01/12 - Three Facets of Commitment

Matthew 5:27-37

Jesus’ was audacious in these teachings.

Three times (as he had just done with murder), he said something like “You have heard it said” and quoted a teaching from the Law. Each time he followed with “but I say” and expanded the teaching to a broader meaning. In other words, he presumed to take what God directly revealed in the Law and enlarge on it. Astounding!

A closer look at these three teachings on adultery, divorce, and vows reveals they were linked by a common principle: keeping commitments requires an alignment of a person’s heart, intentions, and actions. It may be easier to see this by analyzing the three teachings in reverse order.

The custom then was to make promises and contracts by swearing on something great; the more important the commitment, the greater the thing chosen to swear on. However, a variety of “loopholes,” which people used to excuse themselves from commitments, had also become part of the custom. Jesus simplified the whole matter of commitments by saying, “Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'.” No embellishment. No exaggeration. No loopholes. No mental reservation tricks.

Similarly, Jesus addressed divorce. Many had found “loopholes” in the Law to allow divorce for about any trivial reason. Jesus taught to keep the marriage commitment except under the most extraordinary circumstance of adultery. He seemed to apply the principle of “Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes'” here too. A person in a marriage should have every intention to keep the commitment

In teaching about lust, Jesus used excellent hyperbole and some of his strongest language to describe how damaging lust is, as damaging to a person as committing the act of adultery. He said the marriage commitment was to be kept not only with intentions and actions, but even in the workings of the heart.

At first glance, Jesus seemed to be giving new rules to replace those in the Law, but he was not. He knew rules only go so far in making a person righteous. He was describing a spiritual health, which is unattainable through rules, where a person’s heart, intentions, and actions are aligned to keep commitments. Such a person can simply say “yes” or “no” to a commitment without embellishment. Once a commitment is made, the person can keep it in heart and in actions. Jesus was such a person.

These teachings seem overwhelming at first, but fortunately, they are not the whole story. Jesus is willing to heal us from the inside out, leading us to a spiritual health level where we can live up to these standards. He says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” and we can trust ourselves to him.