DOES FOLLOWING THE LETTER OF THE LAW MAKE YOU A GOOD PERSON?

Dr. King:
"Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless. The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable."

You can keep the “letter of the Law” and miss the heart and wisdom of God within the Law itself.
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CASE STUDY #5
HOW TO DEAL WITH JERKS

"If an awīlu should blind the eye of another awīlu, they shall blind his eye." (Code of Hammurabi, ca. 1790 BC)

Scot McKnight:
“The impact of these three expressions of law is clear: justice requires retribution. But retribution is limited, but equal to, the original injury. This principle of equal retribution curbs violence and prevents vengeance from spinning out of control.”

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
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WHERE JUSTICE MEETS WISDOM

“The second player gets caught.”

“don’t resist an evil person.”
resist = retaliate; return; resist in kind
evil person = evil, wicked, bad; bringing toils, annoyances, or perils

1. THE SLAP
Backhanded slap = insult, inferiority, dismissal, humiliation

Open-palm slap = equal status, exposes the injustice, reclaims dignity and agency

2. THE SUIT
Suing for Your Shirt = only because they can’t legally keep your coat (Exodus 22:26-27)

Give Him Your Coat = “laying bare, literally, the incivility, the injustice of the situation.” (AJ Levine)

3. THE SUBJUGATION
Forced Conscription = treated as less than human, reminder that you have no power

Go Two Miles = reclaim power and agency, serve on your own terms

4. THE SUPPLICATION
“Freely you have received; freely give."

What if they take advantage? That’s not your problem…

Scot McKnight:
“One of the themes of the Sermon is refusing complicity with a system that assumes corruption… Society may be corrupt, but [Jesus’] posture is to resist corruption by forming an alternative kingdom community rather than become complicit in our fallen world.”
“The point of Jesus here is to avoid violence, absorb injustice, and live in light of what the kingdom is like in spite of what the world is like now.”
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VICTIMHOOD MINDSET
1. Seeing ourselves as being powerless in a situation where we actually have resources and options to do more than we are doing

2. Seeing ourselves as innocent parties on the receiving end of someone else's misbehavior without recognizing our contribution to the struggle we're engaged in

3. Developing an identity that is based upon grievance and complaint, which may indeed be true in part, but which also serves to define us through a sense of limitation, lack, and injustice

Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to play the victim.
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GREATER RIGHTEOUSNESS

Viktor Frankl:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

1. OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD

Dallas Willard:
“…what action we are to take is something we must decide. We will decide, as best we know how, on the basis of love for all involved and with a readiness to sacrifice what we simply want. And in every situation we have the larger view. We are not passive, but we act always with clear-eyed and resolute love.
“We know what is really happening, seeing it from the point of view of eternity. And we know that we will be taken care of, no matter what. We can be vulnerable because we are, in the end, simply invulnerable.”

GOING DEEPER | Study & Discussion Questions

1. What is your typical response when someone mistreats you or you experience humiliation or injustice?

2. What do you think of the quote, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?" Do you think it's true or not? Would Jesus agree with the quote?

3. Which of the four examples given by Jesus can you relate to the most? How could these situations from the 1st Century apply to us today?

4. Read John 5:1-9. In what ways does this man exhibit a victimhood mindset? Which of the three victimhood attitudes resonates with you the most?

5. Read the passages from Romans, James, and Ephesians again. What tools does God give us for dealing with our real life struggles?