21 ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION: The parable is really verses 25 and 26. Is Jesus overstating things here.....is there really no difference between physically killing someone and being angry with them?
4 comments:
You seem to choose "very difficult" parables! Reconciliation is most difficult for humans to do! Leaving your gift and making amends can only be done because Jesus has first forgiven us for our sins. Perhaps we should have a "Making Amends Day"...Celebrate our "sameness" and eliminate our differences! If we say, "I Can't"....no, you can't, but WITH JESUS TO BACK YOU UP, YOU (WE) CAN! How's that for a "good morning" start??????
Okay, I looked in a couple of commentaries and I like this answer better than the one that seems so obvious and that, to me, is yes, being angry is just like killing someone. Rather I found two thoughts about it. The first is that God knows what is in our heart and even if we can withhold any outwardly aggressive behavior, our thoughts may be that we would like to hurt the other person. Like the pharisees and priests who wanted Jesus gone/dead, they never outwardly said that, but rather they turned him over to others then they could walk away and say, "We didn't do it". Pilate and the crowd demanded his death. But weren't they still guilty? We must practice thought control, Jesus requires it.
Second, anger is the antithesis of love. So when we are seething with anger we can easily get out of control. Also what happens when we're angry, we are irritable, our bodies are stressed, etc. When we are angry we do not have a spirit pleasing to God.
So in light of those comments, is all anger bad? And, what is righteous anger?
mmmmm....good thoughts....many have said that anger in itself isn't bad, but it is what we do with our anger that is or isn't bad
Nevertheless, Jesus does remind us that if we seek to right ourselves with God by virtue of our deeds we are treading on thin ice, for if we have even one who accuses us, it is a downhill slope of trouble.
So, in terms of the trouble that it can cause us fro a legal point of view, there really isn't any difference between murder and slander.
I always think anger can kill everything God centered in us that can be and do so many good things. It clouds our judgement and makes us unaware of Christ working in our lives. Probably no difference in killing or killing by anger. MJB
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