Contents:
• The sermon on the Mount
• Can a person lose their saltiness?
• Being a light in a dark World
• Anger issues
• Taking an oath
• Adultery and Divorce

Before reading this commentary, I encourage you to first read the text of Matthew chapter five.

Verses 1-2

Verse one states that when Jesus saw the crowds…. Well, where did all these people come from? And why are they there? Remember, When Jesus started healing people, word about him spread fast. People were coming from all over Israel, hoping that Jesus might heal them or one of their family members. They all wanted Jesus to do something for them.

I can not speak to the status of medical practices during the time of Jesus, but I’m willing to assume that even the simplest of medical issues, probably went untreated 2,000 years ago. When word began to spread that a man could heal individuals of their ailments, that news brought out thousands of people.

Jesus seeing the crowd, begins to teach them saying:

Verse 3

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

This is referring to those who are humble. It’s not referring to people who are financially disadvantaged. Matthew 23:12 states that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. It is humble people who enter into the kingdom of heaven. However, heaven is not earned. Salvation is a gift (see commentary on Ephesians 2), but faith begins with humility.

Verse 4

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

This is speaking of repentance. Those who morn over their sins and sinful behavior will be forgiven and in being forgiven will thus be comforted.

Verse 5

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

I believe this to be an end times prophecy. Meekness is like that of humbleness. God exalts those who are humble and meek, yet humbles the proud and those who exalt themselves.

So, when Jesus says the Meek will inherit the earth. He’s talking about those who will enter into the Millennial reign of Christ. They will inherit the earth because they’ll be the only ones remaining on earth after Christ returns and his wrath kills everyone else. (see commentary on Revelation 19) The meek will then have the whole earth to themselves.

Verse 6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Today, via the internet, we can watch a lot of videos in which someone like Frank Turik, Jeff Durbin or Cliffe Knechtle (pronounced “connect lee”) go out on the streets or to a college campus and debate with people about Christianity. On nearly every occasion, what we see, by the nature of the questions people ask, is that they are not searching. It appears that they don’t hunger and thirst for righteousness. They don’t actually want to know about God and his character. Instead, for many of them, it appears they just want to be antagonistic. They ask questions because they want to argue. But the person who is seeking God, the person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, asks questions because they genuinely want to know the answer. They are hungry for the truth and they thirst for God’s righteousness.

When I was 25 years old, I worked in a manufacturing plant, and the company hired an individual who became my co-worker, working side-by-side with me on the assembly floor. When we met, he said he was a pastor, which at the time I thought was strange because I had assumed being a pastor was strictly a full-time endeavor.

Curious about him, I would often ask him questions about what he believed. He would answer my questions by pulling a small New Testament from his shirt pocket. He would thumb through it for about 5 seconds and then hand it to me saying, “Read that right there.” To my surprise, it would be the answer to exactly the question I had just asked.

For two years I would daily ask him questions about God, Jesus and the Bible because I wanted to know the answers. My other co-workers also asked him questions; however, it was very apparent by the tone and nature of their questions that they were being antagonistic. For two years I watched people at this company mock and ridicule my co-worker because of his religion. Every weekday, Monday through Friday, for two years, they would ask him questions that were teasing and mocking in nature. And for two years, he humbly spoke the truth of God’s word to them in kindness, even though they continued to be cruel to him.

Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. I asked questions because I truly wanted to know the answers. And it was through my relationship with this co-worker that I transitioned from a person who claimed the name of Jesus while trampling over the cross in my enthusiasm for sin, into a person who, for the first time, began to understand that the Word of God (The Bible), is the instruction manual that tells us how to walk in faith with our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not believe that my other co-workers had any type of similar experience.

The end of verse six says, “for they will be filled.” Filled with what? The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is what makes a person righteous in God’s sight. We, in and of our own selves can not achieve righteousness. We don’t get extra credit points for helping a turtle cross the road or performing other good deeds. Our righteousness is bestowed upon us because of Jesus’s righteousness. When we put our faith in Christ, and in so doing, receive the Holy Spirit, we put on the righteousness of Christ.

Verse 7

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

This is very much a lesson in sowing and reaping. By giving mercy, we will be given mercy. (see commentary on Matthew 18)

Verses 8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

The implication herein is that if one’s heart is not pure; they will not see God.

In Matthew chapter fifteen Jesus states, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what defile a man…”

When we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, our desire for sin fades and what comes out of our hearts is less evil than it previously was. Instead, our desires begin to align with God’s will for our lives.

Verse 9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

When we talk about peacemakers, English language speakers might immediately think of someone who prevents war. “Peace in our time” was a declaration by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when he foolishly believed that he himself had prevented World War II, after his meeting with Adolf Hitler.

But I strongly doubt that the absence of war is the proper interpretation here because of what Jesus said in Matthew chapter ten.

Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)

However, when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, they experience internal peace, even in the midst of war. So then who are the peacemakers? They would be those who bring the good news of the gospel.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the LORD returns to Zion. (Isaiah 52:7—8)

Verses 10-12

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

Remember the account I just mentioned of my co-worker being teased and mocked every day for two years because of his faith in Jesus? Well, today, 28 years later, that same person is with the Lord in the kingdom of heaven. I know without a doubt that he received a great reward.

Paul said in Romans chapter one, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)

Blessed is the person who is not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

Verses 13-16

Salt and Light

These are interesting verses because they speak of someone losing their saltiness (the NIV & ESV use the word saltiness). When reading verse thirteen, many people have attempted to assign application to the modern Christian. But they struggle because they know the Holy Spirit can not be lost, so they hem and haw about what this verse could mean but end up explaining something that’s convoluted and makes little sense.

Remember the context of what’s happening. The first word in verse thirteen is “You”. Who is Jesus speaking to? A big crowd of people during his sermon on the mount. These are Jewish, Israelites. They are God’s chosen people who were supposed to present the true and living God to the whole world. But they lost their saltiness because of unbelief. Paul writes in Romans chapter eleven,

“…because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous.” (Romans 11:11)

Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, remember this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” That is correct: They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either.

Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! (Romans 11:17-24)

Because of unbelief, the Jewish people lost their saltiness. Losing one’s saltiness is in no way applicable to today’s spirit filled Christ follower who walks in faith. One can not lose the Holy Spirit. The verse is specifically talking about those Jewish people. From the day they walked out of Egypt, they operated their lives in unbelief and thus lost the saltiness they were supposed to have.

Salvation then, has been given to the gentiles who put their faith in Jesus Christ. They now are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, but Christians today can not lose their saltiness as the Israelites did because the Holy Spirit has now been poured out and one can not lose the Holy Spirit once acquired.

(I know that some reading this are screaming Hebrews 6:4-6. Bear with me, we will get to the book of Hebrews).

While losing one’s saltiness is not applicable to us today, what is applicable is that salvation has come to the gentiles, making us now the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

There is a football stadium just three and a half miles from my home. When they hold a football game there, the stadium lights are so bright at night that they light up the clouds which pass over the stadium. Those illuminated clouds in turn, light up the whole town. If I’m outdoors on a game night walking my dog, I find myself checking my watch and wondering why it’s so bright out at this time of night. That’s when I look up and see the glow of the stadium and the clouds reflecting the stadium’s lights.

This is how Jesus wants us to be. We live in a world filled with darkness where people stumble and fall in the dark. Jesus wants you to be a light that illuminates your whole town and points people to Jesus.

Verses 17-20

17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. 18 For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

19 So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is a phrase I often use called “Rightly dividing the word of Truth”. It comes from the King James Version and is found in 2 Timothy 2:15. The reason I like this specific rendering of that verse is due to its imagery. The use of the word dividing, brings to my mind the image of a bible with many slips of paper sticking out of its pages marking where its owner has identified verses which he can now easily flip back and forth to. He uses the Bible to interpret the Bible. This is an important concept that some people miss; and in missing it, they err in their understanding of certain Bible passages.

Verses seventeen and eighteen of Matthew chapter five are verses where this error of not using the Bible to interpret the Bible, (not rightly dividing the word of truth), often occurs.

If one reads verses seventeen and eighteen as a standalone statement, one may inevitably conclude that we are still under the law and that the law will be in effect as long as the earth exists. I have met many people who cling to that interpretation (and yet they do not follow the law). But when we read the entirety of the New Testament, it is without question that the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit brought about a New Covenant.

Here are just three examples:

By speaking of a new covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (Hebrews 8:13)

And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

Brothers, let me put this in human terms. Even a human covenant, once it is ratified, cannot be canceled or amended. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many, but “and to your seed,” meaning One, who is Christ.

What I mean is this: The law that came 430 years later does not revoke the covenant previously established by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God freely granted it to Abraham through a promise.

Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the seed to whom the promise referred. It was administered through angels by a mediator. A mediator is unnecessary, however, for only one party; but God is one.

Is the law, then, opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come from the law. But the Scripture pronounces all things confined by sin, so that by faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe.

Before this faith came, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. (Galatians 3:15-25)

All of that was to say, without a doubt, that we are no longer under the law. Okay then, so what does Jesus mean when he says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets………until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished”?

Everything that Jesus is saying here, is a rebuke of the pharisees and a rebuttal to their accusation that he is a law breaker. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.” That is what the pharisees were accusing Jesus of doing. Jesus says that he has come to fulfill the law, which is exactly what he is going to do on the cross. Jesus goes on to rebuttal the pharisees by leveling at them an accusation of his own. He says, “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”

This is exactly what the pharisees have been doing. In Matthew chapter fifteen, when speaking to the pharisees Jesus replied,

“And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he need not honor his father or mother with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.” (Matthew 15:3-9)

So when looking at these verses in chapter five, understand that they are not a prescription for Christian life today. Instead, it is a rebuke of the pharisees back then. And this point is succinctly made by Jesus in verse twenty when he proclaims, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus is saying that although the scribes and Pharisees believe themselves to be so righteous, they are not and they will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 21

God’s standards are much stricter than mans’. The reason of course is that God is able to judge the heart. We can only judge by what actually takes place. If someone murders someone, there is a dead body, or at least a missing person. We can investigate and solve a crime, and in a courtroom, we can declare that murderer guilty.

God, however, doesn’t need evidence or forensics. He doesn’t need to investigate or to interview witnesses. Even if that person did not carry out the murder, God knows they had intended to and thus, they are guilty.

I recall when I was about 17, my friends and I went to a rock concert at the Miami Arena. After the concert, we had hoped to get an autograph or two from the band members, so when the concert ended, we went outside and walked around to the side of the building where the tour buses were parked. By that time, it was late at night and the street lights were on. We were fortunate to meet the drummer and the singer prior to them leaving for their hotels. We hoped to also meet the other band members so we chose to wait a little longer. At one point, I thought that if I walked around to the back of the building, perhaps I could get a better view of who was coming and going from the arena. I walked along the side of the building away from the crowd and further into the dark of night. I noticed ahead of me a man leaning against the wall. He was silhouetted in the darkness. I walked past him and rounded the corner behind the building. At that very second, the spirit within me screamed, DANGER!, In my soul, I knew instantly that the man I had just passed was about to attack me. I spun around and started walking fast back the way I had come. Just as I was about to reach the corner of the building, that man came around the corner, but I was walking so fast directly toward him, that the sight of me rushing toward him must have startled him because he suddenly stepped aside and I rushed past him. I returned to the large crowd of people under the street lights and found my friends.

Luckily no crime was committed and I was able to go home safely, but God judges the heart. It doesn’t matter that his chance to attack me eluded him. God knows that he had intended to do so. According to verse 21 he is still subject to judgement unless he turns to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.

Verses 23-25

Jesus is saying that there are priorities in worship. Bringing a gift to the alter while simultaneously having wronged a fellow believer is getting your priorities mixed up. First go to your fellow believer and reconcile your differences. That’s the higher priority.

Then Jesus suddenly changes the tone of the discussion. He previously said be reconciled to your brother, but now he talks about an adversary. That is substantially different. To me, a brother is a fellow believer. Perhaps someone in my congregation. But an adversary is someone I’m not friends with. They are someone I would likely prefer not to associate with. Jesus is saying that we need to reconcile with our adversary. This is very reminiscent of “Love your enemies”. Jesus is saying that it may not go well for you in this life if you don’t reconcile with your adversaries.

Verses 27-30

As mentioned a moment ago, God judges the heart. A person who commits adultery is guilty, but a person who desires adultery, even though they don’t actually do so, is also guilty in God’s eyes. He knows the intent of our hearts.

Jesus then proceeds to make some seemingly strange comments. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out, or if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Is this a literal instruction? No. Jesus is using hyperbole. If it were literal, the whole world would have neither eyes nor hands, nor any other parts of their body. Furthermore, we already know that sin comes from the heart, not the eyes or the hands.

So then what is Jesus telling us? We should be willing to take drastic measures to get sin out of our lives. However, here’s the irony of it, we can not overcome sin through our own strength and self-discipline. If we could, anyone could become sinless and could teach others to do the same. But sin is bound in our flesh! So what then should we do?

Use sin as a tool to draw closer to God.

“What? That sounds weird!”

Bear with me.

At the time my daughter was born, I was working at a company that employed thousands of people. One of my responsibilities was to keep track of an assortment of approximately 200 various tools.

Like library books, employees would come to me and check-out certain tools. If those tools were not returned within a given period of time, I knew who checked them out and where to find them.

One of the tools I was responsible for keeping track of was a Geiger Counter. Its purpose was to measure radioactivity. It made a clicking sound when in the presence of a radioactive material. The closer the Geiger counter got to something radioactive, the faster the Geiger counter would click. And the more dangerous the radioactive material, the faster the Geiger counter would click, warning the user that they needed to back away.

Now let’s imagine that our propensity toward sin can serve as a measuring tool in some ways similar to a Geiger counter.

When a person is in close relationship with Jesus Christ, their sin nature lessens and begins to fade. Their habitual sins might vanish all together. But when that same person begins to drift away from God, sin re-emerges.

We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. (Hebrews 2:1)

We do not have the ability to overcome our own sin. If we did, there would be plenty of perfect people in the world. However, there is someone who can overcome our sins, and that person is Jesus Christ. Therefore, since it is impossible for us to overcome our own sins, but Jesus Christ can, it stands to reason that the only thing we can do to lessen and, in some cases, even get rid of certain sins all together is to run to Jesus. To draw near to Him. To hide behind Jesus. To let him be our shield against Satan and against our own ingrained tendencies and habits.

Like the Geiger counter alerting its user to something dangerous, a person can use their own return to habitual sin as a tool to alert them to something dangerous, namely that their distance from God has increased.

The Geiger counter is measuring something nearby (radioactivity). Your sin nature, however, is measuring something that is getting further away (your distance from God).

Anytime, that old habitual sin, you thought you overcame a long time ago, suddenly springs back to life, the first thing you should think is “ah ha, this sin is an indication to me that I’m beginning to drift away from God.” That then is an opportunity to first pray to the Lord for forgiveness (which he already gave you at the cross), and to ask for wisdom to understand where you are drifting. Perhaps you haven’t been in God’s word lately or have been reading it superficially for the sake of a check mark on your daily to-do list. Perhaps you’ve recently been neglecting prayer or some other aspect of your relationship with Jesus.

It is an opportunity to look at yourself introspectively, and ask the Holy Spirit for help. Then you get back up, brush yourself off and draw nearer to God.

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. (James 4:8a)

And this is another good example of why your walk with Jesus Christ requires a high level of self-discipline. Salvation is by faith; it is not something that can be earned. However, once you are walking in faith, you need to apply a level of self-discipline to read God’s word even when you don’t feel like it. You need to apply a level of self-discipline to maintain an attitude of prayer throughout the day. Self-discipline to get up and go to church on Sunday even though the children are fussy and not cooperating.

For the past five years, I’ve worked from a home office. My window faces the street. All summer long I will see people from the neighborhood out walking, jogging, and bicycling up and down the street. The joggers often have on their jogging outfits giving me the impression that their effort to exercise is very intentional. However, come winter when it’s only 20 degrees outside, I will see zero people outside my window. Staying warm is of greater importance to them than exercising. (Okay, maybe they have a treadmill at home), but the point that I’m making here is that to draw near to Jesus Christ, and to remain close to him, we must desire Jesus more than we desire comfort and convenience. Again, salvation is not earned. But how many people back-slide into sin merely because spending time at the feet of Jesus is not always convenient? I know a guy who said he doesn’t read the Bible because every time he tries to do so, he falls asleep in his recliner. I told him, “So stand up. Get out of your recliner and stand at attention in your living room, with your back straight and your shoulders back. Then hold the bible up and read it. So what if it’s uncomfortable! You’re not going to fall asleep standing in that position.” Self-discipline allows us to do things even though it’s a little uncomfortable. I mean really! How much do you love Jesus? Enough to get out of the recliner and stand up to read God’s word? Every Sunday at church we stand up to read God’s word. So what’s the problem? Whether jogging when it’s cold outside, or getting up an hour early every day to pray and read the Bible. Practice and grow your own self-discipline.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Again, it is Christ who overcame our sin. So when Jesus says pluck out your eye or cut off your hand to get rid of sin, what he means by that is that you should go to any length to draw near to God and then remain near to God, even if doing so is uncomfortable and not convenient. Jesus Christ has overcome your sins. If we draw near to Him he will draw near to us. Again, salvation is by faith not by works, but He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

Verses 31-32

God is against divorce. Why? Because marriage between a man and a woman represents the marriage between Jesus and the Church. Treating marriage flippantly is a sin. There is a phrase in computer programming that says “Garbage in, garbage out”. What it means is that the quality of the output is largely determined by the quality of the input. So how does one avoid divorce? They choose with great discernment who they will marry and they rely heavily upon prayer.

The only person you should marry is someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit. And guess what? The only person they should marry is someone filled with the Holy Spirit. So if between the two of you, you are the one who isn’t filled with the Holy Spirit, they shouldn’t marry you!

I personally know two “Christian” couples, who during their marriages, everything seemed fine. They were active at church, and each of them volunteered in various leadership positions within the congregation. But then, in both cases, the wife decided she’d rather be with some other man, so she left her husband. Immediately thereafter, in both occurrences, these women quit church and within months had adopted completely secular lifestyles (having sex outside of marriage, getting drunk on weekends, etc..etc..). Both of these women were never filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s likely they had merely put on a “Christian appearance” because they wanted to be with their husband who was a Christian. That is until they decided someone else would be more fun. Then their true colors came out.

And my advice to young Christian women is do not be deceived. I have seen young men enter into a church congregation because they assumed Christian girls are easy prey. Such men can be readily spotted because they have a tendency to boast and brag about their own holiness, assuming that Christian girls will be impressed.

The moral of the story is that just like when one starts attending a new church, they don’t walk in with rose-colored glasses assuming the pastor is a spirit filled leader, but instead they take on the attitude of keeping that pastor on probation until the fullness of his walk with Christ can be observed. The exact same thing is true of dating. A young person today would be wise to have a large group of Christian friends and to associate with them in groups where they can spend quality time with people of the opposite sex without actually dating them. And if they do begin dating someone, they should go to every length to avoid intimacy of any kind, including kissing, until they truly know well the character of that person. (My wife and I did not kiss until we were engaged and we did not have sex until we were married.)

When you pick a ripe apple from a tree, it’s likely a good apple, but if you pick up an apple laying on the ground beneath that same tree, it’s likely full of worms. The single most important thing you can do to avoid divorce is to marry a quality person that is filled with the Holy Spirit.

Verses 33-37

From my teenage years until today, I have read these verses dozens of times, but it was while writing this very commentary that I noticed something within these verses I never noticed before.

“vows to the Lord”

In the past I always understood this to mean that we should not make vows to one another, but that’s not correct because we obviously make wedding vows. This time what stood out to me is that the verse is specifically about not making vows to God.

Don’t promise something to God, that turns out later you can’t fulfill.

Verses 38-48

Jesus consistently preaches messages of love, forgiveness, patience, mercy, grace, etc. By loving our enemies, we avoid escalation into greater and greater sin.

In the United States, during the late 1800’s there were two families, the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s. One day they argued over who owned a pig. Floyd Hatfield owned the animal but Randolph McCoy claimed it was his. That argument was all it took to make enemies of the two families. After which one side would do something mean to the other and the wronged side would feel the need for revenge. This escalated and escalated until the two families had a literal battle not unlike two militaries engaged in war. During this event many people from both families were killed.

Imagine what might have been if Floyd Hatfield had followed Jesus’s advice and simply let Randolph McCoy have the pig.