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.
I would argue that some could likely lose their brain with little noticeable effect ;-). Agree with the rest though!
ReplyDeleteMatt, so what did Jesus mean when he suggested we gouge our eyes out? You never answered that. Clearly our eyes aren't spiritually the offending agent, it is sin living in us. What Jesus was saying, through the use of a hyperbole, is that we need to do whatever measures are necessary to get rid of sin in our lives. But what are those measures? There is only one that the bible calls us to do, which is to die to self and live for Jesus Christ. Jesus referred to it as taking up the cross...which is to die to self and commit ourselves wholly to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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