine is what causes needless confusion and understanding this matter first of all there is no prohibition against making vows and oaths in the Torah or anywhere in the Old Testament and at least the early church that was organized and first operated out of synagogues had ministered mostly by Jewish believers never understood Jesus has to be no longer allowing vows my goodness even the Apostle Paul felt obligated to fulfill a vow such that he ventured to Jerusalem in the temple to do so since Yeshua made it abundantly clear in Matthew 5:17 through 19 nothing he would say was in any way meant to be taken that he was abolishing changing adding subtracting from not just only the Torah but the entire Tanakh there was the Old Testament the only Bible that existed then that must always be our point of reference when we're trying to interpret his statements we have to always fall back to that point now just as marriage and divorce had become frivolous within Jewish society during Christ's era so was making frivolous vows that the vow maker had no intent of actually following through with it did it just become a manner of speech you know what we do that in our time we do we say things like with God as my witness or we say well though only the Lord knows see this is using the Lord's name as a guarantor of what it is that you are claiming in other words you're making you know Thor vow even though you didn't realize it but that's the nature of being frivolous and that violates the third commandment thou shall not take the name of the Lord in vain again it is is it wrong is it wrong to make an oath or about in God's name no it's not but God absolutely expects us to do what we vowed or what we claim is true otherwise we have used his name in vain now at the same time God does not command us to make an oath or a vow to prove our truthfulness or our intent however as we learn when reading in judges about the tragedy of Jephthah's innocent daughter making a frivolous or careless vow that we can't or don't carry out can have disastrous unintended consequences aura can remain as an albatross around our neck Christ's viewpoint is hey just don't make vows don't make Oaks don't do it at all one more time by nature in the biblical era vows and oaths automatically included invoking God's name so we must understand vows and oaths in that same context in a legitimate religious setting such as a marriage ceremony of course it's proper to make them out but in a typical daily social setting or in a business transaction my advice is stay clear stay clear you don't have to go there you don't have to back up your yes by invoking God's name you don't have to back up your know by invoking God's name just be truthful that's enough especially that's so for a follower of Christ well this issue about Jesus saying that going any further than yes or no has its origin and evil is clearly addressing a cultural and societal issue of that time which we've already discussed because making a legitimate baauer oath in God's name is in no way evil but it can be fraught with danger for the one who makes that vow we're gonna stop here for today and finally conclude Matthew chapter 5 next time [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

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

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Length: 51min 44sec (3104 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 25 2020