Week 37 Matthew 5
The last two-thirds of the chapter are the Lord talking about the OT law. He wasn’t prepared to just dump it. But he was pretty intent on fine-tuning the Jewish people’s understanding about it. (What this is saying is that if the Lord figured he had to describe to genuine OT specialists what the OT law was really about then he was afraid that they clearly didn’t get it.)
It occurred to me today that I likely read the OT in exactly the way that 1st century Jewish people did. In other words: the law means to slavishly obey the rules. But that’s reading it wrong.
The OT law wasn’t written by Moses to be obeyed only in a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed sort of way. There was a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed element to it. But it was more than straight-jacketed rigidity.
I can’t murder someone or have sexual intercourse with anyone I want or steal or lie because that’s against the law. But the Lord is saying that not doing those things doesn’t solve my instinctive wanting to do them. First Level Obedience is not doing. Second Level Obedience is altering my preference for doing them.
But that’s not the point for me right now. The point is that I think I likely tend to read the OT exactly the way 1st century Jewish people did. And that – according to Jesus – is an inadequate and misinformed way to go at the law.