During Jesus series of warnings and challenges to the religious leaders living in the first century, He takes issue with how they would hold each other to their word. In the middle of these warnings, Jesus shares a concept that sounds incredibly obvious, but with how He describes it, it would seem that the religious leaders had rationalized their way out of believing it personally.
Matthew tells us that Jesus challenges these leaders by saying, “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.” (v. 16-22)
In my mind’s eye, I picture these leaders having placed the emphasis on the inside objects because they were certainly holy, but not on the objects that made them holy, because these objects resided in a place where sin is present. For example, the temple was likely next to a market, so even though it was set apart and sacred, it’s neighbor was common and secular. However, what was inside the temple had only sacred and set apart neighbors, so it was by definition “more holy”.
Over all, this is a weak argument for these leaders to have had, but it is about the only rationale my mind can come up with for them elevating the temple’s gold over the temple, and the offering on the alter over the alter itself. While not stated in the first set of examples, the implication is also that swearing by heaven didn’t mean much, but swearing on God’s throne was serious – which is an equally ridiculous idea when we think about it.
This section of warnings prompts me to believe that these leaders were always looking for loopholes, and in their search for exceptions, they were then able to make more rules to help close these exceptions. In some ways, they would be like some contract lawyers living today, who write contracts and licenses that rival the length of a dictionary in order to cover almost any possible circumstance that could happen.
But what Jesus’ words really share, at least to me, is that we should be less interested in looking for ways out of the agreements we make, and instead be more discerning about what we actually agree to in the first place – and if we have made a poor choice that we cannot get out of, then we should keep our word and see it as a learning experience for moving forward.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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