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Today's post might well be subtitled, "The Pearl or the Swine?", as we will soon see. We are in Matthew 7, near the end of the Sermon on the Mount. And so far Jesus has answered two of the crowd's unvoiced questions- 'what do you want us to do' (answer: Be separate), and 'how do we do that?' (answer: By flipping your priorities from this life to the next). This time, the question is, 'What about all these people along the way?' And Jesus is going to answer by both explaining who the people ARE, and how to deal with them.
In this passage, Jesus asks two main questions:
Mat 7:3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?
And:
Mat 7:9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
Mat 7:10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?
But in between them- and crucial to the understanding of the passage- He adds this statement:
Mat 7:6 "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
Now, my first question here in studying this was, 'who are the dogs and the swine'? And my paper Bible had an answer to that- it referenced Proverbs 9:7-9:
Pro 9:7 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
Pro 9:8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
Pro 9:9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
So the animals among men are those who will not listen, and will not believe. This was the WRONG question, but it tells us Jesus's definition of the three kinds of 'people along our way':
-The Brothers, those walking our same path to salvation;
-The scoffers, who will not go our way and will not hear;
-and the Children, who we need to bring up in the Way.
But the important thing in the passage to consider is, what are our PEARLS- our things of value? And Jesus answered this last week:
Mat 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
And with remembering this, now we can see how we are to treat the other two groups.
The Brothers: This is what my 'mainstream denomination' brethren get lost on. "You don't understand right, you can't be acceptable unless you do it our way!" Instead of wasting time on social media proclaiming why they are best, they should consider that God, through Christ, tells us to consider our OWN problems first. To humble ourselves, and be transformed into the image of Christ. Then, not only will we see from HIS perspective and not our own, but we will be able to HELP our brothers who haven't made it that far. Any church that starts out with a slogan that goes, "I AM A MEMBER OF X CHURCH, And I believe in Jesus Christ" (and believe me, I have seen this exact meme, with this exact stress) has it all backwards from God's perspective, and it shows in their dealings with others.
The Children: If the question is, how do we bring up the children (whether they be our blood children or children in the Paul and the Corinthians sense), the answer is in verse 11:
Mat 7:11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
You do it by setting your Heavenly Father as your example!
