Post by M.R. Hagerty on Apr 20, 2023 22:08:48 GMT -7
Luke 6:24-29, Matthew 5:38-39, Matthew 5:41, Luke 6:30-36
24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. 25 "Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. 27 "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 "Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; . . - 38 "You have heard that it was said, `AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' 39 "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; . . - 29 and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. . . - 41 "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. . . - 30 "Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. 31 "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.
32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 "If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 "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 Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. 36 "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:24-29a, Matthew 5:38, Luke 6:29b, Matthew 5:41, Luke 6:30-36)
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Commentary
Luke 6:24
24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full.”
Following the beatitudes there is a complete change in tone, one that might seem to break the wonderful spirit of the foregoing. But it is just as much an obligation for one coming from Heaven to tell us about what is wrong and to be avoided as to tell what is encouraged for righteousness. What is interesting here is that this is not a surprise to people living in these times. It is, however, for some folks today because so many are on the path of optimism and have long since regarded things like judgment to be ancient myths. But for the ancients, even the unrighteous knew of an impending, ominous day when men would be judged for their acts. Such thoughts are peppered throughout secular classical literature.
So it was requisite that Christ confirm what had been in fact laid in the heart of all men about the justice of God. These are warnings that serve to call men back to faith if they are now infrequently inspired by the goodness of what is right. And there is always a curious mixture of obedience and disobedience in everyone. The woes take away any sense of being glib or careless about one’s life, even if inspired toward righteousness.
The rich are not those who simply have money, per se, regardless of how it was acquired. It is directed to those whose wealth has affected how they perceive themselves to be because of it. It is not to those who simply have money but to those who count themselves with their money as among the rich. To these He says they have their comfort in full. This is elsewhere stated as “they have their reward.” (Matthew 6:2)
This is couched then in terms of the expected reward. We can choose an eternal reward or an earthly one. When men play the riches card they are telling God they desire the immediacy of reward in earthly terms they can enjoy here and now and that they have little patience to wait. They are also telling God that they cannot count on an eternity promised, so they are choosing something that is certain, the here and now. Jesus simply says that they have exchanged what could be an eternal reward for an earthly one.
This is not the case with godly people who happen to be wealthy. It is possible to please God in the possession of wealth so long as it does not possess the soul. The test is in being able to give it away or abandon it when the time comes. However hard that is to do can be a sign of how much our heart may have changed.
Luke 6:25-26
25 "Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.”
Sounds like the call for a grim and austere life where no one laughs or enjoys a good meal. This is actually a continuation of the disparagement of the rich. As rich, they take pride in being well-fed. With so many in abject misery and desperately in need of a good meal, taking any pride in one’s ability to set a good table would be shameful in God’s eyes. To cast this to the wind and grasp for whatever pleasures may be had, earns one the immediacy of his reward. But none later. It is like the son who demands his inheritance before the proper time. There is none to be had when the time comes.
But again it is a question of attitude and balance. Having a feast at a wedding is not the same as taking pride in one’s wealth as a lifestyle. It’s not clear what ”you shall be hungry” means in reality. Will their riches soon come to naught and they inevitably feel those pangs of hunger they so tritely disregard? Or will they experience the awakening of their need for God, hunger after Him, but all too late?
In the coming Kingdom, Christ declared that all the injustices will be righted, the crooked shall be made straight, the high made low. So there may indeed have been some at the time of Jesus who would see ruin and hunger in the physical sense, and certainly all who are selfish and evil will see their need for God, but be denied. And also in the millennial kingdom many offenses will be reversed in the lives of real people and real circumstances in those days.
26 "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”
This almost anticipates that the test for doing well in God’s eyes is to be despised in men’s eyes. But this is directed at particular cases. We are to be wary of praise from men who are not of faith, who are carnal in their outlook, who seek to advance man without much concern for God. If we get praise from such people we need to be asking if it is because we are furthering their world view, appealing to their humanistic goals, or is it because they are made to see the light of God and the truth of the Gospel? Jesus elsewhere says that our works ought to be such that others who see those works praise God because of them. (Matthew 5:16) The key is the praise is directed to God not to us.
A reminder for those who are listening (and for those of us familiar with the accounts of the OT) is to note that praise historically accorded false prophets and the denigration of those who were true. Those who tickled the ears were acclaimed, those who proscribed and denounced evil were vilified or killed. Such is the warning also for us.
Luke 6:27-28, Matthew 5:43-44
27 "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
Jesus takes this opportunity to talk about our attitude toward those who mistreat us. It is a corollary to the praise from evil men for false prophecies. When we speak the truth, we will beget enemies and suffering. This is also a return to more positive attitudes but in this case about suffering at the hands of evil men. We are to have an attitude toward them and suffering that is opposite to nature.
In this day and age, especially in free societies, it is all about what is fair. Affronts are many times nothing more than the sense that something done to us was not deserved, or we were in some way denied freedom from mistreatment that others are enjoying, that we’ve been singled out for the opposite. We also harbor a
resentment that if we don’t retaliate we are letting the perpetrator get away with it and actually giving them impetus to do more harm. There are some dependencies here. If we are afforded legal recourse in matters that the state protects on our behalf, we have leave to pursue them if it is without vengeance, spite or hatred. But even in these proceedings we are to demonstrate love for our enemies. The reason for this is two fold.
First, it disarms our enemies because it takes away the potency, the pay off, of doing something in retribution. Many acts of evil against us are perceived as retaliation against something they perceive we are doing or have done. When we demonstrate love, we take away at least some of the rationale for their actions. Love can cause one to rethink if they’ve been too quick to judge. Love can show signs of true regret and remorse.
It is a proven principle that things go better for people who confess their wrongs than for those who are belligerent or arrogant about their innocence. It’s much harder to come down hard on someone who admits their wrong and is asking for forgiveness. But enemies can rage even hotter when they see arrogance and feel the need to show us reality - “We’ll teach him a thing or two!”
Second, loving and doing good to one’s enemies is God’s actual and very real position. For all men – they are born at enmity with God. For all men - God blesses us whether we be good or evil. He reaches out in love whether we are the least sinner or the vilest. If we say we desire to be like God in all we do, we must face the fact that we must emulate Him in this regard.
Luke 6:29a, Matthew 5:39
29 "Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also;
His audience needs a specific example to drive the point home. It is not that they don’t understand His words, but sometimes a vivid, specific example will make the point clearer than generalizing can.
Then as today, if you strike someone there is an immediate emotional need to retaliate. This is as true for women as it is for men. True, there are some who are weak or cowardly and might just run for fear of more violence, but within them is the desire to retaliate none the less. But no one entertains the idea of giving the bully an opportunity to do it again.
But let’s be clear: this is not a case of inviting the next blow just for the sake of it or of showing how much we can take. It is a case of demonstrating a spiritual will to not retaliate in kind. It is a matter of showing to the offender that we carry a tremendous power within, one that he does not possess. To not strike is to show that we have made a choice and we have the power to effect that choice.
In the film Schindler’s List, (Amblin Entertainment, 1993), Schindler, suggests to the commandant of the camp that he show the greater power in himself by choosing not to shoot prisoners for target practice. Killing was easy. Choosing to not kill was much harder and a greater challenge, and therefore a greater show of strength (which happens to be a biblical principle.) Though temporarily tried, it couldn’t be sustained because the man in question lacked the spiritual power Jesus was talking about. But the principle within the sphere of the Christian life is true.
Matthew 5:38-39
38 "You have heard that it was said, `AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' 39 "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person;
This is the old economy – retaliation in kind, according to Mosaic law. It was not based on grace and love which were difficult principles to incorporate into the law during the primitive period in man’s social history. (Some might argue that not much has changed.) But this does not prevent Jesus from inaugurating how Christians are to act despite that system set up to embrace the race of men, chosen or Gentile.
The civil law may have its exaction of penalties, but for believers, we are to act differently – to not exact the retaliatory action due. In fact, we are not to resist the evil person in general. This does not mean we are to enable them to do more evil, but we are not to pick up the same weapons of attack with which they are abusing us. We are to show that we do not resort to the world’s means to settle our differences.
Luke 6:29b
29 . . Whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.”
In the spirit of showing the opposite attitude from the world, love exhibits care for the man who steals to meet his need. From God’s perspective, the man needs help to meet his needs, not anger. We are not only showing that we are not going to retaliate but we that we see the need that caused him to resort to stealing and we are ready to help him in it.
Matthew 5:41
41 "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
This ancient custom is by now familiar to many of us. Soldiers could compel a citizen to carry their equipment through a town and back on to the road to give them rest. In this application, Jesus is introducing the idea, “The first mile was obligatory, but the second mile is on me. It’s me helping you because I want to.”
Matthew 5:45
Matthew adds to the material cited in Luke by presenting the following to clarify how we emulate God in these actions: “for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Two observations. First, we emulate God in that we add to the general providence He provides for both the evil man and the good one irrespective of their acts.
Second, note that it is spoken of as His sun. God is the ultimate owner of the materials and forces in the universe. He is owner by virtue of being maker. If we created through our own mastery and ability a robot in our garage, we would not think of the robot as now owning itself, even though it was built to do things without our manipulating its parts. It remains ours by virtue of our creating it.
Thus all things of the material world are not ours to buy and sell or to own and keep. We are custodians at best and this should change our attitude about the things we think we own.
Luke 6:30, Matthew 5:42
30 "Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.
This addresses more the giving of alms to the needy than the willingness to lend items to neighbors. This is a sore subject with people today, especially with professional beggars on the medians and corners of our streets. Spoiling our compassion are the typical sob stories about needing bus fare to get to some distant city.
But we see here no layout of qualifications – ”give to everyone provided they have legitimate plights of woe.” To be sure, we have to balance this with being good stewards and not enabling someone else’s sin, but this has to come from knowledge not suspicion. Lacking that, we are to give in the spirit of charity and helpfulness.
Many of the homeless who beg on the streets are legitimately needy on a daily basis for food and some money for amenities. That they adopt a sob story that isn’t true to better ensure a compassionate response shouldn’t really restrict the giver. Very few feel they can be frank and simply say, “I’m just plain broke and I need the money.” So, while not throwing out obvious caution, we ought to give people some modicum of slack on just how truthful their story has to be.
That someone may take our money and buy liquor is not something we can control with certainty. Encountering them in front of the liquor store is. But it is not completely out of the question that they might just as likely buy a long-deprived hot meal or some Tylenol. Again, it is a case of how much direct knowledge we have. If it’s clear they will buy booze, we have to be responsible which may mean no to money but yes to buying them lunch at the corner restaurant. In the end, God judges you for your spirit of charity and the recipient for his use of the gift. Christ merely asks that we be ready to give in body and attitude.
“whoever takes away”
In an age where ownership and the acquisition of things is part of society, this is hard. It means essentially that if someone borrows something from you and chooses not to return it, you are to consider it a gift to them, meaning that you purpose that it be a further blessing.
It’s hard to desire to bless someone who is taking advantage of you. But this, again, is precisely God’s position with us, so we are asked to emulate Him. We receive and take for granted (without the idea of return) the common blessings of life, yet God continues His providence over the world because He loves us and wants to bless us despite our attitudes.
So let’s be clear about the principle involved: it’s about winning one’s neighbor to Christ, not about enforcing what’s fair and making sure people know who owns what. This is extremely hard to live out in practice, but it is part of seeing ourselves as stewards not owners of the things we have. It is also difficult when it concerns fairly expensive things that will be hard to replace.
We must sometimes wonder if God passes us by in His search for people He can use because He knows that if He takes hold of us, up will come a host of mesh and wires, pipes, and conduit that would make an efficient and clean break extremely messy. It’s an attitude and way of life Jesus had, but it comes at the sacrifice of many of the things we’ve grown to regard as necessary for happiness.
Luke 6:31-33, Matthew 5:46-47
31 "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”
Here then is the exposition of the Golden Rule. This is a two-fold approach to behavior that is based on the idea of blessing others who mistreat us. What hits us strongly is that, in terms of retaliation, our behavior is not to be a recompense for how others treat us – we aren’t to justify our reactions on the basis that someone else did the same to us.
In terms of blessing others, the key to assessing the right action or response is in the qualifier, worded in terms of our own likes and wants. Note it is less about how to pick good gifts and more about treating others well. The problem is in figuring out how they would want to be treated. Truly intimate knowledge of that kind is available for only a few people in our lives.
But for the many others, Jesus states that there is a ready guide right inside each of us that will tell us the answer. We merely have to ask how we would like to be treated and in that assessment we will have a reasonably accurate view of what they would like also. And this works simply because all men are basically the same in general terms. All people appreciate being respected, loved, listened to. This won’t work well for the perverted or misguided, whose cravings we could hardly encourage. But then we must remember that the test is not what they will want specifically, but what we and most of mankind would want generally. This is not about some specific thing that will indulge one’s lusts, but about being respected, loved, and valued.
The statements that then follow seem odd because they break from treating everyone well to blessing our enemies. But this is in line with our enemies expectation of wanting, despite the contradiction of their evil, to be treated decently. It focuses on who are to be the objects of our good treatment, which may be counter to our normal inclinations.
We are to bless them also and if we are in doubt about how, look to those things we would want done to us. This is because at bottom, even our enemy wants good treatment, and may in fact be the way he is because
of the lack of it. The important point being stressed is that the reward is weighted toward the hardness of the act, not the act per se. There is no expectation of reward for blessing those who love us, because this is no more remarkable than the behavior of sinners. We are called to show the extraordinary not the mundane, and in so doing, we draw men to an extraordinary God.
Luke 6:35-36
35 “. . and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.”
All along the focus has been on what pleases God. To mention that our reward is great in Heaven keeps that theme in focus. This again is hard because we are constantly asking for good things here and now. Some have gotten very few good things at all and to now hear that they must be Heavenly-minded in terms of reward can be overwhelming. The problem with receiving much of Jesus’ teaching is that we realize we’ve been beguiled by all the wrong things and we’re not sure we can make the transition to Heavenly ones. Seeing results here and now, having the ready sense of accomplishment, feeling the thrill of winning right now are hard to give up. But that is part of being Heavenly-minded. It is also a fact about the way things are with God. The longer we put off getting accustomed to it the harder it will be.
The last exhortation of v.33 is one of the chief themes of this section – doing the truly hard things that are opposite to nature. These are commanded because it is what God Himself is like, what He Himself experiences, and if we desire to be like Him we must do likewise - "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”