We end the week by stepping back to see the whole passage as a unit, and by looking at the One who fulfilled every word of it. Matthew 5:21–26 presents us with four ascending steps: stop the act of murder, stop the attitude of anger and contempt, go to the offended...
The final step is the hardest. Jesus has moved from murder to anger to the offended brother, and now he lands on the enemy. The courtroom image here is vivid: two people walking together toward a lawsuit, and Jesus says, settle it now. Settle it on the way. Because...
Here is where the sermon becomes deeply practical and surprisingly uncomfortable. Jesus does not say, “If you have something against your brother, go sort it out.” He says, “If your brother has something against you, go.” The direction matters enormously. Jesus is not...
In a single verse, Jesus mentions three courtrooms: the local judgment, the Sanhedrin, and Gehenna, the place of final judgment. Some readers try to chart these as three levels of sin, with name-calling being worse than anger and calling someone a fool being the worst...
Jesus moves from the act to the attitude in a single sentence. Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. The same courtroom that waits for the murderer waits for the person whose heart is full of unrighteous anger. This is not a softening of...
