Down an Unfamiliar Road

I heard this brain teaser the other day and it goes like this: “If you were running a race and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?” The answer should be a simple one, but then again you may chose the incorrect one.

Sometimes a simple question like this is not answered by our intellect, but by our intuition. The dictionary defines intuition as a thing a person knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. How many times have we stated without hesitation, “That doesn’t look right to me,” or “I think they are doing that the wrong way,” or “I’m sure this is the way we should go.”

It comes from making a momentary decision based what we feel inside, not what we understand after examining all the facts or looking at all the information properly. We can compare it to seeing a commercial on TV or an ad in a flyer with the words, “Only $19.95!” without reading the fine print below that adds: “per month for 12 months with added monthly interest of 21%.” So it’s only after the item arrives along with the payment coupon book that we realize how foolish we were to go with our intuition. On the other hands, those who’ve learned this hard lesson, are not fooled as easily and look for the fine print to know the truth.

The same is true when we are offered temptations in life to try something we are not familiar with or to do things we’ve been taught are wrong because the bargain price that is often attached reads like this: “A little won’t hurt you,” or “Everyone it doing it, so it can’t be that wrong,” or “No one else will know that you did it, so doing it won’t hurt anyone.”

I like what St. Augustine of Hippo, a highly esteemed early father of the church, had to say about it. He stated: “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” So the next time you are confronted with decisions that involve right or wrong, or good or bad, don’t go with your intuition unless it is based and founded on what you know to be the truth.

By the way, if in a race you pass the person in second place, it does not mean you are now in first place, it only means you have replaced the person who was in second place. – Dr. Robert R Seyda

For some of you, you may have heard her mother say, when she was trying to get you to take a bath, or a preacher when he was emphasizing how we should live a holy life: “The Bible says, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’.” Well, that is not in the Bible.

Some have attributed it to Benjamin Franklin, others note that is was used by Francis Bacon who wrote: “Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God,”¹ and we find it in one of John Wesley’s sermons where he said: “Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness.”² But most scholars believe it came from the Jewish Babylonian Talmud, in the third division, tractate Abodah Zarah which means: ‘Strange Worship.”

Here the Rabbis were talking about the value of studying God’s Word and were commenting on Deuteronomy 23:9. They offered this conclusion: “These words mean that one should not indulge in such thoughts by day as might lead to uncleanliness by night.” Then they quote Rabbi Phineas ben Jair who said: “Study leads to precision, precision leads to zeal, zeal leads to cleanliness, cleanliness leads to restraint, restraint leads to purity, purity leads to holiness, holiness leads to meekness, meekness leads to fear of sin, fear of sin leads to saintliness, saintliness leads to the [possession of] the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit leads to life eternal.” Hebrew scholars tell us that the phrase “purity leads to holiness” can also be expressed as “cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

It is obvious that Rabbi Jair is not speaking here of bodily cleanliness, but spiritual, moral, and ethical cleanliness. Nevertheless, we all know that a person who is clean on the inside will most likely be clean on the outside, and that does not simply apply to soap and water, but to dress, appearance, comeliness and appearance. In other words, get the Word on the inside and it will lead to changing the cover on the outside.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part V

On the subject of how God cares and provides for His creation, in one Jewish commentary it is pointed that when Noah left the ark that God told the humans to go first and the animals last.¹ In that way, they would know there were on their own. While our Lord certainly indicates that God created both life and the necessary sustenance, He does not imply that animals, birds and fish are not responsible for searching to retrieve such nutrients. So if God cared that much about them, how much more would He care about those He created in His image. All such worrying, says our Lord, cannot add one foot to a person’s height. Both the New American Standard Bible and the Complete Jewish Bible, render this last phrase as “able to add a single hour to his life.”

In their commentary on this verse, British scholars, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown say that: “Stature” can hardly be the thing intended here: first, because the subject is the prolongation of life, by the supply of its necessaries of food and clothing: and next, because no one would dream of adding a foot to his stature.” But if we take the word in its primary sense of “age” (for “stature” is but a secondary sense) the idea will be this, “Which of you, however anxiously you vex yourselves about it, can add so much as a step to the length of your life’s journey?” To compare the length of life to measures of this nature is not foreign to the language of Scripture.² So understood, the meaning is clear and the connection natural. In this the best critics now agree. The bottom line is that no matter how much a person worries or frets, it cannot do the impossible by making a person grow taller or live longer. Therefore, worrying and being anxious is a waste of time, so Jesus wanted His followers to use their time more wisely.

Verses 28-29: “And why do you worry about clothes? Look at the lilies in the field. See how they grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon, the great and rich king, was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers.

The first mention of lilies is where the Temple built by Solomon was being described, “The capitals on top of the columns in the hall had shapes like lilies and were seven feet high.”³ And we find the last mention where it reads: “I will be like the dew to Israel. Israel will blossom like the lily.”⁴ The Hebrew word may have come from the Egyptian language for “lotus.” These flowers can be found growing wild in Lebanon and other regions of northern Palestine. In the Mishnah the word for lily is used of a nail-head and the knob on the Etrog⁵ used in the Feast of Tabernacles; in the Targum it connotes “flower” in general. It is also interesting that Jesus tied the lily in with King Solomon. When the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon, it was recorded this way: “The queen of Sheba saw that Solomon was very wise. She also saw the beautiful palace he had built. She saw the food at the king’s table. She saw his officials meeting together. She saw the servants in the palace and the good clothes they wore. She saw his parties and the sacrifices that he offered in the Lord’s Temple. She was so amazed that it took her breath away!”⁶ The whole point is that if the lily was elevated to such a high status, and Solomon was crowned with such beauty, how much more will God take care of those He has redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

After Isaiah talks about the one who would come to prepare a way for the Lord, then he said, “A voice said, ‘Speak!’ So the man said, ‘What should I say?’ The voice said, ‘People are like grass. Any glory they enjoy is like a wildflower. When a wind from the Lord blows on them, the grass dies and the flower falls. Yes, all people are like grass. Grass dies and flowers fall, but the promise of our God lasts forever.’”⁷ Could it be that this Scripture was on Christ’s mind when He spoke these words? Perhaps the listeners had heard King Solomon used before as an example of extravagance and glory. For instance, one Rabbi once told his son to go out and find out how the workers were doing. He saw that they were thirsty and hungry, and so he promised them that he would supply all the food they needed. When he came back and told his father, his father told him: “My son, should you even prepare for them a banquet like Solomon’s when he was in his glory, you could not fulfill your undertaking.”⁸ So even Solomon in his finest could not compare to the flowers of the field.

Verse 30: If God makes what grows in the field so beautiful, what do you think he will do for you? It’s just grass—one day it’s alive, and the next day someone throws it into a furnace. But God cares enough to make it beautiful. Surely He will do much more for you. Your faith is so small!

So why should the followers of Jesus be concerned their dress. If God can make the flowers look better than Solomon, He can provide for His children to look good as well. The beauty of the flowers was in the simplicity. Solomon sought beauty in adornment that was gaudy and expensive, but he was out done by God’s handiwork. So them, the believer’s glory is not in their dress, but in the beauty God puts in them.

I’ve rendered the term “fire” as “furnace” because in Jewish literature we read: “an oven wide at the bottom and narrow at the top was heated with stubble or rakings.”⁹ This is understandable, because anyone who has gone to Israel knows how scarce and valued trees are, so stubble from the threshing floor or weeds from the fields were used. Again our Lord shows by comparison the value of the one’s He redeemed. Apparently there had been some complaining by those who followed Him either about food and lack of accommodations, so He uses these illustrations to show their lack of faith. One Jewish commentator points to Noah as one who lacked faith. He says: “Noah, too, was of those who had little faith, believing and not believing that the Flood would come, and he did not enter the ark until the waters forced him to do so”.¹⁰ Also, another Rabbi said: “The Israelites of that generation, who were part of the Egyptian exodus, were men of little faith.”¹¹

I can only imagine what would have happened if God had not provided a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night as a sign of His guiding presence.¹² And we also read that when Elisha was going up to Bethel, he caused bears to come out against the little children who were mocking him, calling him “old bald head.” So someone asked, “What do you mean by ‘little children’?” Rabbis explain: “children means they had no principles, and ‘little’ means they were lacking in faith.”¹³ Jewish Rabbis interpreted the calls of “bald head” to actually mean that because of his power to stop the rain he had made the ground bald. And this worried them because they were no longer able to sell water to make a living.¹⁴

Also in the Jewish Book of Light, we read this description of faith: “The Creator is above all human wisdom, and thereby He rules, and He bids you to work for Him in faith and purity, and have no doubts about Him, for the human mind cannot grasp Him.”¹⁵ Then one Rabbis stated: “One who says their prayers so they can be heard is of little faith.”¹⁶ And another notes: “Whoever has a piece of bread in his basket and says, ‘What shall I eat tomorrow?’ belongs only to them who are of little faith.”¹⁷ So when we put all of these together it gives us a better idea of what the listeners of Jesus may have thought when He called them people of little faith. It all has to do with not having any expectations for tomorrow.

Early church teacher and orator Chrysostom put his impression of what Jesus is teaching here, this way: “Having spoken of our necessary food, and having signified that not even for this should we take thought, He passes on in what follows to that which is more easy. For clothing is not so necessary as food. Why then did He not make use here also of the same example, that of the birds, neither mention to us the peacock, and the swan, and the sheep? for surely there were many such examples to take from thence. Because He would point out how very far the argument may be carried both ways: both from the cheapness of the things that partake of such elegance, and from the liberality allowed to the lilies, in respect of their adorning. For this cause, when He has decked them out, He does not so much as call them lilies any more, but ‘grass of the field.’¹⁸ And He is not satisfied even with this name, but again adds another circumstance of their vulnerable condition, saying, ‘which are here today.’ And then He does not say, ‘are not here tomorrow,’ but something harsher yet, ‘is cast into the oven.’ And He does not merely say, ‘clothed,’ but ‘so clothed,’ as to be brought to such an end. See how He abounds in amplifications and intensifications. And He does this so that He may drive home His point: and therefore He also added, ‘shall He clothe you even better?’ For this too has much emphasis: the force of the word, ‘you,’ being no other than to indicate covertly the great value set upon our existence, and the concern shown for it; as though He had said, ‘you, to whom He gave a soul, for whom He fashioned a body, for whose sake He made all the things that are seen, for whose sake He sent prophets, and gave the law, and wrought those innumerable good works; for whose sake He gave up His only begotten Son.’ And not until He had made His proof clear, did He proceed also to rebuke them, saying, ‘O ye of little faith.’ For this is the quality of a counselor: He not only admonishes, but also demonstrates in words, that He may awaken more hearers to the persuasive power of His words.”¹⁹

Jesus ends this part with a phrase known in rabbinic literature as “light verses heavy”. In Latin it was called “fortiori,” which means, “even stronger.” The Jewish principle was based on the superior attributes of God as seen in this Scripture: “Adonai is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth; showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents’ offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations.”²⁰ And Jesus applied it to His point of explaining that if God will take care the flora and fauna of His creations with such care, will He not exert an even stronger effort to take care of those whom He called to Himself through His Son. I like the way Dr. David H. Stern put it when discussing this verse:

“I have heard the objection that Yeshua came to bring newness, so that “old” rabbinic principles are not to be taken into account in understanding the New Testament, that its writers had “freed themselves” from rabbinic attitudes and practices and were no longer “bound” by them. Just as in Chapter 5:18 I said it was superficial to invoke Yeshua’s “originality” to justify assuming that Yeshua’s “Amen” has a novel meaning, so I say it is likewise superficial to invoke his “newness” to justify ignoring the historical, social, religious and intellectual ambiance of the time and place in which he lived, and imagining instead a hothouse environment insulated from the Judaism and Jewishness of his surroundings. The middot²¹ were surely part of everyone’s conscious or unconscious background in approaching Scripture, and it is gratuitous to suppose that Yeshua, Paul or the other New Testament writers constituted an exception. Traditional, rabbinic viewpoints are an essential element to take into account in understanding the text of the New Testament.”²²

In other words, had Jesus been introducing a totally new concept using unfamiliar words, first of all the crowds listening would have walked away in a fog by being overwhelmed by such out of this world talk, and secondly His message would not have gotten across the point He was trying to make. So He took what He knew the people were already familiar with and drove home the fact that if all we do in this life is worry about ourselves, not only is it another way of saying God doesn’t care about His creation, but it will keep us from caring about others who need the light and guidance the Holy Spirit has given to those who believe on His Son as the true Messiah and Savior of those who are still lost.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part IV (con’t)

Verse 24: “You cannot serve two masters at the same time. You will turn you back to one in order to love the other, or you will be loyal to one and not care about the other. You cannot serve God and Wealth at the same time.”

Now that Jesus established we have a choice of either investing in God’s kingdom or the world’s kingdom, and that our hearts will gravitate to where our treasure is because our vision of reality is either focused on this world or the world to come, we might find ourselves being torn between the two. The two masters identified here are God and Mammon. Jewish scholars point to this contrast between the treasures of unrighteous Mammon as outlined by Solomon: “Wealth gained by doing wrong will not really help you, but doing right will save you from death,”¹ and, the treasures of righteousness laid up for the world to come is explained by Isaiah: “They shall be delivered up to the law: our salvation is our treasure: they are wisdom and knowledge and piety toward the Lord; these are the treasures of righteousness.”² The NIV renders it, “He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.” We also read where one Rabbi asked: “What is meant by the verse, ‘and there will be faith in your times, strength, salvation, wisdom and knowledge?’³ ‘Faith’ refers to the Order of Seeds; ‘Your times’ to the Order of Festivals; ‘strength’ to the Order of Women; ‘salvation’ to the Order of Nezikin; ‘wisdom’ to the Order of Sacrifices; and ‘knowledge’ to the Order of Purity. Yet even so the fear of the Lord is his treasure⁴.”⁵

At this point we can see that God and Mammon are both treasures. One is divine and the other is earthly. Jewish writers compare this to the words of Jesus, in Luke, 12:33, 34, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” and here in Matthew 6:19-24. They point out that Matthew 6:22-23 about the sincere eye and the evil eye was somehow misplaced in Luke 11:34-36. However, when we read Matthew 6:19-21 and then skip over to 6:24 it seems to go together. Therefore, it may be the scribe who translated Matthew’s Hebrew notes into Greek, who misplaced this portion on the eye. Regardless, there are several rabbinical sayings that also speak to this idea of how the eye perceives giving. One Jewish Rabbi stated, “He that gives a free offering should give with an ungrudging eye,” whereas the rich man who shows an evil grudging eye to the collectors of Alms, will lose his riches⁶.”⁷ They also point to wisdom literature as evidence that God lavishes His bounty in the same measure as men give.⁸ In one document we find where it says: “We have not found that any man is fit for two tables. He will have less affection and regard for the one, than for the other; since the service or orders of the one, are less agreeable to him than the others.”⁹

It was the general consensus in Jesus’ day that while there was nothing wrong with having riches. In fact, we read where one Rabbi says: “It is the religious requirement that the high priest be greater than his brethren in beauty, strength, wealth, wisdom, and appearance.”¹⁰ But for anyone who was greedy, flaunted what they possessed, and wanted more than they needed, the love of mammon best described that attitude. One early Church Father says: “For mammon is, according to the Jewish language, which the Samaritans also use, a covetous man, and one who wishes to have more than he really needs. In the Hebrew text, it is the addition of a syllable called ‘Mamuel’ that signifies someone whose stomach is insatiable. Therefore, according to both these things which are indicated, we cannot serve God and mammon.”¹¹ The English word “mammon,” is a transliteration of the Aramaic word “mamona.” a term which had come to mean “riches” but originally was derived from a root word which signified “trust and reliance.” As such, it referred to that in which one puts their trust, other than God.

While Jesus does not call mammon a god, nor does He equate mammon with God, there is little doubt that for some they have turned mammon into a god. One that they serve and worship as though it can make them free and save them in the end. We read an enlightening story about Rabbi Yohanan ben Torta who was asking why Shiloh and the Temple were destroyed. He agreed that the Jews were devoted to the Torah and were very meticulous about tithing. Nevertheless, they ended up in exile. Why? “Because they loved mammon and hated one another without cause.”¹² It is quite possible that Jesus was inspired in this teaching by what His Father said to Israel: “Adonai will make you the head and not the tail; and you will only be above, never below — if you will listen to, observe and obey the laws of Adonai your God and not turn away from any of the words I am ordering you today, neither to the right nor to the left, to follow after other gods and serve them.”¹³ So Jesus was using mammon in a way that most all of His listeners clearly understood as putting what they wanted from God before what God wanted from them.

Verse 25: “So I tell you, don’t worry about the things you need to live—what you will eat, drink, or wear. Life is more important than food, and the body is more important than what you put on it.”

Common sense would tell us that Jesus was not discouraging people from planning for the future, especially when scheduled events are on the calendar. The key word here is “worry.” The Greek word used means to be overly anxious and troubled by caring about what has not yet happened. My Psychology Dictionary defines anxiety this way, “A mood state characterized by worry, apprehension, and somatic symptoms. Similar to the tension caused when an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The threat the person is responding to may be real or imagined or internal or external. It may be an identifiable situation or a more vague fear of the unknown. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the threat, whether this is real or imagined: Muscles become tense, breathing becomes faster, and the heart beats more rapidly. Anxiety may be distinguished from real fear both conceptually and physiologically, although the two terms are often mistakenly used interchangeably in everyday language.” The Psalmist had an answer for this, “Give your worries to the Lord, and He will care for you. He will never let those who are good become rattled.”¹⁴

Well-known Christian lady Corrie Ten Boom, who suffered through the Nazi occupation of her home country, Holland, had this to say about it: “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.” I’ve often used the expression, that worry is like loading down your vehicle with everything you’ll need to build a bridge for rivers you will never have to cross. Sometime we get so caught up by the 12 hour cycle of night and day we forget that with God there are no days and night. Time with Him does not exist. That’s why He never sleeps or naps. No wonder Jesus said to leave each day as though it will never end. That way you won’t have to worry about tomorrow.

I once read about a farmer who discovered that a number of geese migrating to the south had landed by one of his ponds to refresh themselves. His kids were so excited they went out to feed them. Soon all of the geese but one took off for their destination. It wasn’t long before the lone geese was getting so fat from the free food that when it tried to fly it couldn’t. In the end, it became a nice dinner for the family. There are many things this world wants to feed us, but we are on a migration to a city whose builder and maker is God, and He will supply us with what we need just like He does the birds. Job stated, “He is the one who makes us smarter than any animal on earth and wiser than any bird.”¹⁵ And as David sang: “All living things look to You for their food, and You give them their food at the right time. You open your hands and give every living thing all that it needs.”¹⁶

Verses 26-27: Now Jesus continues with this subject of trust. “Look at the birds. They don’t plant, harvest, or save food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. Don’t you know you are worth much more than they are? You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”

This care for the animals He created was expressed by the Psalmist: “He gives food to the animals. He feeds the young birds that cry out.”¹⁷ Of course we know that this does not indicate that God actually hand-feeds the animals, but that He provided through creation the nutrition they needed. So far, science has not discovered an animal, fish or bird for which God did not also create their needed food. They even call it the “food chain.” As one Rabbi notes: “The Holy One, blessed be He, sits and sustains [all creatures], from the horns of while oxen to the eggs of vermin.”¹⁸ In other words, the horns of the oxen could not grow and the vermin could not produce offspring if God did not provide for them to live and grow.

Also, another Rabbi speaks of the Holy One as: “feeding the whole world, from the horned buffalo to the brood of vermin,”¹⁹ while another asks: “Have you ever seen…a deer engaged in gathering fruit, a lion carrying burdens, or a fox as a shopkeeper, yet they are sustained without trouble, as though they were created only to serve me, whereas I was created to serve my Maker.”²⁰ In addition, one Rabbi goes to great length to show that neither birds or animals are worth as much to God as man, so if He takes care of them, how much more will He take care of His highest creation.²¹ And a Rabbi adds to this that it is animals that are sacrificed during Passover for man, not man for the animals.²² This clearly shows who God finds more valuable to Him.

In looking at these illustrations of God’s care, even for the smallest of creatures, Augustine states: “These examples are not to be treated as allegories, so that we should inquire what the fowls of heaven or the lilies of the field mean: for they stand here, in order that we may be persuaded not to show so much concern for the small things in life but concentrate on the larger ones; just as is the case in regard to the judge who neither feared God nor regarded man, and yet yielded to the widow who often implored him to consider her case, not by properly dealing with it or just to getting rid of it, but that he might be saved from being annoyed by her. For that unjust judge does not in any way allegorically represent the person of God; but yet as to how far God, who is good and just, cares for those who petition Him, our Lord wished the reasoning to be drawn from this circumstance, that not even an unjust man can despise those who contend with him with unceasing petitions, even were his motive to do so was merely to avoid being annoyed²³.”²⁴

There is no evidence that God sent His Son to the cross in order to redeem birds, animals and flowers from any eternal damnation or punishment. Therefore, if His Son tells us that God cares enough for all His creatures that in His wisdom He provided for them as part of their environment, how much more will He supply those He did redeem by having His Son pay such a high price. But one thing we must never get infatuated by is just how much care our heavenly Father will provide down here for all those who love Him. After all, staying here is only our temporal goal until we have finished the course and done His will for our lives. Going there to be with Him should be every believer’s aim, and they have His blessed assurance that He will provide all that is needed to reach that point where they can say, “It is finished,” and He can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter in to the joys of eternal life.”

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part IV

Now Jesus segues from keeping our fasting and prayers a confidential matter between us and God, to referring to them as an investment in heaven. If we do all these things to impress our fellow believer, then it would be like putting money in a piggy bank. It’s always there for us to use but it is not gaining any interest. Such things are vulnerable to being misused and losing value. But when we use them as opportunities to invest in God’s kingdom, then they are safe to be used and depended on in times of need.

Jesus uses the moth as an example of how things can be destroyed. Even today we associate moths with eating clothes. The truth is, they don’t. It’s the baby moths we should be wary of. These hatched worms derive the proteins they need from keratin. In other words, virtually any organic fiber derived from an animal. And these worms have a big appetite. The full list of things clothes moth larvae can eat is extremely long. Basically they can eat and survive on virtually any natural fiber. They’ve been known to eat wool, cashmere, silk, cotton, linen, fur, feathers, hair, lint, carpets, the bristles of brushes, pet fur and even dust. On top of this, the larvae will also, if no food is present, cut through non-natural fibers like polyester. The fibers these larva eat eventually also ends up becoming a part of the cocoon it spins for itself so it can become a moth. This would suggest that by using a moth, Jesus was pointing to those who latch onto what anything they can find in this world and more or less become parasites. As one winner of a lottery put it about the moths in his family, “I had relatives I never knew or met coming out of the woodwork asking for money.”

It is also noteworthy to focus on the fact that Jesus does not describe these treasures, but He gives obvious clues for us to follow. Moths are insects that destroy cloth, and rust destroys metal. In Jesus’ day a king would fill his treasury with gold, silver and garments made of the best silk and other costly materials. In one Jewish commentary in the Book of Esther, we read that Haman was told: “Make ready, and go into the royal treasury and take from the wardrobe a purple covering, an apparel of fine silk, adorned with fringes and costly stones and pearls, having bells of gold on its four corners, and pomegranates on every side. Bring also from there the great golden Macedonian crown.”¹ So the metaphor of where treasures were kept was something Jesus’ Jewish listeners could relate to, especially the need to safeguard them from being destroyed by parasites and decay.

But Jesus used this to point to another treasury where they could deposit those things they considered precious and irreplaceable, and that was in heaven. We find that Rabbi Levi talks about how: “The Lord will open to you His precious treasure.” He then goes on to say: “And why do we infer that it is in heaven? For it is written: You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place.² Heaven is the place were there is Equality and Judgment and Righteousness,³ As Jewish scholars explain: “This implies righteous actions and is often used in the sense of charity, the treasures of life and the treasures of peace and the treasures of blessings”.⁴ We also see this in a Jewish paraphrase: “And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you will lie down in the dust with your fathers, and your soul shall be treasured in the treasury of eternal life with your fathers”.⁵

Also, another Rabbi said: “He who fulfills the Law while being poor, will in the end fulfill it in riches; and he who neglects the Law in wealth will end up neglecting it in poverty”.⁶ In other words, if a person, while they are poor, keeps the law by doing what is right, they will continue to do so after they become rich. However, a person who finds no time to keep the Law by doing what’s right when they are rich, won’t change their behavior even after they become poor. And another Rabbi taught: “A man should always teach his son a simple craft and let him offer it to those to whom riches and possessions belong; for poverty comes not from a man’s craft, nor riches from a man’s craft, but all is according to his merit”.⁷

Jesus seems to be saying the same thing. Give God what you have in talent and abilities to help and bless others for His honor, praise and glory, not for your own, and although what you may have is small, you will end up giving Him even more once He rewards you with more. But regardless of what you have, the return on your investment in the Kingdom of God will depend on how much you are willing to invest so God can increase your dividends. There is an interesting section one of Judaism’s Apocryphal writings that reads: “For behold! the day will come when the books will be opened in which are written the sins of all those who have sinned, as well as the treasuries opened in which the righteousness of all those who have been righteous is gathered”.⁸ So our Lord was not introducing some novel story to His listeners about being charitable so that God takes notice.

There is another interesting story in Jewish verbal tradition told by the supervisor of the charity fund: “One day a woman came to him in a year of scarcity, and said to him: ‘Sir, assist me.’ He replied, ‘I swear, there is not a penny in the charity fund.’ She said, ‘Sir, if you do not assist me, a woman and her seven children will perish.’ He accordingly assisted her out of his own pocket. Sometime afterwards he became dangerously ill. The angels addressed the Holy One, blessed be He, saying: Sovereign of the Universe, You have said that he who preserves one soul of Israel is considered as if he had preserved the whole world; shall then Benjamin the Righteous who has preserved a woman and her seven children die at so early an age? Immediately his death order was torn up. It has been taught that twenty-two years were added to his life.”⁹ And in an earlier version of the verbal traditions we read: “These are the things a person benefits from and enjoys in this world, while the principal remains for him in the world-to-come: deeds done in honor of father and mother,[performance of righteous deeds, and acts that bring peace between one person and another. But the study of Torah is equivalent to all of them together.”¹⁰

So again we see that Jesus was not preaching some other worldly philosophy with which the Jews had no inkling or familiarity. He was emphasizing that what they already knew, but somehow they let it slip through their fingers. So He had been sent from the Father in heaven to tell them that knowledge of the Scriptures is not enough, it is carrying out those scriptures that helps one find the will of God. Therefore our Lord did not have to create some new realm of knowledge and insight, but to instruct His followers to comprehend what they saw and heard, instead of walking away and say it is a waste of time. So our Lord becomes a divine psychologist and points out how we become aware of both the need and the options we have to respond.

Verses 22-23: The only source of light for the body is the eye. If you look at people and want to help them, you will be full of light. But if you look at people in a selfish way, you will be full of darkness. And if the only light you have is really darkness, you have the worst kind of darkness.

Here Jesus uses the physical eye to teach a spiritual truth. The physical eye can see an object and allow the mind to appreciate its beauty or usefulness. But that same eye can provide the heart and mind with an object that might become a source of wanting to steal it or destroy it. Here our Lord connects light with spiritual insight, just as the prophet said: “No longer will your sun go down; your moon will no longer wane; for Adonai will be your light forever; your days of mourning will end”.¹¹ And the Psalmist contributed his salvation to the sane light: “For you rescued me from death, you kept my feet from stumbling, so that I can walk in God’s presence, in the light of life.”¹²

I once had the opportunity of watching a debate sponsored by the British Institute of Arts and Ideas, chaired by Roger Rowland Smith, in which Hilary Lawson, a Post-postmodernist Philosopher and author of Closure; Joanna Kavenna, author and writer of Inglorious, and Roger Penrose, physicist and mathematician, author of The Emperor’s New Mind, discuss the subject of “Reality.” The question was, “Is what we see real, or is it just what we imagine it to be?” This is what the writers of fiction depend upon for the reader to do in order to enter their world of make-believe. Consequently, people often use this same concept to view the world around them, trying to make things out to be what they want it to be. The panel all tried to deal with the possibility that there is no single reality, but that we all have our own reality. This is why when we see someone do something that makes no sense in our world, we assume it must make sense in their world.

In this teaching of Jesus, He is trying to tell His followers that no matter what the world looks like to them, there is a reality over which no human has any control, and that is God’s reality. That’s why He came to reveal to us the truth. This allows for people from every part of the world, representing every race, culture and tradition to see the Word of God and have a faith in God and Jesus Christ that is based on that reality. There are so many imagined ideas, philosophies, concepts and beliefs about religion, spirituality, and our eternal destiny in the world today, without the teachings of Christ there would be no clear way to God and salvation. That’s why if we are enlightened to see that our heavenly treasure allows us to give without diminishing our heavenly wealth, then God is please and we are verifying that God has opened our minds to the truth. However, if we see this world and the people in it only as a resource for what we can get, then not only are we walking in the dark, but a darkness for which the world has no light to show us our error and meaningless way of living.

We find this looking at things in a selfless way, a selfish way, and a small way of giving, by seeing what Rabbis had to say about “gifts” or “offerings” for which they instituted the following categories of givers: “A generous person gives one fourth. A medium person gives one fifth, and the miserly person, gives one sixth.”¹³ In a book called, “Tree of life,” they talk about how Adam and Eve viewed the Tree of Life then the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, which represents a person with a “good eye” and one with an “evil eye.”¹⁴ In other words, it’s all according to how you look at it. There is an interesting illustration in Jewish tradition of a man who sells a tree, and the question is: does he just sell the tree, or does the ground it is planted in go with it? If the seller insists on keeping ownership of the ground, he might then claim his part of the harvest. For this, he is to be viewed as stingy. But if he makes no claim to the land or harvest, then he is viewed as a liberal person.¹⁵

So what our Lord is pointing out is not so much the action, but the attitude. He likens this to keeping one’s eyes open looking for the good in everything to the benefit of others. This will let the person live in the light of life. But by peering only for that which benefits oneself, then one will live in darkness, and it’s the worse kind of darkness. It’s a matter of not only deciding which way to go, but once the decision is made, committing to it. However, one should always keep in mind those around them and how that decision will affect others. It’s like something I’m sure most of us have seen on city streets or highways, where people will change direction or turn out of one lane into another without bothering to see where other drivers are. They know where they want to go, but they act as though they are the only ones on the road. Some people live their lives that way. Jesus is telling us to keep our eyes on those around us whenever we make any decision. This will reveal our true attitude in life, that we care about others as much as we care about ourselves.

One very early church Christian writer and Bishop named Gregory Thaumaturgus (AD 213-270), also known as Gregory the Miracle Worker, from Pontus, which borders on the Black Sea, had this to say about our Lord’s words here: “The single eye is sincere love; for when the body is enlightened by it, it emits through the medium of the outer members only things which are perfectly correspondent with the inner thoughts. But the evil eye is pretended love, which is also called hypocrisy, by which the whole body of the man is made dark. We have to consider that deeds meant only for darkness may be within the man, while through the outer members he may produce words that seem to be of the light: for there are those who are in reality wolves, though they may be covered with sheep’s clothing. Such are they who wash only the outside of the cup and platter, and do not understand that, unless the inside of these things is cleansed, the outside itself cannot be made pure. Wherefore, in manifest refutation of such persons, the Savior says: If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! That is to say, if the love which seems to you to be light is really a work meet for darkness, by reason of some hypocrisy concealed in you, what must be your patent transgressions!”¹⁶

I like the metaphor offered here by the Bishop that conforms to what our Lord Jesus told these people with attitudes made dark with evil who try to pretend that it is an attitude illuminated by good. In that case it is like taking a dirty glass, washing it on the outside and think that by doing so the inside of the glass is then also clean. Jesus put it another way, that they were like graves full of dead bones that they whitewashed on the outside thinking that made the decaying flesh on the inside pure and pristine. There are people like that in our world today. They pretend that by giving their time and talent to help others they will be seen as goodhearted and generous, while all the time they seethe on the inside with disgust and make-believe that they want to help. Believe it, some even advertise for others to help out while that not only are paid to do so, but give nothing themselves for the cause. God help us when a church is advertised as having a heart of compassion for the lost, but do nothing to reach out to them.

1 Explanatory Commentary on the Book of Esther, Paulus Cassel points this out in Chapter 6:10-11 (Appendix I, The Second Targum, pp. 238-239).

2 I Kings 8:39

3 Babylonian Talmud, op. cit., Seder Mo’ed, Masekhet Hagigah, folio 12b

4 Ibid., Footnote (58)

5 Targum on Pentateuch by Jonathan ben Uzziel, Section LII Vaiyelek, Deuteronomy 31:16, pp. 655-659

6 Rabbi Jonathan in the Mishnah, op. cit., Fourth Division: Nezikin Tractate Aboth, Ch. 4:9

7 Rabbi Meir in the Mishnah, ibid., Third Division: Nashim, Tractate Kiddushin, Ch. 4:14

8 2 Baruch 24:1

9 Benjamin the Righteous in the Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nezikin, Masekhet Baba Bathra, folio 11a

10 Jerusalem Talmud, op. cit., First Division: Tractate Pe’ah, Ch. 1:1 [B-C]

11 Isaiah 60:20 – Complete Jewish Bible

12 Ibid. Psalm 56:14 (v.13 in NIV)

13 Jewish Mishnah, op. cit., First Division: Zeraim, Tractate Terumot, Ch. 4:3

14 Etz Hayim

15 Babylonian Talmud, op. cit., Seder Nezikin, Masekhet Baba Bathra, folio 37b; (See also folios 71a and 72a).

16 Gregory Thaumaturgus: On Matthew 6:22-23

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part III (Con’t)

Verse 16: When you fast, don’t make yourselves look sad like the hypocrites. They put a look of suffering on their faces so that people will see they are fasting. The truth is, that’s all the reward they will get.

Jewish scholars tell us that in olden days fasting was instituted as a sign of mourning,¹ or when danger threatened,² or when a prophet was preparing himself for a divine revelation.³ One Jewish scholar remarks on Moses’ fasting: “During those forty days and nights Moses was under the immediate supervision of God and did not even feel the absence of food and drink, as the nearness of God compensated for such mundane necessities without which he could not have done without while here on earth.”⁴ Individuals fasting was common among the early Jews for personal reasons, as seen by the provision made that a vow made by a woman “to afflict the soul” may under certain conditions be canceled by the husband.⁵ More frequent, however, were the occasional fasts instituted for the whole community, especially when the nation believed itself to be under divine displeasure,⁶ where it is coupled with the pouring out of water before the Lord;⁷ or when a great calamity befell the land,⁸ as when plagues raged or when drought set in; and sometimes also when an important act was about to be carried out by the officials of the land.⁹ It may also be seen with what rigor an official fast was observed,¹⁰ while at the same time it remained a common fast-day among the Jews.¹¹

By the time Jesus came it had become a symbol of religious devotion and a mark of one who was righteously superior to others. In the Aramaic Version of Matthew, verse 16 is rendered as follows: “And when you fast you should not be sad like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their expression so that they may be seen by men that they are fasting.” Jewish tradition sources tell us that while fasting, the Jews neglected to wash their faces, they put ashes on their heads, and used charcoal to discolor their faces and make them look black. This is told in story form:¹² “And Ashhur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah.¹³ Ashhur is Caleb’s other name; and why did they call him Ashhur? Because his face became blackened through many fasts.¹⁴ And we are also told that: “He who emaciates [blackens] his face for the sake of the study of the Torah in this world,¹⁵ the Holy One, blessed be He, will make his luster shine in the next world.”¹⁶ It goes without saying that for some, fasting was a way to please God, but for others it was a way to impress fellow believers.

In Jesus’ rebuke of the religious leaders for their arrogance when fasting, it may be that our Lord recalled the words of Isaiah, “They say, ‘We fast to show honor to You O LORD. Why don’t You see us? We starve our bodies to show honor to You. Why don’t You notice us?’ But God says, ‘You do things to please yourselves on those special days of fasting. And you punish your servants, not your own bodies. You are starving, but not for food. You are hungry for arguing and fighting, not for bread. You are hungry to hit people with your evil hands. This is not the way to fast if you want your prayers to be heard in heaven! Do you think I want to see people punish their bodies on those days of fasting? Do you think I want people to look sad and bow their heads like dead plants? Do you think I want people to wear mourning clothes and sit in ashes to show their sadness? That is what you do on your days of fasting. Do you think that is what the Lord wants?’”¹⁷ We could say, they were doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons. So many Christians today do the same with worship, prayer and self-denial. When God looks in the heart and sees the real reason we do such things, if He is not impressed with our honesty and humility, then nothing other people may think will count one iota in God’s eyes. That’s why Jesus wanted His disciples to know the truth, so that when they did fast it was pleasing to their Father in heaven.

Early church apologist Chrysostom address what he saw in his day on how believers were responding to what Jesus said here about fasting. He writes: “Here it would be well to sigh out loud, and to wail bitterly: for not only do we imitate the hypocrites, but we have even surpassed them. For I know, yes I know many, not merely fasting and making a display of it, but neglecting to fast, and yet wearing the garments of them that fast, and cloaking themselves with an excuse worse than their sin. For ‘I do this,’ they say, ‘that I may not offend the many.’ What are you saying? There is a law of God which commands these things be done, and you talk about offending someone by doing them? What can be worse than such folly? Will you not stop becoming worse than the very hypocrites, and making your hypocrisy double? And when you consider how many times this evil is committed, will you not be embarrassed at the force of the expression in the passage before us? In that Jesus did not say, ‘they act a part,’ merely, but willing also to touch them more deeply, He said, ‘For they disfigure their faces;’ that is, they corrupt, they mar them.”¹⁸ Chrysostom wrote this between AD 350-400, so it must have been like a scourge in the church to him.

In other words, in these instructions by our Lord, He was warning against anyone pretending or acting the part instead of truly being a part of what was expected of them. Since we no longer put on old clothes and fast for days on end, nor refrain from washing ourselves and combing our hair while we are fasting, it might be harder to spot the hypocrite today than back in AD 350. But the signs are still there. For instance, people who carry their Bibles but never read them; people who wear crosses around their necks but have never been there to confess and receive forgiveness for their sins; those who are proud of how much they pray, but in fact are only reciting and repeating words written by others; or those who sing songs of praise and worship inside the sanctuary but do not live and follow the message of the lyrics outside after they leave the church building.

Verse 17: Now Jesus continues by giving His instructions on how those who fast should go about their day in a normal fashion. He says: “So when you fast, wash your face and make yourself look natural.”

Here our Lord follows up His complaint about how the self-righteous Jewish Pharisees fast and pray, with instructions on how God wants us to do it. It is not uncommon to see most couples who are very affectionate toward each other, walk hand-in-hand in public. But there are certain forms of expressions with a kiss or embrace that are kept for private times together. The same here with God. There are things we say and do in public to show our affection and love for Him. But Jesus says that there are occasions when we embrace our God in prayer and show our fondness in fasting that should be kept just between Him and us.

We find an interesting story along this line in the Book of Ruth. Naomi wanted her daughter-in-law to find a good husband, and when Boaz came on the scene she gave these instructions to Ruth, “Boaz is our close relative. You’ve worked with his women servants. Tonight he will be working at the threshing floor. Go wash yourself and get dressed. Put on a nice dress, and go down to the threshing floor. But don’t let Boaz see you until he has finished eating his dinner. After he eats, he will lie down to rest. Watch him so that you will know where he lies down. Go there and lift the blanket off his feet. Then lie down there with Boaz. He will tell you what you should do about marriage.”¹⁹ In a spiritual sense, this illustrates how we can keep our special relationship with God close to the heart instead of wearing it like an ornament for others to admire.

There were many times when I walked up to the pulpit after spending as much as 6-9 hours in study and prayer. But I did not drag my feet or drop my shoulders like one who just carried a big load up a hill, just to impress the audience with how hard I prepared for this moment. Rather, I walked up with confidence and a deep urging to deliver the message the Holy Spirit helped me discover. The time I spent searching and researching, praying and petitioning was between me and God. There was no temptation in letting the congregation know how long I labored to prepare for my sermon. What I wanted to impress them with was the power and insight contained in God’s Word. I wanted them to concentrate on the message, not the messenger.

Jesus is saying the same thing here when it comes to how we portray ourselves to others after spending hours and days fasting and praying in order to find and do His will. This, of course, was in direct contradiction to Jewish verbal tradition where it says: “On Yom Kippur it is prohibited to eat and drink, to wash or anoint with oil, or to wear shoes.”²⁰ While they may have done this originally to impress God with their humility and repentance, it had become nothing more than a way to impress fellow Jews with their piety and righteousness. That’s why Jesus had the courage to confront them with their hypocrisy and to warn His disciples not to imitate them.

Verse 18: Now Jesus gives His reasons for telling the disciples to act normal when they fasted. “Then no one will know you are fasting, except your Father, who is with you even in private. He can see what is done in private, and He will reward you.”

As we can see in Jewish writings, the holy days and sacred feasts were often used to openly display one’s fasting in humility, rather than the joy one has in serving such an awesome God.²¹ The whole crux of what our Lord is saying here lies in the difference between living one’s faith on the inside and displaying it on the outside. Too often those who are the loudest and gaudiest with their outward exhibition of holiness, religiosity, and spirituality are often the most shabby on the inside when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit and the virtues that Jesus talks about in this discourse on the mountain side. While on the other hand, those who carry a deep, sincere and genuine love and devotion to God and His Word in their hearts and minds, need no added external grooming because what is on the inside beams outward into the darkness around them. To our Lord Jesus, doing it the right way was a form of laying up treasures in God’s kingdom that would pay dividends in both this world and the next. So the Master then says:

Verse 19: Don’t save treasures for yourselves here on earth. Moths and rust will destroy them. And thieves can break into your house and steal them.

At first glance it may appear as though our Lord has changed subjects and moved onto another theme. But quite the contrary is true. He is adding one more layer of wisdom to what He has already revealed about how His disciples are to conduct themselves as ambassadors of God’s kingdom here on earth. His instructions on being generous to those in need and the believer’s prayer life as they dedicate and consecrate themselves out of love to Him in service, is now shown for what it really accomplishes, and that is our future reward as good and faithful servants. So after telling His disciples what not to do, He now tells them what to do.

Verses 20-21: Instead, store your treasures in heaven, where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them. Your heart will be where your treasure is.

There’s every reason to believe that the scribes and Pharisees thought that Jesus may be quoting from what the Rabbis taught related to a story about safeguarding one’s treasures so that they can be a blessing later. For instance, in Jewish literature we read where Monobaz the King of Adiabene, took all the treasures from his treasury and gave it to the poor during a time of famine. So his brothers sent him a message that read: “Your ancestors stored up treasures and increased the wealth left for them by their ancestors. But you went and gave away all of these treasures, both your own and those of your ancestors!” To this Monobaz replies: “My ancestors stored up treasure for this world, but I, through charitable giving, have stored up treasures in heaven above, as it is stated in Scripture: ‘Faithfulness will spring up from the ground below, and righteousness will look down from the sky.’²²”²³ The same story is told in a later version with this added: King Monobaz said: “My fathers stored something which produces no fruit, but I have stored something which does produce fruit, as it is written, ‘You say of the righteous that it will be well with them, for they will eat of the fruit of their labors.’²⁴ My father gathered treasures of money, but I have gathered treasures of souls, as it is written, ‘The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who winds souls is wise.²⁵”²⁶ The fact that this king Monobaz lived during the time of Jesus, would make this story even more relevant.

The great theologian Augustine gives his exposition on this part of our Lord’s instructions by saying: “Rightly, therefore, does He who is intent on cleansing our heart, now follow up what He is saying with this principle.” In other words, Jesus had given warnings against outward formalism, but now He moves on to the complete dedication of one’s heart to the Lord. Augustine goes on to say: “If, therefore, the heart be on earth, i.e. if one performs anything with a heart bent on obtaining earthly advantage, how will that heart be clean which wallows on earth? But if it be in heaven, it will be clean, because whatever things are heavenly are clean. For anything becomes polluted when it is mixed with a nature that is inferior, although not polluted of its kind; for gold is polluted even by pure silver, if it be mixed with it: so also our mind becomes polluted by the desire after earthly things, although the earth itself be pure of its kind and order. But we would not understand heaven in this passage as anything corporeal, because everything corporeal is to be reckoned as earth. For he who lays up treasure for himself in heaven ought to despise the whole world. Hence it is in that heaven of which it is said, The heaven of heavens is the Lord’s,²⁷ i.e. in the spiritual firmament: for it is not in that which is to pass away that we ought to fix and place our treasure and our heart, but in that which ever abides; but heaven and earth shall pass away²⁸.”²⁹

Well-known English churchman Robert South in his sermon on this text, Sunday, October 15, 1699 titled: “On the commitment of one’s heart,” made the following remark: “No man ever went to heaven whose heart was not there before.”³⁰ But our hearts should not be so set on heaven that we forget our mission here on earth. God did not redeem us and give us wisdom, strength, and the power of the Holy Spirit in order for us to spend all our time thinking of heaven and do nothing for Him here in the world. But we should keep our eyes on Jesus and our minds on heaven whenever we think of any blessing or reward that may await us when being faithful in carrying out His will down here.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part III (con’t)

Verse 13a: So the Master told His disciples to also ask their heavenly Father: Don’t let us be tempted, thereby saving us from the disaster that would follow.

The idea of appealing to God that He keep temptation away from one’s ears and eyes, was not new to His Jewish audience. We are told that every time Rabbi Hiyya ben Abba fell prostrate on his face to pray he cried out, “O Merciful One, save us from the Tempter.”¹ Then the phrase, “lead us not into temptation” (KJV) has given many readers cause to wonder why God would do so. Since Matthew wrote his original notes in Hebrew, no doubt that is why one Hebrew Bible renders it this way: “And do not lead us into hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.”² The Aramaic Version reads: “And bring us not into trial, but deliver us from the evil one.” The Peschito Syriac version reads: “from the evil.” And the oldest Hebrew version of Matthew has it: “…and do not lead us into the power of temptation but keep us from all evil.”³ Jesus knew full well about the Tempter and how he deceived Eve, tried to destroy Job; got Jonah on a boat to nowhere; and after spending 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness the Tempter came and tried to derail our Lord’s mission.

The Greek word used here, peirasmos, has several factors that are tied to the idea of “experimenting with, attempting, trying, or proving.” In light of the context on owning up to what we owe to God and others, Jesus didn’t want His followers to try, prove or experiment with the idea that they could get by with first going to God for forgiveness before they forgave those who were indebted to them. Such an attempt to prove that there was a way around such a commandment would certainly lead to hardships and disasters. As I’ve mentioned many times before, context is very important in interpreting the text. So when Jesus told His disciples to ask God not to hold it against them when they came up short, it is dependent on their having dismissed any punishment against those who did the same to them. What could come out of this that would be considered a “temptation” to somehow get around forgiving others for not coming through with their promises or pledges and deal only with God. This line of the verse does not imply that God could or would lead us into sinful temptation or that this prayer might dissuade Him from doing so. Rather, it is rather a way of saying: “Lead us so that we will have no opportunity to take the path of temptation, thereby delivering us from any possible evil consequences.”

When we tie this to what was just said about owing and being owed, there are several possibilities. Let’s look at the word translated as “lead.” In the Greek word eispherō also conveys the idea of “being brought into.” Some scholars believe that this understanding is contained in what Moses told the Israelites about what God was doing: “And you must keep in mind that the entire trip the Lord your God has led you through these 40 years in the desert, was His way of testing you. He wanted to keep you humble. He wanted to find out what was in your heart. He wanted to discover if you would obey His commands.”⁴ We then read how this played out: “Don’t ever say to yourself, ‘I got all this wealth by my own power and ability.’ Remember the Lord your God is the One who gives you power to do these things. He does this because He wants to keep the agreement that He made with your ancestors, as He is doing today!”⁵

Jewish teachers knew about the dangers of being led astray. So Jews were encouraged to pray this way: “…do not let me become an habitual transgressor; and keep me from wandering into sin, or into iniquity, or into temptation, or into contempt. And may I keep a good attitude all the time, not a bad attitude all the time.”⁶ In the same location we find a list of Rabbis and how many of them would end their prayers. One of them finished his prayers by saying: “May it be Your will, O Lord our God, and God of our fathers, to deliver us from those who are disrespectful and from disrespect, from atrocious people and from atrocious disasters, from the immoral impulses and from an immoral companions, from grievous neighbors, and from the destructive Accuser, from a problematic lawsuit and from a problematic opponent, whether he is a son of the covenant or not a son of the covenant!”⁷ In the Jewish Prayer Book, under the Morning Blessings called “Vihi Ratzon,” this line is included: “Do not bring us close to sin, transgression or iniquity, nor close to a challenge. Make us cleave to the good inclination and to good deeds.” It then goes on to say: “May it be Your will, God, my Lord, and God of my fathers, to deliver me today and every day from insulting men and disrespect.” We are also told that the Jews were taught: “A man should always train himself to say: ‘Whatever the All-Merciful does is for good.”⁸ So it was clear to the audience that Jesus had a full grasp of the prayers they often heard their Rabbis say in the synagogue. That’s why they did not raise any objection on what He was teaching at this point.

Early Christian apologist Tertullian gives us a thought to consider on this subject of not being tempted to do evil. He says that “God did not order the sacrifice of His Son in order to tempt His faith, but to prove it.” This was done so that later on Jesus was able to illustrate what He was teaching, that no one holds their loved ones any dearer than God. The disciples were so tempted to desert their Lord that they indulged in sleep instead of prayer. That’s why the phrase, ‘lead us not into temptation,’ is balanced by the phrase, ‘but deliver us from evil.’”⁹ I think this is more spiritual conjecture than the discovery of some hidden truth. However, there is little doubt that the disciples did fall asleep while Jesus was praying because the temptation to get a little nap was greater than the desire to stay away and keep watch. In that vein, all of us can petition God not to allow us to be tempted into complacency, but to remain as vigilant as the five wise virgins who were awaiting the call to the wedding with arrival of the groom. As John say at the end of his revelation, even come Lord Jesus!

Then Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage offered this commentary: “After all these things, in the conclusion of the prayer comes a brief clause, which shortly and comprehensively sums up all our petitions and our prayers. For we conclude by saying, But deliver us from evil, comprehending all adverse things which the enemy attempts against us in this world, from which there may be a faithful and sure protection if God delivers us, if He affords His help to us who pray for and implore it. And when we say, Deliver us from evil, there remains nothing further which ought to be asked. When we have once asked for God’s protection against evil, and have obtained it, then against everything which the devil and the world do against us we stand safe and secure. For what fear is there in this life, to the man whose guardian in this life is God?”¹⁰

And Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, adds his insight into how this daily bread may be seen from a spiritual perspective. He writes: “But the other four things which we ask seem to me to belong to this temporal life. And the first of them is, Give us this day our daily bread. For whether by this same thing which is called daily bread be meant spiritual bread, or that which is visible in the sacrament or in this sustenance of ours, it belongs to the present time, which He has called today, not because spiritual food is not everlasting, but because that which is called daily food in the Scriptures is represented to the soul…. For perhaps for this reason also it is called bread, not drink, because bread is converted into nutrition by breaking and chewing it, just as the Scriptures feed the soul by being opened up and made the subject of discourse.”¹¹

Here we have the reverse of what happens when Jesus speaks in parables or allegories. In those cases our Lord takes a literal object or person and uses it in a metaphorical sense to illustrate a spiritual truth. But here the Master uses a literal phrase called “daily bread” and some Christian scholars see it in a figurative spiritual sense as referring to the Scriptures or the Eucharist. In my mind, while that is permitted to do so as a comparison, it should not be employed as an interpretation of what a scholar thinks Jesus was really saying.

Verse 13b: From this point on there is disagreement among the various translations of this text, as to whether or not this benediction, included in the King James Version: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen,” was part of the original.

As we have seen, this was required in all Jewish prayers. Thus, in the most recent Jewish version it reads: “For kingship, power and glory are yours forever. Amen.”¹² This conforms to what we find where Rabbi Yishmael said that when the Name YaHWeH was heard in a prayer, they responded: “Blessed be the Name of His glorious Kingdom forever and ever.”¹³ Also we find that after the scapegoat was sent away into the desert and those standing in the courtyard heard the High Priest pronounce the Name YaHWeH, they would kneel, prostate themselves, fall on their faces, and call out: “Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.”¹⁴ We also read that whenever the Shema was quoted: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One,”¹⁵ they immediately added without any pause: “Blessed be the name of His glorious Kingdom for ever and ever.”¹⁶ Then when the reader in the synagogue steps down from before the Ark of the Covenant and recites the benedictions, when he gets to: “Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed art Thou who redeems Israel;” the congregation responds: “Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.”¹⁷ One Jewish morning prayer ends this way: “Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever, Amen.”¹⁸

With Matthew being a genuine Jewish person there is no reason to believe that he left this out. But it does leads us to believe that the final “Amen” was added by some scribe or copier because this was only said after readings: “Who redeems Israel? He who answered Abraham on Mt. Moriah, He will answer you and listen this day to the sound of your cry. Blessed are You who redeems Israel.” Then the congregation responds, “Amen.”¹⁹ But after giving His disciples this prayer formula, our Lord wants to continue in order to emphasize an important point.

Verse 14: Yes, if you forgive others when they cannot follow through with their commitments, then your Father in heaven will also forgive you when you cannot follow through with yours.

Now Matthew records Jesus using a different word for what was noted as “trespasses” or “debts” in the prayer. The Greek word here, paraptōma, means either to fall next to or near by, or to have a lapse or deviate from the intended goal. Most scholars take it to mean a lapse or deviation. So in a sense, it means a failure in completing a task or keeping a promise. However, it appears to be taken in the sense that such a failure is not intentional or due to neglect. Solomon warns of the same consequences: “Those who refuse to help the poor will not receive help when they need it themselves.”²⁰ For the Jew, any person who caused serious harm needed to give a sincere apology. When they do so, then the wronged person is religiously bound to accept the apology and forgive them. But even without receiving an apology, forgiveness was considered a very pious act.

One Jewish theologian had much to say on this subject, and offers this observation: “It is pious behavior if a person who was wronged by a colleague would rather not admonish him or mention the matter at all because the person who wronged him was very boorish or because he was mentally disturbed, provided he forgives him totally without bearing any feelings of hate or admonishing him. The Torah is concerned only with those who carry feelings of hate.”²¹ Then He continues: “It is forbidden for a person to be cruel and refuse to be appeased. Rather, he should be easily pacified, but hard to anger. When the person who wronged him asks for forgiveness, he should forgive him with a complete heart and a willing spirit. Even if he aggravated and wronged him severely, he should not seek revenge or bear a grudge.”²² Also, another Rabbi addresses the subject of revenge²³ by giving this practical illustration: “If one was cutting meat, and cut his hand with the knife, would he go ahead and cut the other hand with which he was holding the knife? Not hardly! By the same token, taking vengeance means you end up injuring yourself yet again.”²⁴ Now our Lord takes this opportunity to also point out the difference between the way the hypocrites do things and the way He wanted His disciples to do them.

Verse 15: But if you do not forgive others, then your Father in heaven will not forgive you of your failures either.

Here our Lord offers the consequences of not following through with the first part of this proposition. The orator Chrysostom is not hesitant to point out the obvious in such cases. He says: “What great punishment then must people deserve, who after all this, so far from themselves forgiving, do even entreat God for vengeance on their enemies, and diametrically as it were transgress this law; and this while He is doing and contriving all, to hinder our being at variance one with another? For since love is the root of all that is good, His removing from all sides whatever mars it, will bring us together, and cements us to each other. For there is none, not even one, be he father, or mother, or friend, or what you will, who so loved us as the God who created us. And this, above all things, both His daily benefits and His precepts make this very clear. But if you recount for me all the pains, and sorrows, and atrocities in your life; just consider how many times you offend Him every day, and you will no longer be surprised, if even more bad times come your way. And if you end up enjoying anything good, that should be what makes you marvel and be amazed. But as it is, we keep track of all the calamities that come upon us, but of the offenses, whereby we offend others daily, we give no consideration: therefore we become perplexed. Because if we were to count with precision the errors we make in just one day, it should alert us to all the repercussions we would be liable for as a result.”²⁵

Another way we might put this, is to think of all the times Jesus was left to eat and sleep out in the cold countryside; how many times He was shouted down, laughed at, made fun of, ridiculed, called names, and plotted against; how many wounds He received between the Garden of Gethsemane and His arrival before Pilate, including slaps in the face, lies told about Him, a staged hearing without allowing Him to call any witnesses; then the deep lacerations on His back from shards of pottery tied to the ends of the leather strings that wrapped around His torso 39 times; the punctures on His forehead from the crown of thorns pushed down on his brow; the exhaustion and torment of having to carry His own cross, and the nails in His hands and feet. Then compare that to anything you may have suffered for Him, and I’m sure you’ll see how weak your complaints are sometimes when you object to the way people may be treating you for His namesake.

Did you know that in British Columbia, Canada, you cannot take a picture of a woman with a wooden leg. And do you know why? Most people who live there know why, but, believe it or not, they don’t know that they know why. Maybe you’re not sure right now, but the more you think about it I’m sure you’ll know why.

Sometimes we experience such mental pauses when we try to figure something out that looks as if it could have many answers. But once we learn the truth, it all boils down to the one we should have immediately thought of.

Life is like that sometimes, especially when we keep getting things wrong, and no matter what we say or do, it doesn’t seem to provide the correct answer, and we feel like we are always ending back at square one in the puzzle. That means when we’ve tried all the options we know and it still doesn’t work out, we start all over again from the beginning. As a matter of fact, someone even invented a puzzle called “Back to Square One” that is similar to Rubik’s Cube.

This same thinking has made its way into our spiritual thinking, and often when a believer gets mixed up and gets lost along the way to the destiny God has chosen for them, and they just don’t seem to know where they are at with God and their relationship with Christ, they are often told to start all over. Go back to square one. Try and see if they can get it right this time, or this 3^rd time, or for some the 5^th time.

But this is not Biblical. Because you see, if every Christian who made mistakes and fell back into their old sinful ways were required to start all over again, then Jesus would have to die all over again. And that isn’t going to happen. John put it best when he said that if we make a mistake and thereby become disobedient to God’s will in our lives and the purpose for which He has called us, don’t go back to square one but get things straightened out, right where you are. Charlotte Elliot penned it this way in verse three of her poem: Just as I am. It goes this way: “Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”

In fact, if you are reading this right now and you know this posting was meant for you, just get a hymn book or look up the lyrics on the internet and read all six verses. Here’s how John put it: “If we confess our mistakes, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrong things we have done.” No going back to square one, but do so right where we are. Reconcile with Him and continue on toward your appointed day when you’ll meet Him face to face.

Because you see, all that you accomplished for Him up to the point where you went astray is not lost. God kept that safe in His vault of grace and mercy. So when you do arrive before Him after getting right again, here is the wonderful thing: all that you did wrong, for which you were forgiven, will not be on the record. But all that you did for His honor, praise and glory from the day you were born again, will be listed and counted for the honor to receive a crown of righteous from His own hand. Can you say, Amen!

Perhaps you’ve heard a preacher, teacher or fellow Christian make this statement after they encountered some trouble, difficulty or inconvenience or after hearing that a friend experienced some critical miscalculation or setback, “Well, the Bible says ‘This too shall pass’.”

In fact, no such exact saying can be found in the Bible. There is a legend concerning this quote contained in the story of a Persian ruler around 1200 AD who called his wise men together, including the Sufi poet Attar of Nishapur, and asked them for one quote that would be appropriate at all times and in all situations. The wise men consulted with one another, and spent hours in deep contemplation, and finally came up with the answer … “this too, shall pass.” The ruler was so impressed by the quote that he had it inscribed on a ring.

It also became a proverb that people begin to apply to all material and physical conditions, whether they were good or bad, to show that all things are transient. Nevertheless, it is a curious thought if perhaps these Persian sages may have heard about or seen the writings of Paul of Tarsus, the articulate and very famous Christian scholar, where in one of his letters to the believers living in Corinth he had this to say: “We may have troubles, but only for a little while.”¹ In other words, the things we experience in this world last only a short time, and then they too shall pass.

When I lived in North and South Dakota, each time we received 3, 4 or 5 feet of snow, and I was shoveling out the driveway and the sidewalks around the parsonage and the church, this was a helpful thought: This too, shall pass. But here’s an interesting fact. According to the speculation of some evolution scientists, the earliest ancestor of modern humans came into being some 200,000 years ago, and the oldest known objects made by this branch of homo sapiens are arrowheads found in the South African Sibudu Cave, dug up from under layers of sediment up to 100,000 years old. The arrowheads contained glue traces made of a plant-based resin, and archaeologists believe the adhesive was used to fasten the arrowheads on to wooden shafts.

Meanwhile, much of God’s age old handiwork can be seen in the mountains, rivers and seas here on earth, and others that glitter in the universe of which our planet is a minuscule part. They continue to sparkle after billions and billions of years in existence. So when it comes to things made by man, they too shall pass. But when we think of God, those things are designed to last forever, or until He gets through with them after they have served their purpose.

But let’s look at what Paul says following this that really should catch our attention. He writes: “These troubles are helping us gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles. So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.”² So when we compare our peccadilloes such as awful habits or faulty thinking; missed opportunities or bad timing; being wrong at the wrong time or coming up short at the worst moment; or even miscues and slip-ups to God’s faithfulness and everlasting promises, then it is not out of line to say: this too, shall pass.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIX

Part III

When it comes to this kingdom, let us look at what Daniel of the Old Testament saw: “During the time of the kings of the fourth kingdom, the God of heaven will set up another kingdom that will continue forever. It will never be destroyed. And it will be the kind of kingdom that cannot be passed on to another group of people. This kingdom will crush all the other kingdoms. It will bring them to an end, but that kingdom itself will continue forever.”¹ His vision concluded with this statement, “Then God’s holy people will rule over the kingdom and all the people from all the kingdoms of earth. This kingdom will last forever, and people from all the other kingdoms will respect and serve them.”² It is for this kingdom to take shape and begin to influence the world that Jesus encouraged His followers to pray. We know it could not be initiated until Jesus died and rose from the dead and ascended back to the father. So He wanted His followers to pray that nothing would prevent that from happening. And this would be facilitated if they continued to abide by His teachings and do His will. As Jesus’ royal ancestor, king David, said, “My God, I am happy to do whatever you want. I never stop thinking about your teachings.”³

Just as Jesus came to do the will of His Father in heaven, and to declare the message His heavenly Father gave Him, so Jesus wanted His followers to do on earth what was conceived in heaven. David recognized this in his song, “The Lord set his throne up in heaven, and He rules over everything. Angels, praise the Lord! You angels are the powerful soldiers who obey His commands. You listen to Him and obey His commands. Praise the Lord, all His armies. You are His servants, and you do what He wants. Everything the Lord has made should praise Him throughout the world that He rules! My soul, praise the Lord!”⁴ This is what Daniel saw in his vision of the kingdom to come, “God rules forever! His kingdom continues for all generations. People on earth cannot compete with Him. God does what He wants with the powers of heaven and the people on earth. No one can stop His powerful hand or question what He does.”⁵

This then was not a new concept to the Jews, nor should it have been to the disciples. Even their Rabbis prayed: “Do Your will in heaven above, and grant relief to them that fear You below and do that which is good in Your eyes.”⁶ Once the acknowledgment of God’s kingdom in heaven, and the desire that as He rules there He should rule here on earth, then the petition for daily needs is addressed. And of course the reason for God’s rule on earth is that His will for mankind can function and bring honor and glory to His name. The Jews recognized that God was in control from heaven. For instance, we read where the people were told what one Rabbi did to show respect to his master, and then said: “May it be the will of God that you become leader of the whole city.”⁷

Verse: 11 Then Jesus goes on to say: “Give us the food we need for today.” It should be noted that the prayer points to the immediate need for today. In one Jewish prayer book we find this prayer: “O God, give for me my nourishment and daily bread – my Messiah will come to His City – O reveal soon your redemption to your people – bring the Savior to Zion, let the Branch shoot up, Elijah the prophet and Messiah the king.”⁸ So we can see that Jesus may have been repeating what was already part of a Jewish prayer before a meal.

When God sent manna from heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness, He ordered: “Each of you should gather what you need”.⁹ One Jewish commentator noted that: “As the entire phenomenon was of supernatural character, a gift directly from God, it was logical that it should be distributed evenly among all the people”.¹⁰ This same Jewish Rabbi goes on to say that in the gathering of the manna, another miracle took place: “Both the ones who thought that they had collected more than the amount instructed and the ones who did not think they had collected that amount found that they had each collected the same amount”.¹¹ And we know what happened to those who tried to horde, “They saved their food for the next day. But worms got into the food and it began to stink”.¹² So in a way, our Lord was teaching that we should ask only for what is needed today because tomorrow may never come.

One Psalmist had a unique way of putting it: “God, I ask you to help me with two things for the rest of my life. Don’t let me tell lies. And don’t make me too rich or too poor—give me only enough food for each day. If I have too much, I might deny that I need You, Lord. But if I am too poor, I might steal and bring shame to the name of my God.”¹³ Later on in verse 34 of this chapter, Jesus emphasizes this same point. But our Lord knows that none of us are perfect, we often come up short in meeting God’s standards. This concept of praying for one’s daily needs was not foreign to the Jewish people. One Rabbi taught: “May it be Your will, O Lord our God, to give to each one the sustenance they need, and make up for what they lack.”¹⁴ So Jesus tied God’s provisions for daily needs to His will as did the Jews in their prayer. John Gill tells us that Rabbi Jose in the Zohar says that all the children of faith seek “every day to ask their food” of the Lord, and to pray a prayer for it.¹⁵

We must also examine the linguistics of this verse as it relates to the use of the word “bread.” One Jewish commentary defines the words “my food” as literally “my bread.”¹⁶ He goes on to say: “All food is called “bread”, as when Belshatzar the king gave a great “banquet” (breads),¹⁷ and adds: “Let’s destroy the tree with its ‘fruit’, it literally says ‘bread’.”¹⁸ In the Jewish Prayer Book, the Morning Blessings prayer goes like this: “Blessed are You, God our Lord, King of the universe, Who has provided me with my every need.”¹⁹ So Jesus is not advising that we only ask only for bread, but all of our daily needs for nutrition.

One of the earliest church scholars, Cyprian (AD 200-258), bishop of Carthage, had this to say about our Lord’s inclusion of bread in this prayer: “As the prayer goes forward, we ask and say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ And this may be understood both spiritually and literally, because either way of understanding it is rich in divine usefulness to our salvation. For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all men, but it is ours. And according as we say, ‘Our Father,’ because He is the Father of those who understand and believe; so also we call it ‘our bread,’ because Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And we ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ’s body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ When, therefore, He says, that whoever shall eat of His bread shall live for ever; as it is manifest that those who partake of His body and receive the Eucharist by the right of communion are living, so, on the other hand, we must fear and pray lest any one who, being withheld from communion, is separate from Christ’s body should remain at a distance from salvation; as He Himself threatens, and says, ‘Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall have no life in you.’ And therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body.”²⁰

Here we can see where within just two hundred years after our Lord spoke these words, the church had already began to find some spiritual way of interpreting what Jesus said, especially about bread, which Cyprian tied to the Eucharist from this prayer. Most Protestant scholars do not see this connection, in that it would require having communion everyday. However, eventually the Roman Catholic church did institute this practice in the seventh century, especially in the monasteries and rural parishes in France, and we can see where the roots for this practice may have begun. This is only one example of how the words of Christ were detached from their intended meaning so that men could have more control over how His teachings were instituted in the church. We see this in the writing of Origen on this Lord’s Prayer where he speaks of “supersubstantial”²¹ bread, as well as Jerome in his commentary on Matthew.

However, Chrysostom seems to strike a different note when he says: “What is daily bread? That for one day. And because He said, Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven, but was speaking to men clothed with flesh, and subject to the necessities of nature, and incapable of the same impassibility²² with the angels: – while He enjoins the commands to be practiced by us also, even as they perform them; He lowers expectations in what follows, due to the infirmity of human nature. Therefore, He says that He requires the holiest conduct, but not that which is free from emotions, because the laws of nature do not permit it: for it requires necessary food. But mark, I pray you, how even in things that are bodily, that which is spiritual abounds. For it is neither for riches, nor for exquisite living, nor for costly clothing, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only, that He has commanded us to make our prayer. And for daily bread, so as not to take thought for the morrow.²³ Because of this He added, daily bread, that is, bread for one day. And not even with this expression is He satisfied, but adds another saying afterwards, Give us this day; so that we may not, beyond this, wear ourselves out with the care of the following day. For that day, the interval before which you know not whether you will see, why should you submit to its cares? This, as He proceeded, He enjoined also more fully, saying, Take no thought for the morrow. He would have us be on every hand unburdened and winged for flight, yielding just so much to nature as the compulsion of necessity requires of us.”²⁴ So it appears that the great orator did not see this as anything more that asking God for bodily sustenance each day, whether it be provided as a result of our labors or by His generosity.

Verse 12: Then, as we are asking God to give to us for our physical needs, Jesus says we should ask Him for our spiritual needs. “Forgive us what we have done wrong, as we too have forgiven those who have wronged us.”

The Greek word used here, opheilēma, is translated into English as “trespasses” and “debts,” and is only used twice in the N.T. Once here and again in Romans 4:4. It can either be used literally to indicate “indebtedness,” or figuratively as a metaphor for an “offense against.” We find this concept addressed when the people of Israel were instructed: “Here is how every seventh year release is to be done: every creditor is to give up what he has loaned to his fellow member of the community — he is not to force his neighbor or relative to repay it, because Adonai’s time of remission has been proclaimed.”²⁵ In other words, as you are forgiven your debt, you automatically forgive those who owe you a debt.

But there was more too it than a simple trade-off. One Rabbi makes this comparison: “If your neighbor entertains you first with soup and you subsequently entertains him with meat, you are still indebted to him; why? Because he showed you hospitality first”.²⁶ In this case, the debt is gratitude. Paul uses it this way: “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.”²⁷ We have a saying in English: when a person finishes their jail sentence and is released back into the public we often remark that they should be accepted because, “they’ve paid their debt to society.” Since this request for forgiveness stems from not giving back to God what we owe Him, especially since we just asked Him for our daily bread, then we must look into the idea of what we owe God in this sense: because He gave us life, do we not owe Him the pleasure of living it to His glory? Whatever talent and abilities, intellect and ingenuity He granted us, do we not owe using it for Him in doing His will? By the same token, if we want Him to forgive us when we fail to do what is expected of us, Jesus added that we should be just as willing to extend that same forgiveness to others for any similar trespass.

But since Matthew wrote this first in Hebrew, Jewish scholars examining this prayer have suggested that the word “debts” is better understood with the broader term “wrongs.” This was part of what the Rabbi’s taught. In one passage we read: “The collectors go their round continually every day and exact payment of men with their consent or without their consent, for they have that on which they can rely.”²⁸ Jewish commentators say that what these collectors are relying on is God’s record of the man’s debts.²⁹ And debts in this case are the repayment for sins committed, because God does not need man’s money. However, even though Luke was a Gentile and wrote his Gospel in Greek, he also understood this metaphor of “debt” being tied to God’s record of our wrong doings. So he chose the Greek word hamartia, which means: “to be mistaken, miss the mark.” That is perhaps why the King James translators rendered it “sins” in Luke.³⁰ It was not until the Book of Common Prayer was published in England in 1549, that they copied this prayer from the Tyndale Bible of 1526 which reads in old English: “And forgeve vs oure treaspasses eve as we forgeve oure trespacers” and wrote: “And forgeve us our trespaces, as wee forgeve them that trespasse agaynst us.”³¹

In the Jewish Prayer Book, in the Morning Prayers – Yehi Ratzon, we have this line: “Forgive us for all our sins, grant us atonement for all our iniquities, and forgive and pardon us for all our transgressions.”This is all well and good, but Jesus had said earlier that He wanted them to be better than those who used their prayers for their own good. Before they ask God for forgiveness, they should do the same to those who’ve wronged them. In other words, how can you ask God to forgive you when you have not forgiven others? It would be like going to the banquet table of a rich man, ready to fill your plate to the rim so you could gorge yourself, but forgetting that earlier in the day a beggar showed up at your door and asked for food but you refused to give them one morsel. Such an attitude could be dangerous in other areas of life as well.

In his Opus Imperfectum, otherwise known as the Incomplete Work on Matthew from the early 7^th century, an anonymous author has this to say: “With what assurance does that person pray who harbors animosity toward someone who has offended him? Even as he lies when he prays and says, ‘I forgive’ and does not forgive, so too he seeks pardon from God, but he will not be pardoned. Therefore, if that person who has been offended prays to God without assurance unless he pardons the very person who offended him, how do you think that person prays who not only has been offended by another but himself offends and oppresses others through injustice? But may people who are unwilling to forgive those who sin against them avoid saying this prayer. They are ill-advised, first, because the one who does not pray as Christ taught is not Christ’s disciple; second, because the Father does not graciously hear a prayer that the Son has not recommended. For the Father knows the words and meaning of His Son, and He does not accept what the human mind has devised but what the wisdom of Christ has expressed. Therefore, you may indeed say a prayer, but you may not outsmart and deceive God. And you will not receive forgiveness unless you yourself have first forgiven.”³²

Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, taught early on that if anyone is unwilling to pardon their fellow believer, they thereby forfeit what the Lord has already pardoned them for.³³ Also, Chrysostom notes that such a prayer for forgiveness as this belongs to the believer only. Sinners cannot pray such a prayer because this is the plea of a child of God, not a child of the world.³⁴ And Augustine explains: “That may indeed be construed in this way, that when we say, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive, then only are we convicted of having acted contrary to this rule, if we do not forgive them who ask pardon, because we also wish to be forgiven by our most gracious Father when we ask His pardon. But, on the other hand, by that precept whereby we are enjoined to pray for our enemies, it is not for those who ask pardon that we are enjoined to pray. For those who are already in such a state of mind are no longer enemies. By no possibility, however, could one truthfully say that he prays for one whom he has not pardoned. And therefore we must confess that all sins which are committed against us are to be forgiven, if we wish those to be forgiven by our Father which we commit against Him. For the subject of revenge has been sufficiently discussed already, as I think.”³⁵

Even though our Lord makes this so clear, and even astute scholars of the past and present join in their interpretation of this part of the prayer, for many believers this has become one of the most difficult parts of the prayer to abide by. But one thing I see here that has not yet been mentioned, is this, there is no demand that the offended party seek out the offender and offer forgiveness before they ask for such. It applies only when the offended party is approached and forgiveness is requested that this part of the prayer becomes mandatory. In the same way, God may have the heart and intent to pardon us for not repaying Him in love and service for all the talents and abilities He has given us, it will not be done until we approach Him and ask His forgiveness.