Sounds Good, But Is It The Truth? (10)

 

 

Continuing to reflect on Matthew 7:1 – 6, we come to 7:6:

 

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

 

Let’s not miss the juxtaposition of this verse with the first verse of this passage, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” As we previously pointed out, both the immediate and greater context of Matthew 7:1 – 6 contains teaching on how we should judge, and discern, and understand the true and false, good and evil, godly worship and hypocritical worship. If we are going to follow Jesus Christ we are going to live in tension regarding many things, and in Matthew 7:1 – 6 we have one end of the bungee cord hooked on 7:1 and the other end hooked on 7:6; to relieve this godly tension is not only foolish, it saps the energy of the passage and releases it from my soul.

 

In 7:5 Jesus teaches us about helping our brothers and sisters see better, keeping in mind that we have our own problems and challenges – and if we’re smart we’ll seek others to help us see better. Then He says, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs…”

 

How might we think about this?

 

Frederick Dale Bruner cites Proverbs 9:7 in this regard, “He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.” Bruner then has this observation:

 

“Chrysostom…understood the dogs and swine to be the incorrigible, and cites excellent cross references: 2 Tim. 3:5, “Avoid such people”; Tit. 3:10, “As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him.””

 

I am struck by the word “holy.” “Do not give what is holy to dogs…” This directs our focus to verses 1 – 5 in which we see, I hope, that the question of clear vision, of clarifying vision, of helping one another along our pilgrimage, is a holy matter – it is sacred. I ought not to take lightly the awareness that my brother has a speck in his eye, I ought not to take lightly that I have been given a measure of grace to help him, and I ought not to take lightly that my own vision is not the best and can always use improvement.

 

The Body of Christ is holy, for Christ is holy. Our relationships within the Body of Christ are holy, sacred, and we ought to honor them and treasure them as gifts that God has entrusted to us. If the furniture of the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon was holy, how much more holy is the substance which that furniture represented – and in various fashions that substance includes the Body of Christ, the People of God, the Living Tabernacle.

 

I think I can promise that, try as we might, trust Christ as we might, that we will likely never get Matthew 7:1 – 6 quite right. But I also think I can promise that if we will trust Christ to help us grow in this passage, that He will work in us and through us to nurture holy relationships with our brothers and sisters, and that He will cause us to grow in wisdom toward one another – and that we will, by His grace, be a little better today than we were yesterday in helping one another see with clearer vision.

 

There have been times when I’ve said things I shouldn’t have said, or have said them at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. There are other times I haven’t said things that I should have said – and then there are times when I’ve known that I should not say anything and have been wise enough, by God’s grace, to keep my mouth shut, and other times when I have loved my brother enough to speak as best I could by God’s grace.

 

Then there are times when friends and brothers have cared enough to say things to me that I needed to hear, or that they have thought I needed to hear – and I have come to value the latter as much as the former. What I mean is that even if I don’t see what they are saying to me about the speck (or beam!) in my eye, that I’m learning to listen and ponder what they  say, knowing that they speak to me out of relationship in Christ…a holy relationship. As I write this, I am thinking of one friend who, when he says something to me that I don’t quite agree with, or perhaps definitely don’t agree with, that I nevertheless keep his words in my heart and mind and don’t forget them – this is because I value our friendship in Christ and honor what he tells me. Also, without a doubt, he has said some corrective things to me over the years that I needed to hear and which I have not forgotten.

 

Back to “Do not give what is holy to dogs…” There are some people who are not yet, and perhaps will never be, in a place where we can have the give and take of helping to clarify one another’s vision in Christ. There are some people who are more open to the Gospel than others, there are those who are hostile to the Gospel and seek to destroy it. Every relationship, every human interaction, has its fruitful potentialities and possible pitfalls…I suppose. Great hope and great sorrow are latent in our interactions and relationships; gardens have the potential for both fruit and weeds.

We ought not to ignore or explain away Matthew 7:1 – 6. We are called to holy relationships in Christ that entail humility, mutual submission, and helping one another to clarify vision as we live in a community of careful judging and discernment. We are also called to recognize that community, the ekklesia, by definition is discernable and has boundaries – we are reminded of those boundaries in Matthew 7:6. 

Amen.