When the Word Doesn't Seem Easy

 


"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

Matthew 5:28-30, NIV



Jesus' word is easy, only if you're willing to accept that word as true. And by true, that is to say true to Jesus' meaning and purpose.

When it comes to hard-to-accept passages like Matthew 5:28-30, we may need to search our hearts in prayer for a long while before finding ease and peace with the word.

For many of us, Matthew 5:28-30 is more than hyperbole. We don't believe Jesus gave us this part of His ministry in order to justify mutilating anyone. But we believe the scripture, being more metaphor than hyperbole, is about casting offenders away from one another, or away from the body of a church congregation, as in Paul's instructions to the church at Corinth.

Paul was convicted by the Holy Spirit in telling a church to cast a man out, for an offense that doesn't mean very much to much of the church living in crisis today.

Paul built upon Jesus' foundation of warning the church that sheep would be separated from goats, those justified or saved in Him separated from the wicked, the humble separated from the proud, the repentant separated from the willful in wrong, the long-suffering separated from the rebellious, the unbelieving separated from the kingdom of Heaven - some forever, and some for a limited while.





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