“Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” Mark 9:50b [ESV]
In Matthew 5:27-30 and Mark 9:42-50, Jesus taught His
disciples a lesson about intentions and actions. He made the point in the Matthew
passage that a person’s thoughts, their intentions, can be as sinful as the
sinful act or word. In Matthew 5, Jesus prefaced it with a teaching about adultery
and so people often equate the teaching about the eye and hand to adulterous
sins. When they do that, they miss the lesson. In these passages, Jesus taught about
all sins. He did not intend we denote sexual sins as the greatest sins and so
hold our “small” sins as not a big deal. That was not Jesus’ intention with
this teaching in both Matthew and Mark.
In Matthew, Jesus made this point very obvious with His Beatitudes.
Each of these eight verses of Matthew 5:3-10 speak about a person’s internal
life, their emotions, attitudes, and intentions. A follower of Jesus is a
follower internally first, then externally with actions and words. For, as Jesus
said in Matthew 15:11, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a
person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles the person.” [ESV] Paul made
a similar distinction when he said in Romans 10:9 that people must confess with
their lips Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts God raised Him from the
dead to be saved. Internal action, belief, goes along with external action,
confession. With Matthew 5:20, Jesus further pointed to the internal
motivations of a person when He said, “I tell you that unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven.” [ESV] The scribes and Pharisees thought righteousness came
from actions. With verse twenty-two, Jesus again highlighted that a person’s
internal motivations/intentions are what God will judge. He said in this verse,
“Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” [ESV] Each
of these teachings come before Jesus’ teaching about removing an eye (seeing) and
hand (doing) to keep one from sinning.
Before his writing about this lesson from Jesus about the
hand, eye, and foot, Mark told of Peter, James, and John witnessing Jesus’
transfiguration and talking with Moses and Elijah in Mark 9:2-13. It terrified
the three disciples. Peter babbled about setting up three tents for Jesus,
Moses, and Elijah, then a voice from a cloud, God’s voice, told them to listen
to Jesus. In essence, don’t make plans, but seek the Lord and His purposes and
will. Possibly the intentions of Peter to erect three tents was solely for
honor of the three men, or maybe he meant he, James, and John were more highly
regarded and so felt they should establish themselves by establishing these
three tents. Next in this chapter, Mark relayed Jesus healed a boy with an
unclean spirit (Mark 9:14-29). The boy’s father asked the disciples to heal him
and they couldn’t. They asked Jesus why they could not heal the boy, and Jesus
said this healing can only happen with prayer. Were the disciples unable to
heal the boy because of an oral action or because of their internal action, little
belief? Were they seeking the fame? Jesus spoke about a faithless generation in
reference to the disciples being unable to cast out the evil spirit from the
boy in verse nineteen. In Mark 9:30-32, Jesus foretold His death and
resurrection again and His disciples misunderstood. Was it because they did not
believe because they knew people cannot live again after dying? Jesus spoke
again about faith, and internal action. In Mark 9:33:37, the disciples were
concerned about their status in importance. Who was the most important of Jesus’
followers? Their intentions caused their argument. In Mark 9:38-41, John told
Jesus a man was casting out demons in Jesus’ name and he and other disciples tried
to stop him because he was not following them. Again, they were seeking fame
and greatness among people. Jesus told them if a person is not against Him and
them, he is for Him and them. Each of these segments of Mark 9 show us Jesus
was teaching the disciples about internal motivations-intentions-and how they
can be sinful. Actions and words are not the only ways for sin to occur. Intentions,
attitudes, and thoughts can cause a person to sin, too.
What is the lesson Matthew and Mark tell us Jesus taught? Paraphrasing,
if your hand, foot, or eye causes another person (be they a child or one less
mature in the faith) to stumble in their faith or fall away from faith in Jesus
Christ, then remove it. This sounds harsh. Consider some of the passages that
preceded Matthew 5:28 and Mark 9:43. If the disciples had convinced the man who
cast out demons to follow them, he would have had no power to heal people from
demon possession. If one disciple was greater than another in status, only
people who followed that one disciple would be right, and it would take away preeminent
stature from Jesus. Only by and through Jesus can people be saved. If a
disciple had this status, fewer people would be saved. If people could be angry
and still worship God, then no necessity would exist for Jesus to bring
righteousness. It would mean a wall could exist, a wall of hate. It would be
contrary to the Law and mean God would be pleased without sacrifices and heart
worship. Finally, with the Pharisees form of righteousness through the Law, the
Law would not be fulfilled, people would not be cleansed from sin, and they
would be unable to know Yahweh God, the eternal One.
Understanding this, what did Jesus mean by cutting off a
hand or foot or gouging out an eye? Did He mean for us literally to do this? Considering
the laws of the nations at that time, such as a thief had his hand removed as a
punishment for stealing, stating the lesson this way made sense to the people.
Jesus meant whatever causes you to sin in action, word, or thought (intentions,
motivations, and attitudes), cast it away from you. Remove it from your life.
For one person, being near money makes him or her want to steal it, then don’t
work with money. Don’t be a bookkeeper, cashier, or other financial worker. For
another person, if talking about other people is a problem for you, when
someone begins to talk about someone else, excuse yourself from that
conversation or relationship. If that person regularly slanders, backstabs, lies
about, or tells gossip about another person, separate yourself from that person
entirely. If being with a homeless person makes you prideful that you are “better
than them,” then identify at where your pride lies in your life and remove that
thing or position or give it to needy people. If you think you know better,
have a better education, or your way is always the best, consider Who gave you
the gifts to allow you to study, to learn, and to be a more informed and wiser
decision-maker. Each gift God gives a person, unless given back to Him daily in
recognition of from where it came and for what purpose He wants you to use it,
can be used for something less than God intended just like a hand, eye, and
foot are good. God, when He created humans, said it was very good. That means
hands, feet, and eyes are very good. Yet, if we use any part of
ourselves-heart, mind, spirit, and body-separate from God’s purposes and plans,
they are not being used for God’s best. Each part of our being, as created by
God, is good. All God gives us is good. How we use them and for Whom is what
determines if it is merely good, or best. God’s plans and purposes are always
best.
Consider this, if God gives a gift of being an exceptional organizer,
being efficient, and understanding things quicker than others, that doesn’t
mean every plan of that person’s is the best plan. God can use other people also
to be organizers, efficient, and wise. Also, if that person to whom God gave
these gifts does not submit his or her day and plans to God at the beginning of
the day, the plans of that person may not be God’s plans; they may not be the
best plans. Just because a person is gifted in a particular area, does not mean
what that person says or does is always the best. Each day, each person must submit
to God everything He has given to him or her. We must give back to God each
gift He gives us-care, love, faith, mercy, humility, home, job, education, car,
wisdom, understanding, organization, counting, medicine, teaching, preaching, medical,
healing, etc. All gifts from God can be used merely for good by us, or they can
be used for the best by God when we submit them back to His purposes each day.
Of what good is salt, if it has lost its
saltiness? What good are God’s gifts if they aren’t used by and for Him?
(Matthew 5:13)
“Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:7a [ESV])
Lord, I get so caught
up in my everyday life, I forget to come to You at the beginning of each day. I
forget to give to You all You have given to me. Please forgive me for running
headlong into the day without You. Forgive me for considering myself able to
take care of everything and forgetting about You. It’s not that I don’t believe
in You, but that I don’t give You high enough priority in my life. Without You,
I am nothing; I have no existence. Forgive me, Lord. Lead me, Lord, to desire You
above all else. Lead me to seek You first. Make my every breath and every heartbeat
draw me closer to You, the source of my life, strength, and salvation. Thank
you for saving me. Thank you for Your patience, mercy, compassion, and grace. I
do not deserve You or Your goodness. You are almighty and all-knowing. Amen.
