Sunday's Scraps (5/20/12)

I had a professor once who compared writing a sermon to making a pot roast.  He said that just like in making a pot roast, with a sermon you end up with bits and pieces, peelings and trimmings that don't make it in your final product.  Friends, what you see below are those bits and pieces...enjoy!

Primary Text ( Matthew 5:38-48 )
v. 38 - "eye for eye" - this is a reference to at least three passages in the Hebrew Bible (Ex. 21:24, Lev. 24:20 and Deut. 19:21).  This recommendation for how to respond to offense or how to punish criminals can also be found in the Code of Hammurabi (circa 1772 B.C.).
v. 39 - "strike" (Gk. rhapidzo) - this word covers a variety of levels and can mean anything from a simple slap all the way up to a strike with a rod or staff!
v. 41 - "two miles" - this command to go a second mile is building upon a common practice of the time where Roman soldiers could legally force any person living under Empire rule to carry their load one mile.  Jesus is therefore building upon this and consistent with the theme of the passage, encouraging his followers to go above and beyond what is required or expected.
v. 46 - "reward" (Gk. misthos) - the Greek here has to do with wages paid for work completed.  An appropriate translation which carries this meaning better might be "paycheck".  The point becomes clearer when one explores what a Christian's "work" might be (see Matthew 28:19 also known as the Great Commission).
v. 48 - "perfect" (Gk. telios) - this word can be translated "perfect, full grown, mature, or complete".  It has much more to do with a relative perfection (a complete version of yourself) than it does some absolute perfection standard (without fault or error).

* Luke's version of the passage (Luke 6:27-36) places Jesus' teaching within the same context but changes the word "perfect" to "merciful".  This is likely the case because both Matthew and Luke are striving to translate Jesus' words (which would almost certainly have been in Aramaic) into Greek.  Therefore the two authors were likely left with a problem not unfamiliar to translation work where the two languages do not have a perfect one to one relationship.

* Potentially formative to Jesus' thinking/teaching on the subject (and Luke's translation) is a Targum (an Aramaic paraphrase read aloud immediately following the Hebrew reading of a passage of scripture) associated with Leviticus 22:26-28 which read "As your father is merciful in heaven, so you must be merciful on Earth."