Motivation Not to Sin

by Lois Tverberg

You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:27-28

The rabbis of Jesus’ day sought to motivate 7 deadly sins in a heartpeople to obey God’s word and stay far from sin. One technique they employed was to point out how seemingly small sins can evolve into much greater sins. (1) This was called kalah ka-hamurah (“light as heavy”), an abbreviation of mitsvah kalah ka-mitsvah hamurah (“a light commandment is like a heavy commandment”). In other words, kalah ka-hamurah relays the sense that breaking a less significant law is linked to breaking a greater law. The same style of logic appears in Jesus’ teaching when he compares anger to murder and lust to adultery (Mt 5:22-23, 27-28).

Other rabbis applied this same technique to make listeners aware of the potential damage that their words can do. The question was asked, to which sin is lashon hara  (the “evil tongue,” gossip) more closely related—theft or murder? The answer is murder, because a robber can always give back what he has stolen, but a murderer, as well as a gossip, can never repair all the damage that he or she has done. (2)

Not to be outdone, another source compares gossip to the murder of three persons! (3) It observes that not only do you “murder” the reputation of the object of your gossip, but you “murder” yourself, showing you are a person who savors ugly ideas about others and can’t be trusted not to betray those around you. By bringing someone else down, you bring yourself down too. And finally, you “murder” the person who listens to you. You load them down with information that will create disgust for the gossip’s subject, and tempt them to spread the word to yet more hearers.

Yet another rabbinic source asserts that gossip is like committing the three worst possible sins in Jewish thinking: idolatry, adultery, and murder! (4) Murder, of course, for what you are doing to another’s reputation. Adultery, because you are betraying a person’s trust; and idolatry, because you are acting as if you don’t believe God is listening to your words.

The rabbis’ purpose in conflating small sins with greater ones was not so much theological, but motivational. They were reminding their audiences of an important truth—that if we want to avoid sin, the time to scrutinize our conduct is when the choice is easy and the temptation is small. We do that when we consider the consequences of even our most minor actions.


(1) Joseph Telushkin, Words that Hurt, Words that Heal (Quill, 1996) p. xx

(2) David Bivin, New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus, (En-Gedi, 2005) p. 97.

(3) Babylonian Talmud, Arachin 15b.

(4) Ibid.

Photo:  Moreau.henri

Sons of Hell

by Lois Tverberg

“You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Matt. 23:15

Jesus’ words are shocking in the passage above, and one wonders about what context could have provoked such a harsh statement from him. Some interesting possibilities arise when we know more about what first-century reality. According to Josephus, a positive attitude toward Judaism was widespread in the Roman Empire. He said,

There is scarcely a nation among the barbarians, nor a city among the more civilized Greeks, that does not greet our customs with enthusiasm, or that does not wish to adopt our dietary customs, our sabbatical rest, even the lighting of our Sabbath candles…..1

And we know from the Gospels and Paul that many God-fearing Gentiles joined the Jews to worship Israel’s God in each town’s synagogue. Jesus healed the servant of the centurion (Matt. 8:5-13) and God sent Peter to Cornelius, who also was a God-fearer (Acts 10). Both Cornelius and the centurion were considered righteous, so it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus was criticizing the practice of inviting Gentiles to worship the true God of Israel.

These Gentiles who worshipped the God of Israel were not considered actual “converts” or “proselytes” to Judaism because they hadn’t become circumcized, which was the sign of the covenant given to Abraham. It may surprise readers today that there were some who were radically opposed to this. Hippolytus (~236 AD) wrote that this was true of some of the Zealots:

But the adherents of another party, if they happen to hear any one maintaining a discussion concerning God and His laws–supposing such to be an uncircumcised person, they will closely watch him and when they meet a person of this description in any place alone, they will threaten to slay him if he refuses to undergo the rite of circumcision. Now, if the latter does not wish to comply with this request, an Essene spares not, but even slaughters. And it is from this occurrence that they have received their appellation, being denominated (by some) Zelotae, but by others Sicarii. 2

The Zealots were violently opposed to the rule of Rome and any friendliness between Jew and Gentile. Josephus relays that some would walk with short daggers and assassinate any Jews that they believed were too sympathetic to the Roman empire, or were not strict enough in their obedience to the law. They were extremely rigid and isolationistic, and wanted Jews to be entirely separate from the pagan world around them. They saw the Scripture as something only accessible by God’s chosen people and no one else. From the passage above, it seems that they would have hated God-fearers and sought to either convert them entirely to their form of Judaism, or else kill them.

Is it possible that Jesus is talking to these people who forced conversions and then recruited from their ranks to make more violent defenders of Judaism? It is hard to know, but it is a possibility. It also gives an interesting background of why Paul was so persecuted by the “circumcision group” and why he had such strong feelings against them. God loves all people, not just the Jews, and he wanted the Gospel to reach all the nations.

Sons of Hell


1 As quoted in “The Conversion Debate”

2 Refutation of All Heresies, ch. 21.

Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fæ

A Rabbi and a King

by Lois Tverberg

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
– John 10:10

Throughout the Old Testament, the promise is made of the coming Messiah, which primarily is a picture of a king who comes to reign. Even though Jesus speaks often of his kingdom, during his time on earth he really acts as a rabbi rather than acting anything like what we would expect of a king.

Torah

It is interesting that the Jewish picture of the Messianic King incorporates this idea of the king as a teacher of scripture, even though it doesn’t grasp that Jesus was the Messiah. According to one Jewish commentary,

The messianic king plays a unique role. He, as first citizen of the nation, is the living embodiment of Torah and how its statutes and holiness ennoble man… Holder of immense and almost unbridled power, he submits to the laws in the Scriptures which he carries with him at all times, he does not rest until his people know the rigors of Torah study and a discipline of honesty and morality in their personal and business lives that would earn sainthood in any other nation. It is the function of the king to safeguard the Torah and see to it that the people study it and obey its commandments. Nor is he to be considered above the Law – on the contrary, it is his duty to be a model of scrupulous adherence to the laws of the Torah. (Nosson Scherman, from the ArtScroll Commentary on Ruth, pp xxxi – xxxiii)

That sounds like Jesus, doesn’t it? He scrupulously adhered to God’s laws, and primarily concerned his earthly time with the teaching of the scriptures. He followed the Torah perfectly himself, and the goal of his ministry was to show people how to obediently live out God’s will.

Where does the Jewish commentator get this idea of king as teacher of the Torah? From God’s regulations for kings as they are described in Deuteronomy:

You shall surely set a king over you who your God chooses… When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees. Deut. 17:18-20

The idea behind the Jewish picture is that God wants his king to have as his chief aim to revere and obey God, and to teach the nation to obey him as well. He is not to seek glory in his own power and might, but to intentionally point people toward obedience to God.

In many cultures in the Ancient Near East, it was actually the king who made the laws, not the gods. He was said to have the authority of the gods in doing so, but the laws were understood to be his. Since God is the true King of Israel, he was the one who crafted its laws, and they were supreme. Rulers were to live humbly within God’s law, not beyond them like so many dictators and oppressors have done.

It is fascinating that Jesus fits this unusual requirement of the Messianic king so perfectly. With his death he redeemed his people and brought them into his kingdom, but his life was an example to teach them how to bring honor to God and have life as it was meant to be lived.


Photo: Lawrie Cate