St Matthew 5: 20-26

St Matthew 5: 20-26

In the culture of Jesus’s day adultery was regarded as an attack of a man on another, as he cannot protect his wife. In the culture also it affected the man’s extended family and the adulterer’s and adulteress’s family. So, basically familial feuds could last for years (like Serbs/Croats).

“You must not commit adultery”. Jesus wants to show the close relationship between internal dispositions and external actions. Coveting another’s spouse first takes place in the heart, the centre of one’s being. Jesus is telling us that it is here where it needs to be curbed, in the heart, in the mind before it escalates and we act on what we have seen.

“If your eye, your hand, should cause you to sin, cut it out, cut it off”. This is a figurative overstatement. This is not to be understood literally. Jesus here is using hyperbole, a figure of speech, which is exaggerated for emphasis. Jesus by using these images is demonstrating that extreme measures are needed to avoid occasions of sin, the sins themselves and is highlighting the seriousness of particular sins.

Jesus then goes on to speak about divorce. He criticises the permissive interpretations of various teachers who allowed easy divorce. He reminds us of the original teaching of God his Father that marriage was permanent and inviolable. Divorce was never part of God’s original plan. Divorce will happen but it should not be taken lightly or exalted.