30 Why the Pharisees Were Wrong About Loving Your Neighbor (Matthew 5:43-48)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 30th talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we're gonna study Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 through 48. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast. Lecture notes contain an outline of the main points and links to everything mentioned in the talk. You can also find those notes at Wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 30. While you're on the website, you can find all previous episodes in this series on wednesdayintheword.com as well as many other series. Thanks so much for listening. This feels like a milestone podcast. This is the 30th podcast in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. We are finishing the second major section of the Sermon on the Mount, the Antitheses, and we are finally finishing chapter five of Matthew. It only took seventeen podcasts to get through the chapter. That might be a record for one chapter. Part of the reason it took so many podcasts is in order to make sure we understood what Jesus is saying, we have spent a lot of time in the Old Testament. But I think it's been worth it, and I hope you do too. So let's review where we are. Jesus introduced this section by saying to enter the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, and then he's been giving examples of what he means by that. He's been contrasting the way the Pharisees understand the Old Testament with the way they should understand it. The Pharisees are trying to figure out how much they can get away with and still consider themselves blameless, and in each case Jesus is showing that they are trivializing the law and they have missed the deeper intention God had in giving the law. As I understand it, Jesus is saying you have heard the Pharisees teach the law and apply it in a certain way in order to justify themselves as righteous people, but I say to you, they've got it all wrong. They have distorted the Old Testament and missed its essential important teachings. He's talked about anger and murder, lust, adultery and divorce, vows and oaths, retaliation, and today we're going to look at the last of these loving your enemies. This is Matthew chapter five verses forty three through forty eight. You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. As with all the examples, I want to start by looking at what Jesus is doing with the Old Testament. And the first problem we have to solve is that this is not a direct quote of the Old Testament. Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say love your neighbor and hate your enemy. However, as I have been arguing, Jesus is directing this portion of the sermon at the Pharisees, and rather than summarizing what the Old Testament teaches, I believe he's summarizing what the Pharisees have been teaching. You've heard the Pharisees teach that a righteous person loves his neighbor and hates his enemy. Well it's fairly obvious where the Pharisees would get the idea that you're supposed to love your neighbor. We have already looked at Leviticus nineteen, seventeen through eighteen several times as we work through chapter five, but I'm going to read it one more time. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. Now the Pharisees debated exactly who qualified as your neighbor, and in this section Jesus is exploring the same question. Who must you love? The Pharisees taught you that you need to only love your brothers. Are they right? Well in Leviticus nineteen seventeen, the word neighbor is used in parallel with the word for brother or your fellow countrymen. You shall not hate your fellow countrymen, but you can reprove your neighbor. In nineteen eighteen that parallelism continues with neighbor being parallel with the sons of your own people. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So in Leviticus it's clear they are to love their countrymen, the sons of their people, their neighbor, and all of those are their fellow Israelites. While we might conclude then that neighbor applies just to your tribe, a few verses later in Leviticus, this idea goes a step further. This is Leviticus nineteen verses thirty three and thirty four. When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus nineteen thirty three and thirty four answers the question raised by Leviticus nineteen seventeen and eighteen. I'm obligated to love my fellow countrymen, but what about strangers or those from other nations? What obligation do I have to those living around me who are not my fellow Jews? And nineteen thirty four makes clear just as you love the sons of your own people, you must love the foreigner who lives among you. The obligation is the same. So you can easily see how the Pharisees could understand Leviticus as they must love every person in their community, every person with whom they come into contact on a daily basis, whether they are Jew or Gentile. But they could claim that Leviticus does not speak to our enemies or to those who live in other nations. So we still need to answer the question, where would the Pharisees get the idea that it's okay to hate your enemies? We can see that Leviticus is talking about loving those who live within your borders, but where does this idea of hating your enemies come from? Well, answering that question takes us into some of the more difficult and troubling passages of the Old Testament. Many people throughout church history have struggled with the passages we're about to look at, as many people struggle with them today. I'm bringing them up as examples of how the Pharisees could conclude it's okay to hate your enemies. I do not claim to understand everything in these passages, and we are not going to unpack them in detail in this podcast. We are just looking at them to answer the question where would the Pharisees get the idea that it's okay to hate your enemies? And we're going to start with Deuteronomy seven, verses one and two. When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gergeshites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Parasites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. Here Moses is talking to the people who are about to enter the promised land. God has sworn to remove the nations that are currently living in the land, and he requires the Israelites to utterly wipe them out. He tells them to make no covenant and show no mercy. This is the same God who said you shall not take vengeance, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now in a different context, the same God says show no mercy to these seven nations. Loving the Canaanites would be to act on their behalf or for their benefit. The Israelites are not to act in that way. In essence they are to hate them and act against them. Now remember our purpose here is not to explore the theology of war, but rather to ask where could the Pharisees have gotten this idea that it's okay to hate your neighbor, and Deuteronomy seven is one place. Here's another. This is Deuteronomy twenty three verses three through eight. No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balam, the son of Baor from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. But the Lord your God would not listen to Balam, instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loved you. You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever. You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother, you shall not abhor an Egyptian because you were a sojourner in his land. Children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord. Okay, here we are in this section, and Moses is telling the Israelites that they are never to forgive the Ammonites and the Moabites because of the way these two nations treated them when they were wandering in the desert. Even ten generations down the line, these tribes are still not allowed to become part of the children of Israel or the assembly of the Lord. In contrast, the Edomites and the Egyptians are a different story. After the third generation, Edomites and Egyptians can enter the assembly of the Lord. Now again, we're just looking for where the Pharisees could have gotten the idea that it's okay to hate your neighbor. And this is another place they could point to and say, see, it's okay to hate those who treat us badly. I want to look at two more passages, and this next one is perhaps the most infamous. Psalm one hundred thirty seven is a lament concerning the exile in Babylon. I'm going to start in verse one. By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, Sing us one of those songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. All right, so far so good. We have this rather beautiful and poetic lament about being taken to Babylon and being tormented by having to sing songs about Jerusalem after it's been burned to the ground. But then the Psalmist goes on and he calls on God to judge those who brought this exile about. We're picking up in verse seven. Remember, O Lord, against the Edomite the day of Jerusalem, how they said, Lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. Well that last verse has troubled many, many scholars over the years, but at least you can see how the Pharisees could understand this psalm as justification for acting with hate toward their enemies. I want to look at one more passage, and this passage explicitly speaks of hating your enemies. This is Psalm one hundred thirty nine verses nineteen through twenty two. Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Well this is a psalm of David. David was clearly a man who followed the Lord, he had many enemies, and many people hated him precisely because he followed the Lord. So here in verse 22, speaking of those who are enemies of the Lord, he says, I hate them with complete hatred, I count them my enemies. The Pharisees could look at Psalm 139 and say, See, our great father David hated his enemies. He was righteous, and we can be like him, hating our enemies, and still be blameless before the law. So we could see how the Pharisees might reach the conclusion that it's okay to hate your enemies, and therefore they would summarize the teaching of the Old Testament as love your neighbor and hate your enemies. Leviticus calls on them to love their fellow countrymen and any foreigners living in their community. These foreigners presumably agree to live in Israel because they want to follow the God of Israel, even though they're not Jews, so we count them among our neighbors. But then the Old Testament gives these examples of times when the people of God refuse to forgive their enemies and instead respond with rejection and judgment. And the Pharisees could look at these passages and say, we have justification for claiming that this command to love your neighbor does not extend to everyone. Now we know from history that this question of who is my neighbor was a lively question of debate among the rabbis, and we even get a glimpse of it in the New Testament. Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question, Who is my neighbor? Let's look at Luke 10, 25 and 26. And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? How do you read it? Okay, the lawyer here is one who studies the Old Testament law. To the Jews of Jesus' day, the way you gained eternal life was to scrupulously and exactingly keep the law. So the lawyer probably expects Jesus to give him some type of list of things that the law requires, and then he can debate Jesus about the list. And he probably expects the list to be similar to the kinds of examples Jesus has been giving in this section, like love your neighbor and hate your enemy. However, Jesus answers, the lawyer probably figures he can get Jesus into a lively debate and he probably expects to win. But Jesus doesn't give him a list. He says, What do you think the law requires? And then we go on in verses twenty seven through twenty nine. And he, this is the lawyer, answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, this is Jesus then speaking to the lawyer, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he, the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Notice verse twenty nine, desiring to justify himself, he asked Jesus, Who is my neighbor? He wants to prove that he is righteous and blameless under the law. He wants to see himself as justified before God, blameless under the law and fully in line to receive eternal life. He knows who God is, whom he must love, but this neighbor stuff, well that was debated by the rabbis. He's asking, how far does my responsibility extend? Just who is my neighbor? Just who do I have to love and to what extent? The lawyer is probably hoping that Jesus will say something like, Well, your neighbor is your tribe, your family and friends, widows and orphans, and then the lawyer can say, Oh, check, I've loved them all always. Jesus could praise him and say you've fulfilled the law and he can go home happy. However, that's not the answer he gets. Instead, he gets the parable of the Good Samaritan. Now I don't want to go into that parable. I have a separate podcast on that, which I can link to in the lecture notes. But for the purposes of this discussion, what we can learn from Luke 10 is that this question of who is my neighbor was a subject of debate. It was a serious question. The Pharisees wanted to be blameless under the law. The command says love your neighbor, but at certain times in history, God called them to act in judgment on their neighbors, so how do we reconcile those? In order to keep the law, we have to know exactly who qualifies as neighbor. Now part of what makes the parable so thought provoking is that Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero. Samaritans were a mixed race of Israelites who lived in Samaria in the Northern Kingdom. They broke with the Jews around the time that the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom. They had their own temple, they had their own priesthood at Mount Gerizin, and there was fierce animosity between Samaritans and Jews. Samaritans are exactly the sort of people the Pharisees would have declared could not qualify as neighbor. They are very clearly the enemy, at least from the Pharisees' perspective. So we can see that this question of who is my neighbor can get complicated. How are we to think of the relationship between the Leviticus command and the judgment we see in the Old Testament? As I'm sure you're aware, entire books and PhD dissertations have been written on this topic. It's still debated today. Several people out there have come up with some pretty good answers over the years, and I don't want to leave you completely hanging with that question. So before we look at what Jesus said, I'm going to give you what I think is one of the best answers I found in my research, and that will at least point you in a direction. So how are we to understand this tension between love your fellow countrymen and strangers in your land as yourself and the times when God called Israel to judge their enemies? Well, one way to resolve the tension is the way the Pharisees resolved it. They divided people into different categories. There are my people, my countrymen, and they are my neighbors, and then there are not my people, and those people are both my enemies and the enemies of God, because they do not belong to God, I am called to love my brothers, I am called to hate and judge my enemies. But the apostle Paul points us to a better way to resolve that tension between love and judgment. I want to read Romans twelve, verses seventeen through twenty one. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Now notice twelve nineteen says never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for the Lord says vengeance is mine. As much as we modern Americans try to ignore the fact today, God is a God of judgment. One day he will judge mankind and pour out his wrath on those who have rejected him. On that day you will either be forgiven and granted a place in his kingdom, or you will be judged as his enemy and face the consequences. The Old Testament passage. That Paul is quoting makes it clear that God will take vengeance at the proper time and place. God will act to avenge his people and he will justly condemn his enemies. But as Paul points out, it's not my place to visit that judgment on others. As a person living my life under God, I am not called to be the judge and executioner of God's wrath. I am to leave it to God in his timing and wait for him to act. With that distinction in mind, many scholars have argued that the examples we looked at in the Old Testament are all related in one way or another to this idea that God will judge his enemies. Yes, Israel was told to wipe out the Canaanites, but that is because God, the creator of those nations, decided it was time to judge them. They were idolaters, they sacrificed their children to pagan gods, they openly and willfully acted immorally, delighting in acts of evil, and God decided to bring their time as nations on earth to an end. God has the right to do that. We do not. Over the course of history, many, many nations have come and gone through the providence of God. God has many ways to bring about the downfall of a nation. In this particular case, he has this unique relationship with the children of Israel. Because of this unique relationship, he did something that he has not done before and he has not done since. He called on them as a people to execute his judgment against these particular pagan nations, and he names them, he specifies them. But as scholars have argued, Deuteronomy 7 and the conquest of the Promised Land is a unique event in history. It was what the children of Israel were called to do at a particular time and place. It is not something I as a follower of Jesus am called to do today. Now if we took enough time, I think we could go through each of the passages I read earlier and apply this principle that God has the right to judge, and that God will ultimately judge his enemies. And I think we would see that God's judgment ultimately comes, that certain people who have set themselves against God will eventually face his judgment. But in each case, judgment belongs to God, not me, a follower of God. When God's people act in judgment, they act only at God's specific command. So all the passages I think come from these principles. God has the right to judge. God will ultimately judge his enemies. It is acceptable to recognize that certain people have set themselves as enemies of God. It's acceptable to acknowledge that judgment will be coming their way. But while God's people acknowledge that God has the right to execute judgment, that is a very different idea than saying that I personally have the right to execute judgment against those I consider my enemies. The principle I must live by personally is Leviticus nineteen, love my neighbor as myself, and my neighbor is basically everyone with whom I come in contact. So to summarize then the Pharisees resolved these passages by claiming that to be blameless under the law we are to love our fellow countrymen and hate everyone else. But a better way to understand the law is that God has the right to judge. God has promised to judge evil and unrighteousness, but judgment is God's prerogative, not mine. We must strive to love all other people as we love ourselves. Now we're ready to look at what Jesus has to say about the Pharisees in Matthew five, forty three through forty five. Let me read that again. You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. So Jesus says, Let's step back and think about the way God treats all people. He gives the sun and the rain to both the just and the unjust. He gives the necessities of life to both those who love him and those who reject him. Now we need to think carefully about this argument because that's not the only thing that God does. True, he sends life giving sun and rain upon both his people and his enemies, but that's not all he does, as we can see from Noah. Sometimes he acts in judgment. He wiped out everyone who did not follow him at the time of Noah. He also acted in judgment on the Canaanites when he sent Israel into the land to wipe them out. There comes a point at which God is not merciful to his enemies. Jesus Himself often speaks of a future day of judgment when God's enemies will be destroyed. So we have to think about what point Jesus is making. The world is filled with people who deserve God's judgment. Someday God is going to execute that judgment. Sometimes he does this in our lifetime, and sometimes he delays until the last day. Meanwhile, he chooses to graciously sustain the lives of those who hate him. The world is filled with people who reject God and yet God responds by sending them the sun and the rain and the necessities they need to survive. God chooses to postpone the judgment that we deserve. If God chooses to be gracious to his enemies, we who follow him ought to follow his example. Yes, there is a day of judgment coming, but in the meantime we ought to choose to be gracious to those who hate us. It is not our job to execute judgment. Our job is to follow God's example, and he chooses to be gracious. We are to follow the teaching of Leviticus, to love others as we love ourselves. In that way we will be children of our Father who is in heaven. The metaphor he's using is how a child emulates his parent. So children pick up their parents' mannerisms, they learn to use their patterns of speech, they learn to respond the way their parents respond. And he's saying just as children follow their parents, you follow your heavenly father and you will be like him. So true sons and daughters follow the wise and loving teaching of their parents. They are like their parents in that way. And we are to pray for those who persecute us. By persecution here I think he means the same kind of thing he was talking about back in five eleven, when he said, Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Those who seem most worthy of judgment, those who are obviously our enemies, because they revile those who follow God, they speak evil about those who follow God, and they persecute those who follow God. Those are the people we are to meet with love and prayers. So you want to know what righteousness looks like, you want to know what it means to be blameless under the law, you pray for those who persecute you, you love your enemies, just as your heavenly Father is gracious and kind to those who hate him. Then Jesus goes on to critique the Pharisees' perspective in forty six and forty seven for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Now let's not get hung up on this word reward. I think all he means by reward in this context is the desired outcome. I do something nice for someone expecting a positive outcome. That's my reward. I plant seeds seeking the reward of the harvest. I save money expecting the reward of financial peace. I think all he's really talking about is the desired outcome. Now some people have run away with this verse and say he's talking about levels of heaven and various rewards you can achieve, and I think that's just taking it way out of context. The Pharisees are seeking the approval of God. That's the reward. In trying to be blameless under the law, they hope to gain God's favor. They hope to find a place in the kingdom of God. That's a good thing. All of us who follow Jesus are seeking that reward. Jesus is saying your perspective doesn't make sense. You describe the kind of righteousness that God is looking for in terms of something that even those people you consider total abject failures can do. You love those who love you. Don't even the tax collectors, those you consider the bottom of the barrel, do the same? How do you think this is going to earn God's favor if the sinners do exactly the same thing? Everybody behaves this way. Why would God consider you blameless because you do what every single person does naturally? What makes you think that tax gatherers and Gentiles will be condemned for the same behavior you are expecting to be applauded for? Your so called righteousness is no different than everyone else. And then he concludes in forty eight, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Now I follow the minority understanding of verse forty eight. You'll find a lot of commentators out there who understand this verse in a way that I do not. I used to hold that view, but I have changed my understanding over the years. You might want to read some commentators on this because a lot of people don't think I'm right here. Most people see this verse as a conclusion to the entire second section of the sermon, so section two the antithesis, and they think his point is something like this Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees. It's not good enough to abstain from murder, you must not even get angry. It's not good enough to refrain from adultery and divorce, you must not even lust, and so forth with his other examples. And then he concludes, therefore you must be morally perfect and without fault of any kind, just like your heavenly Father is morally perfect and without any fault. So they understand 548 as a summary statement of this whole section, and that summary is you have to be absolutely, completely morally perfect. Now, of course, no one is completely, absolutely morally perfect, so we despair and seek the cross and God's mercy. And that conclusion is of course true. We are not holy, we are not morally perfect, we cannot make ourselves morally perfect. We will only find God's grace and forgiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ, and we will only be made perfect because God forgives us and sends his spirit to change us. I'm not denying that. I do think that the cross is implied throughout this section. The more we understand what the law requires, the more we realize how far we fall short. Loving our enemies is not an easy thing to do. But I don't think he's summarizing this whole section and saying, here's how much better you have to be than the Pharisees, you have to have no moral flaw at all. Instead, I side with the minority of you who see this as the conclusion to this small section on loving your enemies. I understand this word perfect to have the sense of complete or mature or full. So I think the logic of the passage is closer to this. Don't only love those who love you, love your enemies as well. Follow God's example. God sends the sun and the rain on his people, but God also sends the sun and the rain on his enemies. It doesn't make sense that God would reward you for loving your friends and hating your enemies like everyone else on the planet does. Therefore, your love should be complete, not only for your friends, but also for your enemies, just like your heavenly Father's love is complete. So rather than a one sided love, loving only those who love you, your love must be mature, your love must be perfect, your love must be complete, such that it includes loving both your friends and your enemies. Your love must embrace the fullness of what love is all about. Luke has a version of this passage and he concludes it a bit differently, and I think his wording supports this minority view that I'm taking. This is Luke six, thirty five through thirty six. But love your enemies and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful as your father is merciful. So Matthew ends, be perfect or complete, just as your father is. Luke ends, be merciful, even as your father is merciful. And I think those are two different ways of stating the same idea. Matthew means be complete in your love, include in your love those who treated you badly. In other words, don't revile them, don't hate them, don't respond harshly, don't lash out, giving them what you think they deserve. Instead, show them grace and mercy, which is the phrase that Luke uses. I think they're basically making the same point and saying the same thing. Alright, let's try to put all this together. In some ways, Jesus is teaching something profoundly simple, but in other ways it is profoundly difficult. He's basically teaching the idea we've seen from Leviticus nineteen repeatedly through this section. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to seek the good of our neighbors and treat them the way we would want to be treated, and it turns out that our neighbor is everyone, including those who hate us and mistreat us. Paul captures this same idea in Romans thirteen verses eight through ten. O no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law, for the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Now Paul quotes the part of the Ten Commandments that have to do with relationships between people, what scholars call the second table of the Ten Commandments. The first table are those commandments that have to do with our relationship to God. Paul quotes the second ones, don't steal, don't covet, don't commit murder, don't commit adultery, and so on, and those have to do with our relationship to each other. I think part of what he's saying here is we completely fulfill or overwhelm these commandments if we find ourselves committed to loving one another. The commandments are all stated in negative terms. Love your neighbor is stated in the positive. If you're committed to loving your neighbor, you'll be so excited about sharing the truth with her and finding ways to do good by her that it would never occur to you to lie to her, steal from her, or seduce her husband. In terms of human relationships, if we're committed to love one another as ourselves, then all our responsibilities are met. Now in this life it's often difficult to know how to respond in any given circumstance. In any situation it's hard to decide should I speak up? Should I let it go? Should I show grace to this person or should I rebuke them? What's the right thing to do? And it seems to me Paul and Romans and Jesus in this section of the Sermon on the Mount are telling us the guiding principle in making those decisions is love one another. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Seek their good even if they have not sought your good. Make it your goal to do right by them. In that sense, this teaching is profoundly simple, but in another sense it can be profoundly hard to implement because it goes against our sinful nature. But sometimes it's not that hard to implement. I saw a good example of this at my first job right out of college. Being the new college graduate and the last one hired, with the least experience, I was the bottom of the totem pole. And the boss's personal assistant made it her mission to let me know every day that I was the bottom of the barrel. No task was so petty, grueling, or boring that she couldn't find a way to put it on my desk. And I wasn't alone. We all lived in fear of her because she controlled all the information our boss received and she could get us fired, and she let us know. Then one day she got promoted to another department. Her replacement began each day by saying, Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you need from me that would help you get your work done today? And the change was extraordinary. The whole atmosphere of the building changed. We all began looking forward to going to work. Somehow projects got finished on time, and people developed the sense of energy and camaraderie and begin asking each other, what can I do for you today? How can we work together today? She changed the entire environment and her attitude spread. Now as believers, because we are secure in our place before God, we are free to say to those around us, is there anything I can do that would lift a burden or encourage you or help you today? God has given us so much we can share and be grateful with what we have. So in one sense it's hard because we are so sinful, it's not our natural reaction, but on another level it's easy if we stop and think about it. Now I would argue that in this section, Jesus does not intend to give us practical guidelines for dealing with specific situations. His primary point is to correct the way the Pharisees have taught and understood the law. This is not a practical guide to good conduct. This is a personal choice I have to make. I have to decide if I'm willing to embrace this truth. Am I willing to try to seek to love my neighbor as myself? Do I trust God enough that I believe what He says is true and I can trust Him for my future so I don't have to look out for myself because He is going to do it? Am I willing to recognize that I am no more or no less valuable to God than my neighbor? Am I willing to see my neighbors as God sees them, as people who have worth and value? So yes, loving your neighbor is a guide as to how to live, but it is also one of those places that tests our faith. God puts us in situations where we are faced head on with a choice to either love or hate our neighbor. We're confronted with a choice to follow what God says is true even when it costs us. And choices add up. Moral failure is like a flat tire. Most flat tires don't occur as the result of a blowout, especially modern tires. Most tires go flat over a long period of time. They develop a small hole that releases a tiny amount of air over time, often imperceptibly, and we're not aware that a leak exists until perhaps the car is difficult to steer, or we walk out in the morning and one tire looks flat. Well, I think there's an analogy there to moral failure. When we fail, it often begins with a slow, tiny leak. We're not even aware that we're on the path to destruction until we hit bottom. For example, I don't think David woke up one morning and said, I think I'll commit adultery today. He began by giving away responsibilities that should have been his. He began by indulging himself in little things, by desiring yet another wife and yet another wife, and that slow leak eventually led him to. To become an adulterer and a murderer. I suspect that Judas didn't decide to betray the Lord overnight. He began by being a petty thief, pilfering some of the coins from the money box he was entrusted with, and finally he kept sliding down that slippery slope until he was willing to sell the Savior for a pocket full of money. There are a lot of other examples we could look at in scripture, but the point is decisions have consequences. They are like a slow leak. The decline isn't always obvious. The bad decisions may not be made intentionally or high-handedly. They kind of sneak in the back door. They seem perfectly reasonable at the time, but the results can be devastating. How do you end up in an affair? Well, it might start innocently enough. You notice that good-looking man at the office, and maybe he has his ring on, or maybe he doesn't. And then it progresses to just a little bit of flirtatious conversation while you're both standing around the coffee pot. And then maybe he says, Oh, hey, this coffee isn't very good today. You want to just go out and get a cup of coffee? And you know, that what's wrong with that. Everybody has coffee with their co-workers, and so you go, and you know, then coffee leads to dinner, and dinner leads to a weekend, and suddenly you're having an affair. It wasn't a big blowout flat tire, it started as a slow leak. One small decision building on another small decision. So, yes, loving your neighbor in one sense is a practical guide to good conduct, and in that sense it's simple, but it is also a truth we have to embrace and choose to follow, and in that sense it's a test of faith. So I would paraphrase this section like this. You have heard the Pharisees teach that you are righteous if you love your neighbor, your fellow countrymen, and you hate your enemies. But I say to you, Don't only love those who love you, love your enemies as well. Pray for those who seek your harm. Follow God's example. God sends the sun and the rain on both his people and his enemies. It doesn't make sense that God would consider you blameless for loving your friends and hating your enemies. That's the way everyone acts. Therefore, your love should be complete, not only loving your friends, but also loving your enemies, just like your heavenly father's love is complete. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also seeks to show you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. You can also find other series there. There's no charge, no spam, and no ends. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. I encourage you to look up his other music. You'll be glad you did. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.