A Hand Chopping Eye Gouging Good Time For The Family

Catchy title, huh.


I was watching something on TV the other night, and a pastor was talking about the dangers of taking the Bible too literally. She asked the person she was talking to if he had ever looked at a woman when he shouldn't have. He responded that he had. She made the claim that since he looked at that woman in such a way, that Jesus commanded that he now take his eye out, because his eye had caused him to sin.


The passage that this pastor was most likely referring to was Matthew 18:8-9. In these verses, Jesus does indeed state that if our eye causes us to sin, to gouge it out and throw it away. Unfortunately this pastor on TV, along with many others, miss the point of what Jesus is saying entirely.


What this pastor is assuming is that this man's eye was the guilty party that caused him to look at this woman. To quote the famous philosopher, Larry the Cable Guy, "it's like blaming spelling errors on my pencil." It is something deeper that caused him to look at that woman.


Physically, the impulse was the woman passing by that caught his eye. This sent a signal to the brain, in which the brain then said back to the eye "LOOK AGAIN! LOOK AGAIN!" Since we look at things everyday without getting that response, the eye is not the guilty party, so it therefore must be the brain. 


Using this logic people who don't understand what the above passage is about would therefore think that we would have to cut out our brain. I'm not a doctor, but I think it safe to assume that you would die in the process, or at least shortly after removal of your own brain. 


Some people claim that it isn't your brain that really controls that sort of response, but your heart. Okay, so is Jesus now commanding us to rip out our hearts Aztec style because our heart causes us to sin? I think it would be kinda cool to rip out your own heart and look at it while it's still beating, unless of course you have ripped out your eyes already. 


Let's get serious now. Ask any middle school student what the heart does, they will tell you it pumps blood through your body. So therefore it was not this young man's heart that caused him to sin. The brain sends signals to all parts of your body, causing your heart to beat, hands to move, and eyes to look. For voluntary reactions like the latter two, there has to be some sort of stimulus for the brain to send that signal. So now the brain, along with the heart, and the eyes, are not causing anybody to sin. And you went and performed major surgery on yourself for no reason at all. Good luck getting your insurance to pay for any of it.


On the other hand, you have people who claim it was just in his nature to look at women in this way. And they're right. Some claim that we just can't help it. Well, that they're wrong about. Romans 8:6-8 says that our sinful nature is contrary to to the will of God. It also says that if we allow the Holy Spirit to live in us, it will give us peace. It also speaks of those "still under" the control of their sinful nature, meaning that a change could be made. It is the sinful nature of that man that causes him to sin. Using the words of Jesus in the way He intended, we could have to cast out our sinful nature, because that is what causes us to sin. 


Amen.

What's In A Name

I go by the first name Matt, but my full name is Matthew. To my knowledge, there are no other people in my family that are named Matthew, so it's not a family name. My middle name as well as my son's middle name, David, is a family name.

This leads people to ask why I got the name Matthew. I tell them I was named after an evil tax collector that had a change of heart. This part is true, I was named after Matthew, an apostle of Jesus Christ. For my little blog post this week, I'm going to talk about this evil tax collector with the change of heart.

Matthew, was born Levi, and was a tax collector for Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. Tax collectors in Matthew's day are much like tax collectors today, very disliked by the masses. The difference is how taxes were collected back in the day. The Roman government collected a tax on catches that fisherman made. It was the tax collector's job to first value the catch, then tax it accordingly. For example, a fisherman catches fifty dollars worth of fish, he would have to pay a tax of five dollars (arbitrary amounts used in modern day terminology). Now what Matthew, as well as many of the tax collectors of the day, would do was to say that a fifty dollar catch was actually worth $100 and then take $10 instead of the five. Then only give the five to the Roman tetrarch. This was generally accepted by the Roman government, as long as they got the money they asked for. Furthermore, the Jewish population treated their Roman occupants with disdain, and for a Jew to work for the Romans and steal from fellow Jews was a grave sin.


This all changed one day when Jesus came to him. Even though Matthew was despised by the people as a sinner, Jesus chose him to be one of his apostles. Later that day, Matthew invited Jesus in for supper. The Pharisees didn't like this one bit, as it was a faux pas to associate with someone of Matthew's ilk. Jesus responded by saying "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." This is exactly what Jesus did, he gave Matthew a calling. This calling was to follow Jesus during his life. After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, Matthew still followed Jesus by taking the Gospel all around the known world.

Okay, I have never been a tax collector, I'm not one of the twelve apostles, and I never wrote anything bigger than a fifteen page undergraduate paper, much less a Gospel account. Not to mention that Matthew was born under the name Levi and changed his name after his conversion. Even with these glaring differences, when you boil it down, we are very similar. We both lived sinful lives apart from Christ. Even though we were both sinners, we were saved by the love of Christ. In addition, Christ has called us both to take His Gospel all over the world. The circumstances may be different, the mission is the same.

I guess there is something in a name after all. I just hope I'm not martyred. That would suck.

Holy Communion

I've had many conversations with different people about the nature of Holy Communion. Who should take it, who shouldn't, what does it mean. For the most part, the explanations that are given are as varied as the amount of people with opinions. Some people have spent the length of professional careers trying to determine the answers to these questions, and are no further to finding it out than the person who has spent a day.

If one wants the answer to these questions, they usually look to people with letters in front or behind their name, other experts, or the ever-knowing internet. However, I found one of the best answers from a high school senior who has accepted Jesus under a year ago.

This past Sunday, my wife had a cold and decided to stay home with our daughter, so I took my son to church, just the two of us. Instead of sitting alone, I decided to sit with our resident high school senior. I don't want to give away too much of his name, so I'll just call him Brent. Brent is a very new Christian, and was never brought up in church. After taking communion, I noticed that he walked slowly around our small sanctuary, looking at all the different pictures of the stations of the cross. For those that don't know, the stations of the cross are different pictures representing the final hours of the life of Jesus Christ, including the cross being placed on His back, Christ carrying the cross, and the death of Christ. When we sat down, I realized that Brent had most likely never been to a Good Friday service at our church, or anywhere for that matter, and quietly mentioned that on Good Friday, we go through each picture and explain what they each mean.

What he said caught me a little off guard. He told me he understood what they are. What he does is every time he takes communion, he looks at each picture in the station of the cross, which helps him keep perspective on just exactly what it means when he takes communion. He later went on to explain that he does not swallow the elements until after he looks at all the different stations of the cross. Often times his lips chap, and the wine remains in his mouth, stinging the inside of his mouth, bringing a little bit of pain.

You see, Brent realized what some people who have been in the church all their lives fail to realize. Communion is not something we do once every (insert time period of your choice here) because it means 'something important'. Communion is something we partake in because of the most awesome and horrifying gift ever given. When Brent goes from station to station, he sees depictions of one of the most brutal forms of execution known to man. Crucifixion was so brutal in fact, that the Romans made it illegal to crucify a Roman citizen, no matter the crime. Christ went through this, full knowing ahead of time that this would be the way He dies. But He did it anyway. He lived a sinless life, yet died in the same way as low-life murderers and thieves. He did this so that those who do not deserve to pass on to Heaven after death, may do so. His body was broken, His blood was shed, and He died a gruesome death, that you and I may have eternal life.

No matter how you take communion, with wine or grape juice. With a loaf of bread, wafer, or cracker. These things should not be the focus when you take communion. Our worship of Christ should always be at the center, and the remembrance of the ugly death yet beautiful sacrifice of Christ should be with you as well.

Amen.