Matthew 5:29-30–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

Posted by Seth on Mar 23, 2010 in Bible Study, Daily Devotions |

Matthew 5:29-30–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

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Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Matthew 5:29-30 wherein we see the seriousness with which Jesus deals with our sin.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Awhile back my dad was working outside on a cold winter day and ended up taking the tiny point of an ice-covered twig to the face, or more accurately, to the eye. Before actually seeing him personally, I saw a couple close-up pictures and immediately got the shivers. My four year old son refused to look him in the face for a week or two because of how wigged out he got at the sight of it. Now, my father didn’t end up losing his eye and it looks pretty well healed over now, but that sort of thing, unless maybe you’re a surgeon, gives a healthy dose of squeamish discomfort to the beholder. Even now as I think on it, I get a bit of “pain” back behind my own eyes. I think that Jesus was going for this kind of reaction when He addressed the issue of lust with His audience. As He explained the seriousness of such sin (and I think He was including any kind of sin that our eyes or hands would participate in), He used a gruesome illustration of just how far we should go to invite God’s purification into our lives. “Desperate times call for desperate measures” might have been Jesus’ response to anyone wanting to soften His teaching or accuse Him of being overly dramatic.

One of the errors that we make with these verses today is to simply make sure everyone understands Jesus is being metaphorical here. Of course He is! But in assuring everyone of such, I wonder if we miss the discomfort that I believe is meant to come when we read this part of His sermon. “Tear out your eye…cut off your hand!” cannot be made into some pretty little poem. Jesus was communicating how desperate we should get to escape being overcome by our sin. He was letting us know that hell is real and that transgressing God’s law is our method of working our way there. Granted, this sounds so negative at first, but really Jesus gives us the optimist view when He says, better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. In other words, “Look on the bright side; you’ve lost an eye or arm but you’re not running toward eternal torment!” I’ve read that certain animals, when caught by the foot in a trap, will actually chew off that part of their leg in order to be free before the hunter arrives on the scene. It’s this kind of inward desperation and necessary severity with our souls that Jesus is speaking of.

Now let’s be clear, especially since we have the entire story through the rest of Christ’s teachings of what it means to be saved. We need Him to change us from the inside out. That’s why an actual cutting off of body parts won’t solve our heart problems. It’s certainly good to put physical roadblocks into our lives to keep us from distraction and compounded ruin, but if all we do is try and keep ourselves from doing more bad things, we’re still every bit as far from God’s perfect glory mark as we were when we started. Jesus wants us to know that the brief pleasures of sin aren’t worth it and that He is worth our all. He is worth the surrender of ourselves and our fleshly passions. He gave up His freedom to buy ours, not to see us trapped by what He died for. Accept His gift and lop off the dangerous distractions today.

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