Upside Down Kingdom: Sermon on the Mount part 3

Dr. Ryan and Matt continue their series on Sermon on the Mount and look at Nonviolence & Enemy Love (Matthew 5:38-5:48):

-Israel’s law of retribution included both capital punishment (Life for life) and Corporal punishment (tooth for tooth)

-how should we view the inspiration of the Bible? Is Jesus contradicting the OT here? He said he came to fulfill the law and to overthrow it… but here he’s overthrowing it.

-Cruciform Approach- This is similar to the Narrative approach, but it is building on it saying that all of scripture should be viewed through the lens of Jesus and his act of love on the cross (Greg Boyd)

-Jesus reshapes his follower’s response to injustice according to how He interprets the Law (Love God Love Others). His response is not retaliation but with grace, compassion, and mercy in a way that reverses injustice in a way that an “evil person” becomes a “neighbor”.

-This is addressed to Jesus’ followers and not to governments (We’ll get into a believer’s involvement in systems of government at the end of this)

“Jesus advocates not for balmy passivity but for nonviolent hyperactivity soaked in stubborn love”- Preston Sprinkle

To be perfect means to love all humans, Jews and Romans, as neighbors. This lines up perfectly with Jesus’s hermeneutical approach to Torah. As Jesus says in Matt 22:34-40 that all the Torah and the prophets hang on Loving God and Loving others and this fulfills the entirety of God’s will, this too is surpassing the Righteousness (covenant behavior) of the Pharisees.

Is God Violent? If nonviolence is the ethic, we are supposed to be living towards then what about God? He seems particularly violent in the OT and in Revelation. We have a few options

1. We can question the morality of God. Perhaps God is, at times, monstrous.

2. We can question the immutability of God. Maybe God does change over time.

3. We can question how we read Scripture. Could it be that we need to learn to read the Bible in a different way?

Conclusions and thoughts:

-It’s hard to discount the violent picture of God and Israel in the OT or even that God’s enemies will be defeated in the end, but I don’t see believer called to take up arms at participate in killing.

-I do believe that God was working with his people as he found them and moving them towards his ideal which is love of enemy and nonviolence. We are called to give ourselves up in the same way Jesus did. He was the truly human one and revealed to us how we are to live.

-How do followers live this out today?

-Are we called to effectiveness or faithfulness? Jesus seemed to win by losing in the world’s eyes. We are called to do the same.

-We are called to be perfect as our father is perfect and in context that is radical love of enemy, even if it costs us.

• This is about being overtly pro-life in our actions, speech, and protection/respect of all life from conception to grave as the image of God.

• Romans 8:12 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.