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My God and My Neighbor is a “Bible talk show” that looks at religious issues, Christian living and world events in light of the Word of God to give hope. This podcast is a ministry of Tennessee Bible College. TBC offers a bachelor's in Bible studies, a master of theology, and a doctorate of theology in apologetics and Christian evidences. TBC also provides Christian books, audio recordings on the Bible, and free Bible courses in English and Spanish. Tune in to My God and My Neighbor to experience the educational content that TBC has been delivering for nearly five decades!
Kerry Duke: Hi, I'm Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you've learned with others.
We're looking at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, and I want to read with you Matthew 5, 21 through 26. So let's read these verses together. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.”
Notice the first words in this passage. He said, “You have heard.” Who is the “you” here? Well, that would be the multitude that He's preaching to. And who were they? These are Jews—average, everyday Jews, Jews from all walks of life. They've come together to hear Jesus preach. Now He says, “You have heard.” Well, who would they hear these things from? Who were their teachers?
The primary teachers of the Jews were the scribes and the Pharisees. Yes, you would have the priests and you would have others that would teach, but the ones who were really popular among the people would be the scribes and the Pharisees. And as you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you're going to get that impression.
For instance, in Matthew chapter 17, verse 10, Peter said to the Lord, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must first come?” That was being taught. That's what they had heard. They depended on these men to teach them. In Matthew chapter 23 verse 2 Jesus said with what I would call godly sarcasm that the scribes and the Pharisees sat in the seat of Moses. Now that doesn't mean that they took the place of Moses. What that means is that they acted like they were just as important and just as authoritative and influential as Moses was. So when you see these words in Matthew chapter 5, “You have heard…You have heard,” remember they were hearing these things from the scribes and the Pharisees.
Now that connects you back to verses 19 and 20. This is very important to remember. In verses 19 and 20 of Matthew chapter 5 Jesus talked about what these scribes and Pharisees were doing. They were breaking the commandments that they didn't want to keep, but they were teaching others that they had no problem with. In other words, they were picking and choosing. They would accept some commandments of God and they would break or leave out others in their teaching especially. And Jesus says that you have to do better than what they're saying to you. That's what He tells the people in verses 19 and 20.
So, Jesus is not contrasting the law of Moses with His law. He is not comparing the Old Testament with the New Testament. Many times people read this and they look at verse 21 where Jesus said, “You have heard” and they say, “Well, that's what the Old Testament said.” And then they look at verse 22 where Jesus said, “But I say to you” and they immediately conclude that Jesus is contrasting the Old Testament with the New Testament. They believe that Jesus is saying the Old Testament taught that murder is wrong, but the New Testament teaches that hate is wrong. Well, the whole truth about that, folks, is that the Old Testament taught that both were wrong. Jesus is not introducing something new here in verse 22. He may say it in a different way. He may state it in stronger terms. But the basic idea of hate being wrong was taught in the Old Testament, and we'll get to that in just a few minutes. But it's really important to remember that. It's really important to remember what the context here is so that we apply what we're reading in the right kind of way.
So let's get to this first example of this contrast between what the scribes and the Pharisees were teaching and what the Old Testament actually said. He said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder.’” That was right. There was nothing wrong with teaching that. They were right for quoting that passage of Scripture. That's in Exodus chapter 20, verse 13. The King James says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Murder has always been wrong. As a matter of fact, when you read Romans 2:14-15, you find that there are basic moral principles that even nature itself teaches. So there's no excuse for people saying that they weren't taught the Bible about this because nature itself shows that some things are wrong in and of themselves.
And a person who murders deserves to die. The Bible says in Genesis chapter 9, verse 6, “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man.” So, these Jews were listening to the scribes and Pharisees would look at those Jewish audiences and they would say, “You shall not murder, and if you do murder, you will be in danger of the judgment.” The judgment there is not the day of judgment. That is not God's judgment. That is the judgment of a Jewish lower court. Remember, in Judaism, under the law of Moses, the religious laws were also civil laws. Now the Romans, it's true, had taken away from the Jews the right to execute criminals.
In other words, they'd taken away the death penalty. John 18 verse 36 says that, but still they had courts and they would arrest people. They had trials. And the Old Testament did authorize the Jews to have judges. Deuteronomy chapter 16 verse 18 and Deuteronomy chapter 25 verses 1 through 3 all talk about those judges.
So the Jews understood the idea of the court. So if you just look at verse 21, you can't really find any problem with how the scribes and the Pharisees taught, because that was true. If you kill, you're going to be in danger of the judgment. But it's not so much what they taught that was wrong; it was what they didn't teach. It's what they did not say. And that's what Jesus is about to get into here in verse 22. So what He's saying is, it's true that if you kill, you're going to be in danger of the judgment, that is, the Jewish lower court. But there's something more that you need to think about. He says in verse 22, “But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment,” that is, this same Jewish lower court.
But Jesus says there's more to it. He says, you've got to do better than that. You've got to go beyond that. You see, remember in verse 20, Jesus said that your righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. And He's about to take them in that direction. In verse 22, He says, “I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.”
This is where it starts. It starts in the heart. And Jesus didn't say, “If you're angry, you'll be in danger of the judgment.” He says if you're angry with your brother without a cause—if you're mad at somebody over nothing or over some little thing, something that's not a sin. It's not a big thing, but you're burning with anger.
Now, why would that put a person in danger of going to court? Because if it's not curbed, it will cause you to do something wrong. It will cause you to break the law. It will cause a person to assault someone, to vandalize his property, to slander somebody, to cheat somebody, or even to kill somebody. This is why the Bible says to put a lid on your temper, especially if you're mad about nothing.
26, the Bible says, “Be angry, but do not sin. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.” In James 1, verse 19, the Bible says, “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger or the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” In Ecclesiastes 7 verse 6, the Bible says, “Do not be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.”
And here's something to think about if you're a Christian. There are some things that we ought to be angry about. We talk about righteous indignation. If you get mad over little things, you won't have anything left for the big things. But if you are angry over the big things, that is, over the serious things in life, then you won't have the time or the energy to get mad over little things.
Jesus said if you're angry with your brother without a cause, you'll be in danger of the judgment. Now oftentimes people look at this and say, “Well, I've got a right to be angry. I've got a reason to be mad.” Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. When Jesus said a “cause” here, He's talking about a just cause. He's talking about a right reason. He's talking about a biblical ground for being angry. If you don't have that, then let it go.
Sometimes we think that we've got a just cause just because of the way that we feel, just because we've got a certain inclination against somebody or because something aggravates us. In Jonah chapter 4 verse 9, God asked Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?” That's a question that you and I need to consider sometimes. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of Jonah and just hear God in the Bible asking us the question, “Is it a good thing for you to be angry?”
And Jonah, of course, thought that he was. Jonah argued with God and said, “Yes, I have the right to be angry.” And he really didn't. So the first step here in this progression is that Jesus talks about being angry with your brother without a cause. If you don't control that, then it's going to lead you to do things even against the law of man. It's going to get you in trouble, even with the law of mankind.
The second step is even worse. He says, “Whoever says to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. The word Raca means a senseless, empty-headed man. Now, this is not a word that we hear today, but these Jews knew what it meant. They knew that this was a term of abuse.
They knew that this was a very derogatory thing to say about anybody. It was a word that indicated that a person who used it was being arrogant, was being scornful of another person. Now, how would this put a person in danger of the council? How would saying to someone, Raca put a person in danger of that council?
Well, it's not because there was a specific law against using that word. There were no signs of saying you can't call somebody Raca. It was because the attitude behind it would cause a person to break the law, just like being angry with a brother without a cause, if that's not controlled, would lead a person to do things that he shouldn't do.
This is even more serious though. There's a progression in the seriousness of this sin. Here he's talking about somebody who has this kind of attitude and if that attitude is not checked, if a person doesn't control it, then he's going to break the law. So this is even more serious than being angry with your brother without a cause.
Now, I say that it's even more serious because of the word council. The word counsel is the word Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin was the higher level of court among the Jews. You see, the judgment that he talks about first, when he says, “Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment”—those are the lower courts.
This is a higher court. And as a higher court, the Sanhedrin heard the more serious crimes—especially capital crimes, especially serious violations of the law. So if you go back to the lower court, Jesus talks about somebody being angry. Well, an angry person might hit a fellow. He might even kill him, but a person with the level of arrogance that's indicated by this word, Raca is a person who has so much disrespect for his fellow human being that he will rob, he will cheat a man out of everything that he owns. He will take his life and then he'll act like that he had a right to do all this. It's a brazen disrespect for fellow human beings. But then Jesus says there's something even worse. He says, “But whoever says, ‘You fool’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”
The word fool is from the Greek word moros. That's the word—you might have guessed it—from which we get our English word “moron.” Now this expresses an even higher degree of contempt for somebody. It is pure contempt. It is utter hatred. It is worse than Raca. And as far as English is concerned, it would be like calling someone just a stupid idiot with the utmost disrespect and hatred behind it.
Now again, it's the attitude behind this word that's important to remember, because in the Bible itself, you find that God and Jesus and Paul call certain people fools. It is scriptural to call a man a fool because one is angry with him in the right kind of way, because that person is so rebellious and so foolish and he has no sense of decency at all.
God did that. In Luke chapter 12, God called the rich man a fool. Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees fools in Matthew 23. Paul called the man who would question the resurrection of the dead a fool in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 36. People today, especially young people, don't need to throw these words around carelessly. They don't need to call brothers and sisters or classmates stupid or morons because this attitude of disrespect will affect your whole life for the rest of your life. At this point then, Jesus describes the worst attitude of all. He's talking about a heart that has no use for people. No respect for others. No time for them. No compassion for other people's problems. Just pure hate and contempt. Now that is what is behind this word fool.
The danger this time is not a lower court. It is not a higher court of mankind. It is hell fire. That is the word gehenna, the final place of punishment in the Bible, eternal condemnation in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
The Jewish leaders, you see, focused on the outward act that men could see. They told the people, “You better not kill because you're going to be in danger of the judgment.” But Jesus focused on the heart. There's a strong statement and a wonderful commentary on what Jesus is talking about in Matthew chapter 5. It's found In 1 John chapter 3 verse 15. Here's what it says: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Now, he's talking about murder not in a physical sense. He's talking about spiritual murder. Hatred is murder in that sense. So, yes, murderers in a physical sense, people who take the physical life of others, will face eternal punishment unless they're forgiven [Revelation 21 verse 8]. But people who have hatred in their heart, John says, will not have eternal life.
So Jesus is saying to these Jews: What these scribes and Pharisees taught you is right about murder. You should not murder. But they're not telling you the whole story. Because it's also wrong to hate somebody in your heart. And these scribes and Pharisees were not practicing that and they were not teaching that. The truth is, the Old Testament did teach against hatred in the heart. In Leviticus 19 verse 17, the Bible says, “Do not hate your brother in your heart.”
So, the Old Testament did teach against hatred. It's not true that the Old Testament only dealt with the outward acts and not the heart. The Old Testament addressed both. Jesus is not saying the Old Testament condemned murder, but the New Testament condemns hatred. What He's saying is: the Old Testament condemned both, but these scribes and Pharisees pick and choose what they want to talk about, and this is one example here.
So, in verses 23 through 26, Jesus applies what he said about having the wrong kind of attitude. And you'll have to sort of transplant yourself back into the shoes, into the mindset, of a first century Jew. Imagine yourself before the temple. At the temple there is an altar out front. It's about seven and a half feet square. It's about four and a half feet tall. It's made of acacia wood and overlaid with brass. This is the altar of offerings and sacrifices. So the Jews would bring their offerings to the priest. Then those priests would burn them on the altar if they were animal sacrifices, which could have been a dove, could have been a sheep, could have been a cow or an ox. But in any case, a Jew would bring that sacrifice, and then the priest would actually do the sacrificing. Or it could have been some kind of offering, like a meal or a grain offering. It could have been a drink offering, where they would pour out the wine or a certain amount of olive oil on that altar.
But in either case, this was a gift. That's why Jesus calls it that in this passage. You bring your offering or your sacrifice, which is a gift. So the Jews that originally heard the Sermon on the Mount would be very familiar with what Jesus is talking about. Jesus then envisions something that might happen once a Jew was there.
Suppose a Jew takes his offering to the temple. He gets to the altar. And just before he's about to hand it to the priest, he remembers something. Jesus said, “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you…” It's not that they just discovered it there. It's not that somebody told them there. It's that that person remembers. This person already knows about this, but he hasn't done anything about it. Why? Well, there could be a number of reasons for that, but Jesus doesn't go into that. But there, before the altar, before God, the thought strikes him that he's guilty. He's done something to his brother. The Bible says, “You remember that your brother has something against you.” Your brother has ought, the King James Version says, against you. Now, this is not some kind of gripe. It's not some kind of petty criticism. Jesus is not saying that you have to stop what you're doing in order to pacify some childish person who just wants to complain.
This person, Jesus says, has something, he has ought against you. That must mean that this person has a biblical reason to be upset with and offended by you because you have done something wrong to this person. You have actually sinned against him. You said something wrong about this person or to this person. You did something wrong. You failed to keep your word or something like that. So he's talking about a legitimate offense. In other words, He's talking about a sin that you have committed against someone. And He says to these Jews: If you get to the altar, and you're about to offer that sacrifice, and you're there, before God, and the thought strikes you that you have done something wrong, then you make it right.
You know, there's something about drawing near before God in public worship that causes us to look at ourselves, that causes us to examine our hearts. I don't know if it's the pause in our daily routines. I don't know if it's the power of the word maybe that's been preached, or if it's just an awareness of the situation that you're there to honor God, to praise and to worship Him. But whatever that is, it causes us sometimes to look at ourselves more closely, and that's a good thing. In fact, it's an almost natural thing. The Bible says in Psalm 89 verse 7, “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” So I say these things as somewhat of a side note to encourage us about the importance of public worship.
Now, of course, private worship has a place. It is very important. Your personal prayer life, your personal Bible study, your devotions to God by yourself individually are very important, and they serve a very important purpose in your Christian life and in your Christian growth. And so does public worship, because there's something about assembling with and being around other people in that situation that just tends to draw out things in you and causes you also to look inside yourself in a special way.
So in a day and age, and I'm talking about our time today, in which many people say, “I don't need to go to church,” “I don't see the need to be a part of any congregation,” “I don't see the need for ‘organized religion,’” people need to think about the fact that we need this—that God designed these things to His glory and for our benefit.
And one of them is right here before us. Here is a Jew going in a line with other Jews before the altar of God. And he remembers that he needs to take care of something. He didn't remember it when he was at home. He didn't remember it when he was working. He didn't remember it when he was traveling, but there, before God and before his altar, as he's about to worship God, it strikes him, and it strikes his conscience.
So in that situation, where a Jew is before the altar of God, before the temple of God in Jerusalem, and he is there to offer his offering, and he remembers that he has done someone wrong, Jesus says these words: You leave your gift—whatever that offering is—you leave it there before the altar, and you go your way.
Where does he go? He says you “first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” Jesus said you make this situation right with your brother. If you have sinned against him, you take care of that first and then you come and offer your gift. Now I say to you that it's very important for you to remember what the scribes and Pharisees not only taught, but how they were living their lives, because Pharisees said as long as you make these offerings, as long as you perform these rituals in a public way, it doesn't really matter that much about your personal life. That's not something that they came right out and said, but that's how they practiced their religion.
This was a religion that Jesus describes like this. In Matthew 23, verse 14, Jesus said that the scribes and Pharisees would “devour widows houses.” In other words, they would take advantage of poor widows, they would take away their houses, and then He said for a pretense they would make “long prayer.” So the scribes and the Pharisees were big on public show.
In Matthew chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount, He talks about them praying before other people to be seen, and giving to other people to be seen, and fasting to be seen. So there was a lot of public show about their religion. But they did not emphasize, and they did not live like they should, the simple life of loving other people and helping other people.
That's what Jesus is talking about here. And He's saying it doesn't make any difference how much public worship you do. It doesn't make any difference how much you've given or how much you pray in public. If you're not treating your fellow man right, then your worship is going to be in vain. So that's why He puts a priority here on making this matter right.
Look at the wording again. “Leave there your gift before the altar and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother.” This is first on the list. “And then you come and offer your gift.” Now, there's something interesting about this that you may be thinking about, and let me put that in a form of a question.
You may be thinking, “Well, I thought that Jesus said if somebody wrongs you, then you go to him. But here, in Matthew chapter 5, He says that if you've wronged someone, you go to him also.” And the truth is, Jesus taught both. The passage you're thinking about is Matthew 18, beginning in verse 15. “Moreover, if your brother sins against you…” Now you see, this is different from Matthew chapter 5, verse 23. There He says, you “remember that your brother has something against you.” Why? Because you have wronged him in some way, and so you're supposed to go and be reconciled to your brother. That's where you're in the wrong. And if you're in the wrong and you remember that you have wronged somebody, then you go to that person and you make it right.
But Jesus also says that if you have been sinned against, if somebody wrongs you, here's your responsibility. Matthew 18, Verse 15: “Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” So Jesus says both of them have a responsibility. Both of them need to try to make this thing right. Jesus said the one that has done the wrong should go to the one he's wronged, and the one who has been wronged ought to go to the one who sinned against him. And if both of them are going in that direction, then in the majority of cases they're going to work that out.
Now notice what he says in verse 25. He doesn't say to wait about this. He says, agree with your adversary quickly. Now, your adversary here is the person that you have wronged. This is the person that you sinned against. The adversary here is not the devil. Yes, the Bible talks about the devil being our adversary in 1 Peter 5 verse 8, but that's not the context here.
This is the brother in verse 23—someone who has something against you. This is a brother in general now, not just a Christian brother. And notice how urgent this is. He said, agree with your adversary. Why? Because you're in the wrong. He's in the right. You have done him wrong. So don't argue. Don't make excuses. Don't bring up his faults just to get back at him. Just agree: I have done you wrong and I apologize. I repent.
And let me add here that this has absolutely nothing to do with what some people say it means. This has nothing to do with compromising the truth. It has nothing to do with saying to someone who's guilty of sin, “Oh, you're okay. I agree with you.” It has nothing to do with with agreeing with a false teacher about his false doctrine and saying, “Oh, that's okay. I agree with you.” Jesus is not saying that we need to agree with people in the wrong just to have peace. Jesus didn't do that.
You find him constantly disagreeing with the Jews many times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But that's different because Jesus had not done anything to them. He didn't have to do what he's talking about here, because he had not done them wrong. That's a different situation. When people are guilty of sin, when people are guilty of teaching false doctrine, that's not a time to agree with them.
Jesus is talking about a case where you have done someone else wrong, and that person knows it. You need to make that right. And He says you need to do that quickly. Don't wait. Feelings of anger tend to fester. They tend to burn hotter. They grow into bitterness and eventually hate. And once those hard feelings develop, it's hard to remove them.
So agree with your adversary and do that quickly. Why again? Because you're in the wrong. Notice the wording again. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, while you can do something about it, while the door is open, because once it shuts it's hard to get it open again. Once hard feelings develop in any person, it's hard to remove them. It's hard to break through that wall.
And a great commentary on this is found back in the Old Testament in Proverbs 18 verse 19. The Bible says, “A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” It's hard to get through to that person once that person is really deeply offended at what you've done because you've not made it right. And that verse in Proverbs 18 verse 19 helps us to understand what Jesus is teaching in verse 25 and 26. There's where Jesus talks about being delivered to the judge, to the officer, and being thrown into prison. Now that could happen literally in Jesus’ day to a Jew.
But the principle applies today. This is an illustration for us, using the legal system to show us what happens when things are not worked out between people. It illustrates the price you pay when you do others wrong and you don't try to work it out. You lose friends, you lose respect, you'll bring unnecessary conflict, and it will be very hard. It will be like trying to get out of prison to break through that wall of resentment that you'll find in somebody that you have offended.
So, when you look at it from the overall standpoint, which is easier? Humbling yourself and apologizing or being stubborn and letting it go? Which is better for everybody involved? That's why Jesus talks about this in the Sermon on the Mount.
Thank you for listening to My God and My Neighbor. Stay connected with our podcast on our website and on Apple. Spotify, YouTube, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. Tennessee Bible College, providing Christian education since 1975 in Cookeville, Tennessee, offers undergraduate and graduate programs. Study at your level, aim higher, and get in touch with us today.