Monday, December 30, 2019
685 - Bad Judgment
Spirituality Column #685
December 31, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Christianity
Bad Judgment
By Bob Walters
“When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were
amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as
their teachers of the law.” – Matthew 7:28-29
These two verses are how Matthew in his Gospel concludes Jesus’s
famed “Sermon on the Mount” in chapters 5-6-7.
And if you know how to read this line, and somehow were able to think
like an ancient Jew on the side of that mountain where Jesus taught, you’d know
this whole sermon is God taking a great big giant condemning swipe at the
Jewish leaders of that day. “… not as
their teachers…” is a total “diss.”
The crowds could discern the Godly authority of Jesus … an
authority long since passed from the Jewish “teachers of the law,” i.e. the
rabbis, Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, and scribes. Jesus was openly attacking the Jewish
leadership’s hypocrisy and arrogance, while describing God’s true groundwork
for the Kingdom of Heaven. It was
nothing like what the Jewish leaders were teaching, the way they were living, or
the truth they were espousing. Power,
pride, status, and control were what they craved.
My friend and blogger extraordinaire Brent Riggs says it
this way, “They (the Jewish leaders) were a part of the system; the World. Christ said we are to be salt and light to
the system, not be a part of it. … They had denied the Word of God and
established their own traditions, rules, and regulations. Christ reestablished the affirmation of His
Word – God’s Word – alone.”
It is so easy to read the Sermon on the Mount in modern error,
thinking it only a list of somewhat mysterious but otherwise rational directions
for leading a “good life” before the world and in the company of other
Christians. Do good, feed the hungry, help
the poor, etc., is how we read it. To
the Jews, Jesus’s words were shocking.
Where Jesus says something akin to, “You say this …; but I
say this…,” he was severely criticizing what the Jews had done to “religion.” Jesus was presenting the new covenant of
faith and strongly condemning their failure with the old covenant of the law.
The Jews had missed God’s point of humility and instead built a nation of
pride.
“Blessed are the meek… the poor in spirit …they will inherit
the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:3-10) is not just a Jesus shout-out to the
oppressed; it is the harshest of rebukes
toward the Jewish leaders’ priorities and values mirroring the world, not God.
Today’s favorite Bible verse for all who do not actually
understand the Bible is a similarly condemning assertion that the modern world
loves to self-righteously and incorrectly quote as a declaration of
freedom. It’s right there in this
sermon, Matthew 7:1. We all know it
well: “Do not judge,” contemporary code for, “Get out of my face!”
Emphatically, it is not that. It was Jesus telling the Jewish leaders they
had lost their authority to judge Godly things because they had assumed worldly
values. The dumbest taunt you can level
at any human is “Don’t judge!” and think it means, “Let me do whatever I want.”
Bald permissiveness is the opposite of
what Jesus was saying.
What I’m saying is, my New Year’s goal is to improve my
judgment, not ignore it.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com)
notes that better judgment always starts with love.