On the Mount (34)

How firm is your foundation? For many Christians, that question is largely theoretical.

See, it’s when the rain falls, and the floods come, and the wind blows and beats on the house that its owner discovers the true value of the foundation on which he has built. Stack Western believers up alongside the apostles, the martyrs and the heroes of the faith over the last two millennia, and it’s a fair bet most of us have never seen more than a few dark clouds in the sky and the occasional bit of spatter.

Which accounts for a fair bit.

On the Mount (33)

The house on the rock. We all know what that’s about, right? As the lyrics of the old Sunday School song put it:

“So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessings will come down.”

Well, yes, that’s certainly one application: your life. But I don’t think we need to stop there, do we? You never know, we might miss something.

On the Mount (32)

The world is brim-full of good causes. There’s no end of things with which a genuine altruist may busy himself in seeking to do good to his fellow man.

In the Christian life, few truly “good” works involve status or recognition, but those which do almost always attract the worst elements. Simon the magician was so entranced at the prospect of being able to confer the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands that he begged the apostles, “Give me this power also.” Likewise, the seven sons of the Jewish high priest Sceva got excited about driving out evil spirits.

You may remember both stories ended badly for the would-be doers of good.

On the Mount (31)

Here’s one of very few Greek words that are easily understood without consulting a concordance: pseudoprophētēs, meaning “false prophets”. To call something “pseudo” or “pseud” these days is to see right through it and recognize it as phony. The prophētēs part kind of translates itself.

But we live in a day when, as C.S. Lewis put it, “The dwarves are for the dwarves.” We pride ourselves on being sufficiently cynical to see through everything, to the point where many of us see nothing at all.

On the Mount (30)

The way is hard that leads to life. Ain’t that the truth. Maybe in more ways than we are usually inclined to consider.

Matthew 7:13 is generally read as having to do with a man or woman’s ultimate fate: eternity in hell on the one hand; eternal life in fellowship with God on the other. These are the highest and most personal stakes for which human beings have ever played. In the face of everlasting separation from God and all that is good, it should be obvious that the horrors of war, the nuclear arms race and our current inability to cure cancer pale into comparative insignificance.

Understandably, we will wish to choose carefully.

On the Mount (29)

The so-called Golden Rule is not a new thing.

Infogalactic says, “The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a moral maxim or principle of altruism found in nearly every human culture and religion,” whether in its positive or negative form. From this ubiquity, one might reasonably conclude that the principle is inherently logical, intuitive or fundamental to human society; perhaps all of these.

Thus when the Lord Jesus laid out his own version in the Sermon on the Mount, it seems unlikely his audience had never heard this particular ethical statement — or at least something very much like it — before. History suggests it was a familiar concept.

On the Mount (28)

As I mentioned in a couple of recent posts, we cannot be 100% sure which of Jesus’ various references to God specifically as Father to those who believe in him came first chronologically. This is because not all the gospel writers present the events of the Lord’s life in the order they occurred. Some writers, as Luke often does, group them thematically.

In Mark, the first “your Father” doesn’t appear until chapter 11, in the context of forgiveness. In Luke it is chapter 6, and the statement, “your Father also is merciful.” In John, the expression “your Father” does not appear until after his resurrection*, when he says it to Mary Magdalene. Prior to that point, the Lord speaks exclusively of “my Father” or “the Father”.

If I had to guess, I’d go with Matthew.

On the Mount (27)

They say you’re either a cat person or a dog person. Or neither, I suppose.

I’m the former, I think, but dogs are just fine with me too. A little more work, perhaps, and a little less intelligent than a feline, but a worthy beast when trained in some basic ways and when living in harmony with man. Huskies will pull sleds, sheepdogs will tend sheep, and many other breeds have uses both practical and otherwise pleasing.

So when the Lord refers to someone as a dog, and it’s inarguably an insult, one has to stop and ask, “In what way?” What qualities of doghood are so very undesirable?

On the Mount (26)

“Quit judging me,” squeaks the millennial blogger, her nose out of joint because someone dares to offer hard data demonstrating that her bloviations in no way reflect reality.

“How dare you judge me!” shouts the young homosexual, incensed that his parents have regretfully informed him they cannot in good conscience attend his ‘wedding’.

Of all the commands Jesus ever gave his disciples, “Judge not” is one of the most comprehensively misunderstood and poorest explained.

On the Mount (25)

As I have done repeatedly during our study of the Sermon on the Mount, I find myself attempting to sit in the place of the Lord’s original Jewish audience.

Do it with me, and picture the crowd around you, many of whom will never own a home and none of whom have ever heard of welfare, pensions, socialized medicine, public school or any other sort of government-mandated social safety net. Those here who are too old, too young, or too infirm to work are entirely dependent on their families. The women present rely on the industriousness, goodwill, fidelity, fortune and health of their husbands far more so than today. Even the working men and the few rich among us are surely far more conscious of the perils of war, famine and drought that periodically plague their nation’s economy, and the potential consequences of these on their families and dependents.

In short, everybody in the Lord’s audience has WAY more reason to be anxious than most readers of this post.

On the Mount (24)

There are two kinds of hatred.

Well, okay, fine … there are probably more than that. But I’m thinking of two very different kinds. The obsessive sort of hatred is obvious: it turns the stomach sour, occupies the mind constantly and spoils the enjoyment of life. Saul’s hatred must have been something like that. He expended ridiculous amounts of emotional energy and resources in attempting to rid the world of David, very much to his own detriment.

The other kind of hatred is despite.

On the Mount (23)

I like to think of wisdom as applied reality: taking one’s knowledge of the actual nature of things and working that knowledge through in a very practical way in the circumstances of life.

That sort of discernment is pictured for us metaphorically in scripture. It is not that the Lord Jesus came so that men and women might pay lip service to a particular series of moral data points, but that we might make use of those facts to act in our own best interests, in the best interests of others, and ultimately and most importantly, in accordance with the will of God.

The metaphor the Lord uses to describe applied reality is light: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Being able to see where we are going is exceedingly practical, and has tremendous value.

On the Mount (22)

Towards the end of the children of Israel’s multi-century sojourn in Egypt, they were enslaved by a king with no appreciation for the history his people shared with the Hebrew minority living among them, and no understanding of how Israel’s presence in his land had been of unprecedented benefit to his nation. So Pharaoh used force to put God’s people to work, and they built him his legendary treasure cities, places where the king could store up his excess goods against the remote possibility of bad times.

The irony is that it was Joseph, a son of Israel, who had first taught the Pharaohs the principle of laying up excess wealth as insurance against those all-too-frequent “evil days”.

On the Mount (21)

It’s going out of style now, but in times past a man proposing marriage would get down on one knee in front of his intended and ask for her hand.

As anyone who has ever googled “Marriage proposals gone wrong” can attest, that sort of thing can be risky business. The man usually makes the sacrifice of purchasing an expensive ring, then goes about proclaiming his love, most often in public, making himself visibly (not to mention emotionally) vulnerable and taking the chance that his request may be denied and his efforts come to nothing.

Sacrifice and humiliation. Interesting combination. But if you want something badly enough, maybe a little humiliation is no big deal.

Old Testament fasting was a little bit like that.

On the Mount (20)

The reciprocity principle is not a new thing. It’s said to be found in some form in nearly every religion.

Perhaps the earliest written formulation occurs in the Egyptian story of The Eloquent Peasant. “Do to the doer to make him do,” the god Maat is supposed to have said, which has been generally interpreted to mean something not wildly dissimilar to the so-called Golden Rule (though we can hardly overlook the obvious self-interest in the Egyptian version). The story predates the Law of Moses, in which Israel was commanded to love their neighbors as themselves, by a couple hundred years.

Ah well, all truth is God’s truth, as the saying goes. In any case, ancient Egyptian wisdom is not circulating the way it used to.

On the Mount (19)

There are all sorts of prayers, and all sorts of people who pray.

Some prayers are emotional; others are cerebral. Some prayers are full of adoring worship; others pour out of deeply burdened hearts on the brink of despair. Some prayers are thankful; others are needy. Some prayers are so poetic you suspect they have been scripted; others are a chaotic mess. (Those would be mine, in case you’re wondering.)

Whatever their content and whatever emotions attach to them, we can divide all prayers broadly into two categories: personal or corporate.

On the Mount (18)

Back in 2013, Republican congressman Jeff Duncan toured a Department of Homeland Security training facility in Maryland and observed eight or nine IRS agents engaged in target practice with semi-automatic Colt rifles. It later occurred to him to ask, “Why do IRS law enforcement agents need standoff capability that you would have with a long rifle or with a weapon similar to an AR-15?”

Good question, but it goes to the basic nature of taxation.

Taxation is not “giving”.

On the Mount (17)

It takes courage to stand up and pray in public if you’re shy by nature, but not that much courage; maybe only a little more than it takes to spill your guts on Facebook or Twitter. Judging by the number of people doing that, it must feel pretty good. And of course if you’re the type of person who loves to be the centre of attention, it doesn’t take any courage at all to pray in public. It’s like swimming to a duck.

It certainly doesn’t require faith.

On the Mount (16)

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord,” says the book of Leviticus. Those last four words are not unrelated, as we will shortly see.

In Leviticus, the neighbor in question is indisputably a fellow Israelite, a blood relative: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” With the parable of the Good Samaritan, the definition of “neighbor” would shortly extend itself to moral geography a Jewish legalist might not strictly consider his own stomping grounds, but that’s another story. It isn’t part of the Sermon on the Mount.

We could import it, of course, but Jesus didn’t.

The Good Samaritan is Luke’s tale to tell. Matthew, who is all about the Lord’s Jewish audience, doesn’t touch it.

On the Mount (15)

There’s a useful little spiritual truth called the Corban Principle. That’s just my name for it; I’m sure I owe somebody older and godlier for introducing me to it, but I can’t for the life of me remember who ought to get the credit.

Anyway, it comes from that passage in Mark where the Lord Jesus calls out the Pharisees for allowing religious Jews to reduce their financial obligations under the Law by giving sums of money intended for the upkeep of aging parents to the synagogue instead, which effectively put the money in the hands of the Pharisees.

The practice was called Corban. It was an end-around the spirit of the Law of Moses, and the Lord called it “making void the word of God”.

The Corban Principle simply stated: God doesn’t want anything from you or me at someone else’s expense.