Matthew 5:17-20
Happy New year! - I’ve missed this daily discipline. Here goes for 2007…
“Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures— either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.
“Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom. “
January 4th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Is Jesus saying that we need to do more than go through the motions - unlike the Pharisees? Kind of like not just playing the right notes (keeping God’s laws) but also feeling an emotional connection with the music?
January 4th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
That’s a really great way of putting it. But isn’t it unfair to be told to ‘feel’ an emotional connection whether to music or doing good? Yet Jesus seems to be commanding something here.
This saying by Jesus would have seriously pissed off the scribes and pharisees who argued over tiny little variations in interpretation of the law between different Rabbis. Then along comes this Rabbi who claims that his approach is the fulfillment, the panorama, the only ultimately true way of seeing what the law is all about and living it out in a new Kingdom that he keeps saying has arrived.
January 4th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Yes - it’s unfair in a way, but to expand on the music metaphor - just playing a load of notes in the right order and in tune is very unsatisfactory. Similarly, I can do the “right” thing, but there’s something lacking if , for example, I’m hypocritical or unconnected to the “music” in some other way.
I guess we can’t “feel” the emotional connection to order, but it’s something we can learn or practice?
January 4th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
For me this seems to be a quick pointer on how to read the Bible. Although, some of what Jesus said seems to contrast excerpts from ‘the Scriptures’ (im thinking of turn the other cheek Vs. eye for an eye), this is only when the ‘vast panorama’- or the big picture as i read it- isn’t seen. As well, like any quotes, what the Bible says can easily be distorted if its taken out of its context.
I think all of this really shows what someone said in this forum a while ago, about the Bible being anything but a quick dot-to-dot guide to life. God’s law is, in fact, something that needs to be taken totally seriously. Good job that this forum is helping me towards that end then!