Matthew 5:17-21, don’t suppose that I have come to dismantle the Torah or the prophets, I have not come to dismantle, but to fill them full.
So Jesus, I’ve heard that there are some people saying, that you are kind of loose with the Sabbath, are you really here to honor the Torah and the prophets?
Truly I tell you, until the sky and the land pass on, not one dot or one squiggle will pass on from the Torah until all things have taken place.
So Jesus, what you’re saying is, you’re here to honor God’s will revealed in the Torah?
Therefore, whoever undo one of the least of these commands and then they teach people to do this, that person will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven and whoever does the commands and then teaches his people to do them, this person will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
So Jesus, you’re here to tell us how to follow God’s will in the Torah, but I can go down the road to the Pharisees or the Torah teachers and they can tell me that too.
Truly I tell you, unless you’re doing what is right, far surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you won’t be entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus is one voice among many voices saying this is the real way to be faithful to the God of Israel, fulfill the Torah commands in this way. The cultural context has already shifted radically by Jesus’ day, first century Israel Palestine under Roman occupation is a very different setting from the early Israelites living in the hill county as a tribal federation. So different Jewish teachers and groups had to find ways to create principles that transcended the ancient cultural context and bridged and connected into their first century context and people disagreed about how to do that.
The Pharisees, they would be the equivalent of a populist hyper conservative movement that is trying to live as literally as possible by the original commands of the Torah as stated. So much so, that even the commands that were given only to a select few Israelites, the priests, they have created principles out of that, they say apply to all of the people. So what the priests used to do in the temple, every Israelite family is to do in their home, of washing rituals, washing your hands, food rituals and there are a lot of Jews that think that’s just unnecessary like the Sadducees. The Sadducees, which was essentially named for the priestly ruling class, their the ones who have brokered a peace deal with Rome and Rome lets them look like they’re in charge. There was a spectrum of differences, it’s a tumultuous time, everybody’s who’s trying to gain influence is arguing about how to remain faithful to the will of the God of Israel in these new and trying times.
Jesus is putting this teaching forward as a new vision of reality, as a moral philosophy as it were, but it’s very much within an Israelite worldview that assumes that God has already revealed his wisdom and will in the Torah. Matthew assumes that we already know these narratives that are going to be happening later in Matthew chapters 8,9,10,12, where Jesus starts having conflicts with the Pharisees and the scribes, the people that he talks about here. Jesus will be accused of being unfaithful or disloyal to the God of Israel, because he doesn’t observe the sabbath the way that they interpret the sabbath commands. The scribes, they’re like Bible nerds, geeking out on writing commentaries and then writing commentaries on the commentaries, professional Bible nerds.
The covenant terms were always about God’s mission to make one group of people a Kingdom of Priests, this is what God says to Israel when he invites them into a covenant on Mount Sinai. A Kingdom of representatives who will represent God’s character to the world and represent the nations before God. The light of the world, to be a city on the hill, so how we fulfill those commands then becomes job number one and that’s what Jesus says he’s here to do, is to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets. Some people might look at what Jesus is teaching and say, he’s dismantling the Torah. Jesus is saying no, he’s saying that all those other people are wrong and what he’s here to do is fulfill the Torah and the prophets. Jesus views the scriptures as something that points forward, it’s a set of texts that create momentum and expectation, a conflict that needs to be resolved in some way and that’s how Jesus reads his Bible, as a unified story that needs resolution. What Jesus is claiming, he’s here to provide the resolution to which the Torah and the prophets are pointing.
So Jesus, I’ve heard that there are some people saying, that you are kind of loose with the Sabbath, are you really here to honor the Torah and the prophets?
Truly I tell you, until the sky and the land pass on, not one dot or one squiggle will pass on from the Torah until all things have taken place.
So Jesus, what you’re saying is, you’re here to honor God’s will revealed in the Torah?
Therefore, whoever undo one of the least of these commands and then they teach people to do this, that person will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven and whoever does the commands and then teaches his people to do them, this person will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
So Jesus, you’re here to tell us how to follow God’s will in the Torah, but I can go down the road to the Pharisees or the Torah teachers and they can tell me that too.
Truly I tell you, unless you’re doing what is right, far surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you won’t be entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus is one voice among many voices saying this is the real way to be faithful to the God of Israel, fulfill the Torah commands in this way. The cultural context has already shifted radically by Jesus’ day, first century Israel Palestine under Roman occupation is a very different setting from the early Israelites living in the hill county as a tribal federation. So different Jewish teachers and groups had to find ways to create principles that transcended the ancient cultural context and bridged and connected into their first century context and people disagreed about how to do that.
The Pharisees, they would be the equivalent of a populist hyper conservative movement that is trying to live as literally as possible by the original commands of the Torah as stated. So much so, that even the commands that were given only to a select few Israelites, the priests, they have created principles out of that, they say apply to all of the people. So what the priests used to do in the temple, every Israelite family is to do in their home, of washing rituals, washing your hands, food rituals and there are a lot of Jews that think that’s just unnecessary like the Sadducees. The Sadducees, which was essentially named for the priestly ruling class, their the ones who have brokered a peace deal with Rome and Rome lets them look like they’re in charge. There was a spectrum of differences, it’s a tumultuous time, everybody’s who’s trying to gain influence is arguing about how to remain faithful to the will of the God of Israel in these new and trying times.
Jesus is putting this teaching forward as a new vision of reality, as a moral philosophy as it were, but it’s very much within an Israelite worldview that assumes that God has already revealed his wisdom and will in the Torah. Matthew assumes that we already know these narratives that are going to be happening later in Matthew chapters 8,9,10,12, where Jesus starts having conflicts with the Pharisees and the scribes, the people that he talks about here. Jesus will be accused of being unfaithful or disloyal to the God of Israel, because he doesn’t observe the sabbath the way that they interpret the sabbath commands. The scribes, they’re like Bible nerds, geeking out on writing commentaries and then writing commentaries on the commentaries, professional Bible nerds.
The covenant terms were always about God’s mission to make one group of people a Kingdom of Priests, this is what God says to Israel when he invites them into a covenant on Mount Sinai. A Kingdom of representatives who will represent God’s character to the world and represent the nations before God. The light of the world, to be a city on the hill, so how we fulfill those commands then becomes job number one and that’s what Jesus says he’s here to do, is to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets. Some people might look at what Jesus is teaching and say, he’s dismantling the Torah. Jesus is saying no, he’s saying that all those other people are wrong and what he’s here to do is fulfill the Torah and the prophets. Jesus views the scriptures as something that points forward, it’s a set of texts that create momentum and expectation, a conflict that needs to be resolved in some way and that’s how Jesus reads his Bible, as a unified story that needs resolution. What Jesus is claiming, he’s here to provide the resolution to which the Torah and the prophets are pointing.
