Imagine a world where everyone treats each other
with dignity and respect.
And when problems do arise, everyone works hard
to do right by each other
- In the Bible, this way
of treating each other is called
doing righteousness.
- And it sounds great,
but how are we supposed to know how
to always do right by others?
- Well, Jesus, like any Israelite teacher, believed
that you can learn righteousness
through studying God's wisdom
that's found in the ancient Scriptures,
the Torah and the Prophets.
- So studying things like the laws that God gave
ancient Israel.
- Exactly. Jesus believed
that God's wisdom can be found within those laws
if we meditate on them.
- Ancient laws can teach us how to do right by
each other today?
- Yes. And let's watch
how Jesus does it here in the Sermon on the Mount.
So Jesus will first quote a command from the Torah,
and then second, he'll reveal God's wisdom
underneath the command.
- Okay. Let's jump in.
- Alright. He starts with a pretty intense topic, murder.
- Jesus begins, "You have heard that it was said
to the ancients, 'you shall not commit murder.'"
- He's quoting from the Ten Commandments here.
- "And I say to you that everyone who is angry
with his brother will be guilty in the court.
And whoever says to his brother, 'you good
for nothing' will be guilty in the high court."
Wait. So Jesus is equating anger
and name-calling with murder?
- He got your attention, didn't he?
- Yeah, but obviously murdering someone is worse than just
getting mad and calling someone a name.
- Sure, but that's not his point.
Jesus is provocatively showing how murder, anger,
and verbal abuse, they're all surface manifestations
of something that is way deeper.
- Which is? - How much you value,
or don't value, someone's existence.
- I see, like murder is the ultimate way of saying
that someone's life doesn't matter.
- And so is losing your temper or belittling someone.
These all reveal an attitude of superiority
and contempt for the life of another person.
It wreaks havoc in our relationships and communities,
and it's worthy of serious consequences.
- So the wisdom of this command is about way
more than just murder.
For Jesus, this command is about treating
everyone as valuable.
- Right. Jesus wants us to see
that any time we demean or devalue other people,
it's a failure to do right by them.
His definition of righteousness means treating
everybody as a fellow image of God.
- Okay. The next case study is about adultery.
"You have heard that it was said,
'you shall not commit adultery.'"
- Again, quoting from the Ten Commandments here.
- "And I say to you that everyone
who keeps on staring at a woman in order
to stir up sexual desire,
he's already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Okay, so Jesus isn't talking about merely
finding someone attractive.
- No. He's talking about the long, creepy stare,
objectifying someone, looking at them like
they exist for your own pleasure.
And when we do this, we are stripping a fellow human
of their God-given dignity,
even if we keep our hands to ourselves.
- In fact, this is so serious to Jesus,
he goes on to say, "if your eye
or hand is causing you to sin,
cut them off." I mean, really?
- Jesus was the master of hyperbole.
I mean, he just said the real problem is in our hearts,
not our eyes or our hands.
But he's trying to make clear
that the stakes are really high.
- Yeah. Well, he succeeded.
- It's important to remember that Jesus was raised on the
Hebrew Scriptures, which portray sex as a beautiful thing.
But if sexual desire is driving us to dishonor the image
of God in others
or in ourselves, if it's causing breakdown in our
relationships, it's actually ruining us.
And we need to do whatever it takes to deal with it.
- Well, this doesn't get any easier
because the third case study is on divorce.
Jesus says, "it has also been said,
whoever sends away his wife,
he must give her a certificate of divorce."
What's going on here? Sending away his wife?
- Yeah. In Jesus' day,
only Israelite men could initiate a divorce.
And that imbalance led to all kinds of problems.
- But divorce was allowed.
It was, though only one law in the entire Torah
addressed the issue.
And Jesus just quoted from it.
The law said that if a man initiates a divorce, he has
to do it in the proper way and for a legitimate reason.
- Okay, so what's a legitimate reason?
- Well, this was actually a hot debate in Jesus' day.
According to some Torah scholars, this law allowed
for divorce only in the case of adultery.
But other Torah scholars argued that the law allowed a man
to divorce his wife for any reason,
even dissatisfaction with the marriage.
- Okay. So here Jesus enters into that very specific debate.
- Right. Now, if a man could threaten divorce
for any reason, that would make it easier
for him to abuse his wife.
And so to protect women, Jesus sided with those
who limited legitimate divorce to cases of adultery.
And he makes this clear when he says,
- "And I say to you, any man who sends away his wife except
for a case of sexual immorality,
makes her the victim of adultery."
Okay, and what does that mean, "makes her
the victim of adultery?"
- Yeah. Jesus is being provocative again, saying
that if a man divorces his wife for an illegitimate reason,
because he's tired of the marriage
or just wants to be with somebody else,
his marriage covenant is actually still intact.
- Ah. And that means
that any new marriage is an act of adultery.
- Right.
But notice, Jesus explicitly assigns blame
to the men in his culture
because it's their selfish choices
that are forcing women into these vulnerable situations.
- And you can see how this could play out in a society
where only men can initiate divorce for any reason.
This could normalize the oppression
of women on a large scale.
- Totally. In his cultural context,
Jesus' statement protects
and elevates the dignity of women as images of God.
- But what about other ways a marriage covenant can be
violated, like neglect or abuse?
Would those be legitimate reasons for divorce?
- Yeah. Those are really important questions
that Jesus doesn't address.
His focus here is on
how this one debated divorce law in the Torah was being
twisted and misused by the men of his day.
- How they were treating women like objects
that could be discarded, like it's no big deal.
- But for Jesus, the marriage covenant is designed
to create interdependence
and mutual respect so
that the two can reflect God's image together as one.
And that leads us back to the main point
of all three case studies.
Jesus is showing how God's wisdom in these commands,
it's aimed at our core desires
and motivations that affect how we treat people.
- Someone could strictly follow these rules about murder,
adultery, and divorce, but still dishonor
and objectify people in other ways.
- Right. For Jesus, real righteousness
and wisdom means treating every human like they have
ultimate value.
- Yeah. If we valued others that much,
imagine what kind of world we could create.
- And that's exactly what Jesus had in mind.
His announcement about the arrival
of God's heavenly Kingdom here on Earth,
it was meant to reshape our imaginations.
God's wisdom invites us to honor the image
of God in every person that we meet.
- We just looked at three case studies
that illustrate Jesus' vision of doing right by others
and fostering healthy relationships.
- Next, we'll look at three more about keeping your word,
responding to injustice,
and how to treat people that you can't stand.