Exploring My Strange Bible - Jesus and the Torah - Gospel of Matthew Part 6

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

Probably Jesus's relationship to the Torah isn't something that you woke up thinking about this morning, but it was actually a major major issue. The Torah represents not just the Bible, but the whole story and terms of the covenant that Israel used to relate to God. Jesus came saying that the Kingdom of God had arrived through him and the work he was doing, but it was confusing to a lot of people so he addressed how he related to the story and the covenant that God made leading up to him. This is super important to learn about how Jesus talked about himself and what he was here to do.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we're going to continue exploring the gospel according to Matthew, a teaching series I contributed to a number of years ago when I was a teaching pastor at Door of Hope.

And we are going to be exploring the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 for the next number of episodes. This one is in Matthew chapter 5, and we're going to focus on Jesus' teaching about his relationship to the Torah, to the Jewish covenantal laws embodied in that phrase, Torah, which often gets translated as law in our Bibles. And so we'll talk about in the teaching why that's kind of an unfortunate translation. But it captures one part of what that word and idea means. Probably Jesus' relationship to the Torah isn't something you woke up thinking about this morning, and that's fine. You're not a bad person because of that. But it was a major, major issue. Torah here represents kind of the authoritative, not just the Bible in Jesus' day, but the whole story and terms of the covenant

by which Israel related to its God. And Jesus came saying that the kingdom of Israel's God has arrived in himself and what he's doing, and that the whole story that the Torah was leading up to is moving forward. And so Jesus apparently confused enough people that he felt like he needed to address how he related to the story and the covenant that God made with Israel leading up to him. So even if that doesn't sound thrilling to you, trust me, it's super important for how Jesus talked about himself and what he was here to do. So it's a fascinating section of the Sermon on the Mount. I learned a ton in researching and prep for it, and I hope it's helpful to you. So let's go for it.

We have been a couple months now in the Gospel of Matthew. We've been following the birth of the Messiah, the King. In these last few weeks, we've been tracing his entry onto the public stage, right, as an adult. And he's going around, he's making this announcement, he's teaching it, he's proclaiming it, he's talking about it. It's what you would hear about him talking about on any given day. It's the main theme of everything Jesus said and did. And what is that thing? The kingdom. The kingdom, five of you. By a year and a half from now, it'll roll off the tongue a little more naturally, right? It's the kingdom. The kingdom of God or the kingdom of the heavens. When you think of Jesus, you have to think of what he said was his most important topic of talking about and bringing. It's the kingdom. And so he went around

announcing the kingdom to all of the wrong sorts of people, because he, coming as the world's king, it's the story of God reclaiming his world from what we've done to the place. And so Jesus goes about and he announces the kingdom and he offers it to all of the wrong people, right? It's the upside down kingdom. So we explored this. He moves specifically towards the sick, the hurting, the poor, the unimportant, insignificant, spiritual zeros of his day. And these are the first people to whom he offers the kingdom and the opportunity to enter into God's reign over the world. And so he brings them all to this mountain, which is where we're all now. And on this mountain, he's teaching the good news of the world. And so he brings them all to this mountain, which is where we're all now. And on this mountain, he's teaching the good news of the kingdom. That's what we were told at

the end of chapter four. And so he's teaching the good news of the kingdom. He blesses them, right? These poor insignificant people. He says, you actually are the blessed ones, the ones to whom I'm offering the kingdom. You all are called to be the salt and the light out there in the world. And here's where we are right now. We're going to move into what is typically called the ethical teachings of Jesus, except they're not just simply ethical teachings. They are a part of his kingdom announcement. And his kingdom announcement is exactly what we've been tracing and we'll explore more. It's about God's people coming under the rule and reign of their king and finding their whole orientation to the world turned upside down. Because the kingdom

is this alternate community Jesus is setting up where the value system is totally different. And it's a community where generosity and we're peacemaking, and serving each other, and humbling ourselves, and seeking other people's well-being, and so on. These are the highest values of the kingdom. It's like this alternate world. And I think it's a lot like this. And maybe, probably not that many of you have had this experience, but you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever been to one of those countries, the small number, there's actually not that many countries in the world where you drive on the left side of the road, anybody? have you had the experience, or at least you know

have you actually had the experience of driving on the left side of the road, which is completely incorrect of course, right, most of the world has it right, but driving on the left side of the road, it's like Australia India, some southern African countries and then the United Kingdom, right it's one of the, like London. You go to London, you get a rental car,

and you gotta wonder how many accidents in London are just caused by tourists alone, right? On an average day there. If you've ever had this experience, or just try and imagine yourself actually switching, like, the steering wheel to the other side of the car and then driving on the wrong side of the road, on the left side. It's totally disorienting. It's just so disorienting. And it's easy to see why. If you've been driving, especially for years, you're trained. You don't even think about what you're doing

when you use your left hand to do the signal and so on. And it's the left hand turn that's the most complicated turn. You have to be really wary and stuff of what's going on. And everything is upside down when you're in that kingdom, in the United Kingdom, driving around in London. So this is very similar, I think. It's a great way to think about what Jesus is asking his followers to do and why he spends

so much time teaching about life in the kingdom, people. It's because it's totally counterintuitive. He's trying to teach a new way of being human, some of which overlaps with ways that we already live and some of which actually exposes how screwed up are the ways that we live. And it's calling us to retrain how we live. screwed up are the ways that we live, and it's calling us to retrain how we live. And it takes an enormous amount of intentional effort, individually and as a community, except, and this is where the analogy breaks down, because Jesus is not gathering a whole bunch of people and saying, let's all go move to Guatemala or something like that and set up like a whole alternate world in

the forest and make a new country and where we all just drive on the correct side of the road. He doesn't do that. What he expects is that his followers will be members of this upside down kingdom, but will be out in the world in their day-to-day lives and relationships as salt and as light. That's what Josh was exploring last week. And so it would be as complicated as all of us deciding right here, it's about 400 so of us in the room right now, and we all just make this pact when we leave this room, left side of the street, as we drive around the city of Portland. And just imagine what would happen. Like really think about that. What if we all, what would happen at 7th and Fremont, right here,

if we all committed to do that? What would happen? It's called a collision. It's called a car crash. That's what Jesus is challenging us to do, is to go into our world, not leave it, but be members of a new and different kind of kingdom with a completely upside-down value system, and then just go live. And what should we expect will happen? Tension, conflict, and collisions. And not just for his followers, for Jesus himself. Turn a page or two forward to the end of what we call the Sermon on the Mount here. It's chapters 5, 6, and 7. Look at the last words of chapter 7, and we'll see the first little seeds of this collision of kingdoms right here as Jesus finishes talking. It's chapter 7, verse 28 and 29, last sentences of the chapter. It says, when Jesus finished saying all these things, unpacking life of the kingdom,

it says the crowds were amazed at his teaching. So just, you have all these crowds, Jesus finishes, you know, this long teaching about the kingdom, people are stunned, absolutely stunned. Why? Because he was teaching as one who had authority and not like their teachers of the law. So two things here. Jesus is walking around talking like he owns the place. And he just teaches as if he has authority. But authority in comparison to whom? And why is this stunning people?

It's because they already have an existing authority in their culture, and it's called the law and people who teach the law. Now, when you look at verse 29, you see the word law. This is going to come up many times again. You need to think not anything in terms of law in our culture. You need to think Bible, and you need to think Jewish background here. So you hear the word law. Law has a Hebrew word underneath it that I've taught on many different occasions. What is it? Torah. Torah. At its core, it means teaching or instruction. And in Jewish setting, Torah is a reference to the first five books of your Bible. What Christians call the Pentateuch

in Jewish tradition is called Torah, the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And even more specific than that, law refers to a whole set of passages within those first five books that are called the commands or the commandments of the Torah. I think you've heard of 10 of them for sure, right? Because people like fight about putting them in public monuments and so on. So you've heard of those, the great 10 commandments, but those are just the first 10. There's 603 that come after those in those books of the Bible,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's the reference here. And in Israel's life, in Jesus' day, that forms the heart of their scriptures. That's God's word. That's where God's people go to learn God's will. And so what stuns people is that Jesus sets himself as an authority, totally independent of the teachers of the Torah. So, for example, what I'm doing here right now is, I don't actually claim to know very much, and there's no particular reason why you should listen to me, but I do think we should listen to the Bible. And so I do my best to unpack the Bible, because we accept this as some form of authority over us as a community of

disciples. And what Jesus is doing is he's just saying like, hey, and I've got a bunch of new stuff to teach you, and you need to pay attention to this as if you're hearing the will of God. And it stuns people. Who's this guy? And where did he get this authority? And it leads to this collision, this collision of values and of authority. And it just begins right here. Let me just give you two other examples of how this is going to play out in the story and where it's going. So, for example, in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus is going to have some dinner with a guy named Matthew.

He's a tax collector. And there's lots of other tax collectors and sinners there eating with him and his disciples and the Pharisees who teach the Torah and teach God's people to obey the laws of the Torah. They see this and they talk to his disciples and they're like, what is your teacher doing? Eating with these tax collectors and sinners. Now, there's a number of reasons why the Pharisees are ticked off because of this. And it's not just because they're, you know, uptight religious people or something like that. So tax collectors, these are all Jewish people who have in some way or another allied with Rome and they work with the local Roman centurions

to enforce the collection of taxes. What are the odds that your Jewish tax collector has not been, he had a ham sandwich that day, right? What are the odds that he has not kept kosher? Really high, right? And of course, who are the other sinners that were there? Oh, excuse me, let's go back to Matthew chapter 9. What are the other sinners who were there? We're told in some of the other gospels that prostitutes, sex workers were often at these banquets that Jesus would throw and so on. They're clearly, they're not following the laws of the Torah and so on. Why the Pharisees are so hacked is because here's Jesus saying he's representing God's kingdom

and he's offering it to all of the wrong people who do not follow Torah at all. What are you doing, Jesus? What authority do you have to offer the kingdom to these people? It'll go in another direction. Next slide, Matthew chapter 12. Another time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry. He began to pick some heads of grain and eat them like you do. And the Pharisees saw this and they say, look, Jesus, your disciples, they're working on the Sabbath. They're doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath.

And when they say not lawful or unlawful, they mean you're breaking one of the Ten Commandments, Jesus. You're working and providing food for yourselves on the Sabbath. Here we go. Jesus sets himself up as an authority to teach, and it's independent in addition to the Torah. Where did Jesus get this authority? And it's going to cause huge conflicts. And it's a conflict that actually continued to exist in the Jesus movement, right? So what we call Christianity began its life as a

Jewish messianic renewal movement. And it was actually only as the movement began to collect lots of non-Jewish disciples of Jesus that the whole question came up. Like, oh, if I'm not Jewish, like, what is my relationship to the Torah? I'm totally down for Jesus, but I also like wearing polycotton, you know? And I might sow my field with two kinds of seed

because that's how my great ancestors have done this, my great grandfather, and so on. And, you know, pigs not eating ham is not a big deal, whatever, in Athens, Greece. And so this became a huge burning issue. What is the relationship of Jesus and disciples of Jesus to the first three quarters of your Bible that you call the Old Testament, that Jesus called the Torah and the prophets. And this isn't just a theology question, this is a practical question. Where do you go to find God's will for what it means to live as a genuine human being? To the words of Jesus, to the scriptures, to both? If both, how do they relate to each other when Jesus seems to be doing things that aren't?

Are you with me? Here. Okay. Jesus sees this collision coming. He knows it's coming. And that's what he addresses in the paragraph that we're exploring here today. Go back to chapter 5, verse 17. And he speaks this dense sentence that has everything, everything you want in it. Chapter 5, verse 17. He says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law, the Torah, or the prophets. So when he says prophets, he's referring to the other main section of the Hebrew scriptures. In Jewish tradition, the Old Testament's organized in a little bit different order than like in your English Bible

in front of you. But to say Torah and prophets is to say the scriptures. And Jesus says, don't think that I've come to undermine the scriptures. Now, if he has to say, don't think that I've come to do that, what does that assume, of course? It assumes that everyone thinks that he's doing that, right? And we, the Pharisees, especially. No, that's not what I'm doing. That's what you may think that he's doing that, right? And we, the Pharisees especially. No, that's not what I'm doing. That's what you may think that I'm doing, but that's not actually what's happening here. I'm not undermining the ancient scriptures. Rather, I have come not to abolish them, but to what? But to fulfill them. Fulfill them. Now, if you've been cruising through Matthew with us, you know, we're just five pages in, but seven times already he has used this concept of Jesus fulfilling the prophets. So,

seven times in just five pages. I mean, he's really making a big deal of this. He'll highlight some event in the life of Jesus. He'll stop the story and then address the reader and be like, hey, did you know this fulfills what was spoken through the scriptures or through the prophets? And so he quotes like from Isaiah or something. Isaiah said, the Messiah, the King, will come and Jesus fulfills that. That totally, that kind of makes sense to us. But Jesus says he not only fulfills the prophets, but also what? Torah. The law. Now, what does it mean to fulfill the Ten Commandments? You know, Isaiah points to the future, says the future king's coming. Jesus says, I'm that guy.

But what do the Ten Commandments point to? And what does it mean to say you fulfill the commandments? What on earth does that even mean? And it means a lot of things. And we're just going to camp out here for a few minutes because this is a rich, dense concept. It's going to come up over and over and over again in the story. And really, it's about cultivating the mindset of a disciple

and of where do I look to discern God's will for living as a disciple and as a human being. When Jesus says, I come to fulfill the Torah and the prophets, the first thing is, of course, remembering the whole story of Israel and key passages in the prophets and in the scriptures that point forward. So just, again, think through the story with me. God calls his people, God calls into being a people through the family of Abraham. Abraham out of the nations, I'm going to make you, Abraham, into a nation that's going to bring blessing to all other nations. That nation becomes a lot more people. They go down to Egypt. They become enslaved. Big bad guy named Pharaoh. God rescues his people out of slavery, brings them

to the desert to the foot of this mountain called Sinai. And God appears to them in the form of this cloud and thunder and lightning and so on. It's really intense and kind of freaky. And he makes this announcement to them. He says, I've carried you out of Egypt on eagle's wings. And he says, here's what I want to do with you. Out of all the nations of the earth, here you are. I brought you to myself. I'm going to make you into a kingdom of priests who are going to show my character to all of the other nations if you will agree to the terms of this covenant, this relationship called the covenant. And what are the terms of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel? It's the Ten Commandments are the first thing that God

says to them. It's Exodus chapter 20. And after those ten, 603 more, as the story goes throughout the rest of the Torah. So, he's creating them as a kingdom who is selected out from among the nations. They will live distinctly and differently and so show who God is to the nations. Okay, now let's summarize 600 years in one question. How do they do? All right, fail. Huge fail. Just epic, epic fail.

600 years, God's very patient, and they fail. And actually, they just, he lets them ruin the whole thing by honoring the dignity of their decisions, and they run the whole nation into the ground. And it lands them actually getting kicked out of their land, and most of them sitting in exile in Babylon. And so at this moment of the story, you think clearly if Yahweh has a, you know, sane bone in his body, that's a bad metaphor, whatever, if he's like, if heweh has a, you know, sane bone in his body, that's a bad metaphor. Whatever, if he's like, if he's a clear, rational thinker, he's going to call his losses, you know, and just walk away. It's precisely what he doesn't do.

Israel has walked away. Yahweh will not walk away from his promises. And so Jeremiah, one of the great prophets, Israel's sitting in exile in Babylon, and these are his words to that generation of the people. He says, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt, yeah, they broke that covenant. Even though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. So the emphasis here is that they are the ones who walked away. The covenant's broken, not because Yahweh was unfaithful, but because they were. But that doesn't mean the whole story is off. There's a new covenant coming,

and it will be different. It will be distinct. So you had the Ten Commandments, and then the 603 after that, and those were the specific terms of the agreement for Yahweh and ancient Israel. That didn't work. And it didn't work not because they're bad. It didn't work because Israel was unfaithful. And so what Yahweh's going to do, he's going to bring about the creation of a new relationship with his people, but it'll be different. It'll be different. And here, that's the covenant.

Here's the covenant I will make with the people at that time. I'm going to put my Torah in their minds. I'm going to write my Torah in their minds. I'm going to write the Torah on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they need to teach their neighbor or say to one another, Hey, you should know the Lord, because they will all know me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. Now let's stop, but let's keep this up here.

So what? This is a new and distinct covenant, and the terms of the relationship will be different. But are we doing away with Torah and the commands? No, but their role is changing. Because it's not about them being written in a code that you obey. It's about God doing something to embed and internalize his will on the hearts of his people. And that embedding of the motivation and the desire and the knowledge of how to live as a human before God,

it's an expression of relationship. Do you see this? I will be their God and they'll be my people. They'll know what to do because there'll be a degree of closeness and connection that will make obedience no longer a duty but a joy and an expression of what's actually deep inside of us. Do you see what he's saying here? He's talking about the renovation of the human heart. You don't have to compel obedience. What I'm going to do is something that will make obedience become natural. And what is that thing?

How on earth, holy cow, how on earth do you do something like that? Do you get somebody to that kind of place? And it's the last sentence right here. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Now, this is profound, but it's also really practical. So just think through, think of your own life. Think of a situation where you really blew it with someone else, right?

You wronged them, you said, you did something, you really let them down, you hurt them, whatever. Just get that story in your mind when you did that. And if you have to work really hard, it's a clue that you're not that self-aware, just a little, I try to, or that your friends are never honest with you, right, about how you really treat them. So get are never honest with you, right? About how you really

treat them. So get that story in your head, right? Because we all have one of those stories. Now, what happens next, we may not have all experienced. But some of us will have. With that person, we hurt them, and they work through it, right? It's lame, but they work through it, and they get to a place where they actually come towards us and they forgive. Right? I name it. I own it. I own what I did.

And they don't have to do this. In fact, I may not even deserve this. But they forgive me. They forgive me. They take it. We let it go. And we work through it. Something changes.

Something deep changes in the relationship when that happens. You guys with me? And if you've experienced that before, you know what I'm talking about. Because all of a sudden that relationship has this bond that is stronger than just friendship or nature. And part of it is actually a really unnatural act to do that with somebody, you know? Like alpha male chimpanzees, my wife and I are watching this great documentary series on wildlife in India right now.

There are so many monkeys in India. Oh my gosh, I had no idea how many different species of monkeys there are in India. And so like alpha male, you know, chimps or whatever, like they don't, when they have conflict, they don't forgive each other. They bash each other's heads in, you know, like that's what we do naturally. That's nature. To forgive is unnatural in a way. And it's a unique relational repair and bond that human beings do. And something happens there. And if you've ever been forgiven by someone when you totally wronged them, you know the change that

takes place. All of a sudden, how you think about that person and you're wanting to do right by them and you're wanting to honor them, it changes. And the motivation for doing that changes towards them. It's just this gratefulness and this care because of this crazy thing that that person did for you. That's what Jeremiah's talking about here. God's going to move towards his people in such a great act of forgiveness that all of a sudden the demands of the Torah won't be like what you have to obey. It's going to internalize it in a renovation of the heart that's so deep that obedience to Yahweh begins to come naturally. That's what Jeremiah's talking about. And it's going to

happen through a great act of forgiveness, God moving towards his people. So this promise just stands there in the Hebrew scriptures. The rest of Israelite history prayed out, and that covenant was not realized. And that promise is connected to all kinds of other promises in the prophets and so on. Jesus comes onto the scene, and these are precisely the promises that he sees himself picking up and bringing into reality. Jesus sees himself forming the Jeremiah 31 people, the people of the new covenant. He said so. At his last supper, he took the wine, you know, and the bread, and he said, this cup is what? He says, it's the

new covenant in my blood. What Jesus sees himself doing is actually enacting God's forgiveness. He's not going to wait for tax collectors and sex workers to come, repent, offer sacrifices in the temple. He's going to go to them. It's this preemptive strike of grace on God's part that Jesus is enacting. And so these parties that he's throwing for these people, like these tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, they know what Jesus is about. It's no secret. He's not compromising. He's calling them to repent and to follow him. But the way that he moves towards them and the way that he loves them and respects them, it draws these people to him. And all of a sudden, these people begin to notice their desire to obey the God of Israel

as they follow Jesus. it starts to mess with their minds and with their hearts. Okay, now we're talking. We're talking here. We're talking about the renovation of the heart. And that's what Jesus sees himself as doing. And so here's what he's going to do over the next six weeks, the next six Sundays. We're going to take the next six paragraphs that follow in Matthew chapter 5. And what Jesus is going to show is how his call to his followers is to do what he is doing, which is fulfilling the Torah. Which is not simply about obeying the laws. It's about allowing Jesus to begin this renovation of the heart.

We'll just look at two examples, and I think this will kind of set the stage for us. Go down to verse 21. He says, you all have heard it said, you all have heard that it was said to people long ago, you shall not murder. What's he quoting from right there? Tend to commandments, right? He's quoting from the Torah. You've heard that it was said, yeah, don't murder people. Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, anyone who's angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Now, notice what he's doing here. He quotes from one of the laws in the Torah, the commandments, and he says, you have heard

that it was said, and that is right. That is good. That is a solid, reliable indicator of God's will. But now I say to you, and what he's doing right here, he's not contradicting the law. He's simply adding his teaching as a new authority alongside the commandment. And what he's going to do is he's claimed that what he's about to teach actually fulfills the intent and the purpose of the command. And so what does Jesus, so for some of us, actually, no, that's not true. For a very small circle of human beings, not murdering someone when they cut you off, like on the road and like making you angry and do whatever, not murdering them is a real step forward, right? For a small circle of

human beings not to take their life, right? But for most of us, that's not our issue, right? And the command, all the command does is open up a whole can of worms, right, actually. And for Jesus, that command is a pointer to issues, real issues of the human heart about pride and contempt and anger. And what Jesus wants to see in the ethic of the kingdom is the real issues addressed. It's about the little movies we pull out in our head about people that we don't like, and we degrade their humanity with what we say or what we do. And in so doing, we essentially erase their humanity. We murder them in our minds and in our hearts. And Jesus says, there we go, that's the issue right there. It does not abolish the authority of the command. It actually brings it to a new degree of fulfillment.

Just one other example, real quick here. Look at verse 27. He's going to do this six times. This is the second time. He says, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. What's he quoting right there? The Ten Commandments. But I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. It's the same exact thing. To simply not get into bed with somebody, for some people, is a real step forward, right? To not do that when the impulse for desire comes. But Jesus says that all that does is expose what are the core issues in the human heart, that of longing and desire to be known, and that of just lust and insatiable self-indulgence. Those are the issues that are exposed, and those are the issues that Jesus' teaching wants to deal with. This is what he

means here. I haven't come to abolish. I'm actually fulfilling the purpose of the law as I bring about the new covenant. And the people of the new covenant are people who live in this upside down state, who drive on the left side of the road, and who are being shaped into the Jeremiah 31 people. And it will lead to collisions in your culture because it's just, it's totally counterintuitive, Many ways that Jesus is calling his people to live. And so a helpful illustration as we go through these six weeks that has helped me think about this is something, an experience that

maybe some of us have had before. If you've ever learned to play an instrument, anyone learned to play an instrument in the room? Yes. And then you, or you've learned a second language, at least attempted to learn a second language. Anybody? Smaller, fewer. There we go. Okay. We got half the room represented right here. Okay. What the rest of you do with your time, I don't know what you do. We're trying to play music and

speak other languages. So a whole bunch of us, if you've ever had that experience, what are the first weeks and months like as you go about doing that? You play an instrument, you're just, some of you can't even remember, it was so long ago, but you spent weeks just getting the ground rules of the instrument, and usually that comes in the form of playing scales. When it was in the late 80s, it was the decade of the saxophone. I mean, come on, what wasn't, right? And so I was like nine or ten, something like that, and I had to learn how to play the saxophone.

And so I tortured my family, my poor parents. I mean, they like rented a nice saxophone for me to play or at least or whatever. Anyway, and so I would sit in my room for weeks, and I did it for a year, and I was so horrible after a year, I just gave it up, and then I got my first skateboard, and then the story was written after that point. So, so you just play your scales. It's so boring, but what are you doing? What you're doing is you're taking something that's not your nature, and you are acquiring a new set of instincts so that knowing what sound is connected to what finger at what point at what moment, that that just becomes intuitive. And my whole desire,

it's the same thing with learning a language. You vocab cards and these really intimidating paradigm verb charts, and you're just like, ah, torture. And it kind of is. But the whole point is that you spend weeks and weeks and months memorizing all of this to internalize it, to acquire a new nature. And then what happens in a year? What happens, ideally, unless you're me, right? What happens is that you begin, you get proficient, and all of a sudden you're playing your scales so many thousands of times

as internalized it, that you can begin to make new combinations and create notes and harmonies and melodies and so on. So here's the issue. As you speak the language, as you begin to play music, are you contradicting the scales? Are you saying like, yeah, that was lame. Like, those aren't true anymore. Like, of course that's not what you're doing. But a year into playing an instrument, do you spend three hours

just playing your scales anymore? Of course not. Of course not. Why? Because you have fulfilled the purpose of playing your scales. That's exactly, it seems to me, what Jesus is saying right here. The 613 commands were God's will for ancient Israel for a time and for a place, and they are good. It's not just that they were good, they are good. But that to which they pointed is now fulfilled, and now we're going to begin to speak the language of the kingdom and play the music of the kingdom with our lives as we become the Jeremiah 31 people together. And it's that balance that Jesus is trying to strike right here. Look at verse 18. He's so great. Let's just ditch the Old Testament then. So it's complicated and talks funny, so why should I read it in the first

place? And Jesus is like, not so fast. Verse 18, he says, Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the Torah until everything is accomplished. So he's talking down to the details of the Torah. It is still a statement of God's will. It is still a statement of God's will. It is still a statement of God's will. Down to the tiniest details.

Now, I have least stroke of the pen and smallest letter. Any other translations of those little phrases? Iota. Jot and? And tittle. That's the King James phrase, jot and tittle. Well, none on earth does that mean. Let me show you one. Here it is. This is from one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the great Isaiah scroll,

written 150 years or so before Jesus. It's Hebrew handwriting that Jesus would have been familiar with. On the left, you'll see in the circle, the Hebrew letter Resh. It's the letter R in our language. So you pronounce that word Ra'u. Ra'u, they see. In the right, you see the middle letter in the circle there. That's the Hebrew letter Dalet. It's the letter D, equivalent to RD. So that's the Hebrew word Adam, which means human. Now, visually, what is the difference between resh and dalet, visually, how it looks? Do you see it there? There you go. That's what Jesus is talking about.

The smallest little strokes of the Hebrew alphabet in the Torah, right? So if you were to take off that little stroke on the Dalet on the right, it would become the letter R. And then it would be the word Aram, which is the name of a country. At least one of ancient Israel's neighbors. It changes the meaning altogether. So what Jesus is affirming here, down to the smallest details, the Torah remains a statement of God's will until what? Until everything is accomplished.

And what is Jesus doing? He is bringing things to their accomplishment. He goes on, he says, therefore anybody who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly, they'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven. The laws of the Torah are not second rate. They're not to be denigrated.

Jesus' disciples need to learn from the laws of the Torah. They need to learn from them. And in fact, need to do them. Look what he says. Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. But wait, I thought he just said that how we fulfill them is going to mean that they have been fulfilled and so what I do with them is a little bit different now. So what is that difference?

Now he's saying to do them. What do you mean, Jesus? Talk clear for us, please. Okay, he does in verse 20. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. And some of us read that and we're like, dang it.

I'm done for. I'm done for. What on earth does that mean? for. That's what I'm done for. What on earth does that mean? So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah think like Bible professors and scholars, and then the Pharisees are like the local community leaders and pastors and teachers and so on. And so what he wants you to have in your mind are the people who have made their livelihood and life's passion and work, studying the 613 commands of the Torah and how God's people are to obey them. That's what he means by righteousness. And righteousness is all about right relationships. It's about being formed by God's will so that I do right by God and by other

people in every possible situation. And Jesus says, unless you're doing right by God and others, surpasses that of the Pharisees, yeah, you're done for. Like, you know, you don't enter the kingdom. And some of us hear that and we're like, dang it, I guess I'm out. You know, I'll go try some other religious club, or maybe I'll just take up golf. You know, that's the good, like, what on earth are we supposed to do? And if you're in that place, it's because you think what Jesus is saying is, what I'm calling my disciples to do is play the Pharisees' game, but just ratchet it up even more intensely. But of course, if you really think hard, that's not what he's going to do. That's not what he's going to do, is's not what he's going to do as he quotes from the Torah and then gives his new teaching that internalizes the purpose of the command. What he's calling

his disciples to is nothing less than a renovation of the heart. And here, I mean, I don't know what to say, you guys, except this is one of these paradoxes in Jesus' teachings. In the next six weeks, he's going to expose issues of pride, of lust, of contempt, of the ways that we wiggle out and escape having to let people truly know who we are through the bending and distortion of the truth. You know, we call it lying, but it's this maneuvering around what's really true about us so we can manage people's perception of us, right? We call it lying.

It's really just perception management. So he's gonna expose all of this stuff inside of us, deep core issues about the state of our hearts and our minds, and he's gonna call us to a higher degree of obedience and faithfulness and relationships towards other people that seems possible. And we're going to hear these commands, and the last statement he's going to do is he's going to say, yeah, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And you're just like, dang it. I don't know what to do. And it's like you're

crushed by Jesus's teachings. But it's not a joke. Like he fully expects his followers to really do this and to really live this way. But yet at the same time, he surely knows that when we look at the way he lives and calls his disciples to live, it's like climbing Mount Everest. We're just like, who can live that way all of the time? And if you hold on to that paradox, I think you've got it. You've got the issue right there. And it all comes together in a teaching of Jesus. It's the last slide I'll show you. It's in Matthew 22, where he brings all of this together. You'll just see all the dots connect right here. Hearing that Jesus silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees then got together,

one of them an expert in Torah, tested him with this question. Teacher, what's the greatest commandment in the Torah? Jesus replied, love. Love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. That's the first and greatest commandment. Oh, here's the other greatest commandment. Wait, we just asked you for one, Jesus. Yeah, but there's two greatest commandments, right?

And they are this. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. All the Torah and prophets hang right here. Who are the Jeremiah 31 people that Jesus sees himself bringing into being? It's people who are so bowled over by the fact that Jesus has moved towards them in spite of all of the crap that's in their hearts and their minds and the way we think about people and ourselves. And Jesus comes and he throws these forgiveness parties, right? We take part in it every single week when we gather.

We call it the bread and the cup. But we're reenacting these forgiveness parties that Jesus threw as he moved towards people and just offered them the kingdom and being a part of his people just as an act of sheer grace. And as that slowly over time begins to affect you, and you allow Jesus to expose, you allow his teachings and that paradox to expose, like this isn't about murder, is it? It's about how I view other people and myself as superior to them. Why do I do that? When did I start doing

that? Like, how did that happen? And how, over years of driving on the certain side of the road, have I made that my nature now, to view myself as better than other people? Because most of us do. Some call it confidence. Other people call it pride. But that's what it is. And Jesus is like, yeah, that's it. That's what's in focus right here. All of the Torah and the prophets are trying to raise and expose this brokenness, deep brokenness in our lives so that Jesus can move towards it and work on it with his grace. And that's what this is about. And so, you know, I feel like half of the pastoral conversations you know when you know somebody writes me a note or email or something we get together we're talking through something in your life and you guys I don't I don't know what to say half the time to be perfectly honest with you

and I'm so here's what I'll do and I'm more than happy to have that cup of coffee but let's just reenact it right now we We'll open up the scriptures, and we'll talk about God's grace for you, despite how screwed up you are and the circumstances that you found yourself in. And for some of us, it's actually tragedies and hardships and real failures in our lives

that get us thinking about this stuff for the first time. You think you're fine as you're going through life, and you think you're just doing great as a disciple of Jesus, when in fact you're just playing the Pharisee game. And then something really difficult goes down, and you really fail big time, or someone else fails you big time, or some tragedy hits, and all of a sudden the true you that you don't let people see very often, it just comes out. It comes out in anger. It comes out in sexual misbehavior. It comes out in crashing your life financially, crashing your relationships. The stuff just comes spouting out of us, right, when hardship comes and when difficulties and failures.

And paradoxically, those are the worst and the best moments. Because those are the moments where Jesus is saying, I didn't come to save people who think that they're healthy. I came to save sick people who know that they need to be healed. And that's what it means to be a part of the Jeremiah 31 people. And so as we go through these teachings, I don't know what to say. Except that I think we need to pray right now, and we need to reflect, and we need to come to the bread and the cup, and we need to reenact these forgiveness celebration meals that Jesus held so often,

and that he held that last night before he was betrayed. And he said, this is my blood. It's the new covenant. It's poured out for you. This bread is my body. It's broken for you. Do this to remember me. And as we come to the bread and the cup, we remember this. That just as our failures and flaws have been exposed,

Jesus comes in sheer grace to move towards us, and he lived his life on my behalf. He actually is the only person who lives this way, and he did it for me. He lived as the human I'm called to be, but perpetually failed to be. And then he gives his life to me and says he wants to take responsibility for me. I mean, it's just crazy. Why on earth would he do that? But that's precisely what he said he was doing. And in his death, he dies the death that we are all destined to as the result and consequences of being a part of this screwed up humanity that we're all, you know, intertwined together with. And his resurrection from the dead is his statement of love and grace and hope

and that his life cannot be given to us. And I don't know what the step forward is except the step to come to the bread and the cup and just say, Jesus, help me. Help me. Help me. All right. Well, we're going to continue on in future episodes exploring the Sermon on the Mount. You guys, thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.