A Fresh Perspective

Though Paul wrote his letters two or three decades before the written Gospels appear, Paul, nevertheless, would have had access to some of the teachings of Jesus and stories about Jesus being circulated in the oral tradition, that is, being told and retold and retold by word of mouth. Here, in this text, Paul puts the emphasis where Jesus places   the emphasis. Twice in the first paragraph of our text, at the beginning and at the end, Paul says that love is the fulfilling of the law. I suspect Paul was aware of the teaching of Jesus where Jesus says that all the law and prophets hang on two commands: loving God and loving neighbor. In fact, we love God by loving neighbor. It is by loving our neighbor that we express our love for God. Paul says basically the same thing, but words it differently. He says that love is the fulfilling of the law. Paul is not saying that every single law in the Torah is fulfilled through love, but rather, what he is saying is that the real intent an...

Philip Gulley tells about pastoring a small Quaker meeting not far from where he lived when he was still in college. Several months into his tenure there, an elder in the congregation approached him with the news that a man and a woman in the congregation, both of whom were widowed, had begun living together. This elderly couple had met and developed a deep friendship that blossomed into a deep and mutual affection. This elder confronted Gulley: “Did you know they weren’t married? I think you should talk to them. They’re living in sin,” he said. Gulley says that like many people of his generation, he’d been taught that couples who were romantically involved and living together should be married. It was a principle he had never questioned, so he agreed to visit them. Tom and Maggie welcomed Gulley into their modest home, ushered him to the most comfortable chair, and offered him refreshments. Pictures of their respective children and grandchildren lined the walls. Gulley asked ...

It is difficult to know how much of this passage, if any, originated with Jesus and how much is to be attributed to the author/redactor of the Gospel. Either way, it’s in our sacred text and we are faced with the task of making sense of these words from Matthew’s Jesus. What is Matthew’s Jesus saying? The most obvious reading is that Matthew’s Jesus takes a strict view of the Jewish law. But how then can this text be reconciled with a text like Matt. 12:1-8, where Jesus clearly disregards Sabbath law, offering as justification an example from the life of David where David clearly violates the Torah requirements regarding the sacred bread in the holy place? The tensions/contradictions these differing responses to the Jewish law create are not easily resolved. What may have prompted the writer in 5:17-20 to be so insistent (or so over-the-top) on the continued validity of the Jewish law? Part of the answer is that he is preparing the way for the antitheses that come next in ...