Deconstruction of Human Thinking

The Sermon on the Mount -- Matthew 5-7

As I read through the Sermon on the Mount, I couldn’t help but notice how Jesus was deconstructing human thinking.

Jesus delivered the Beattitudes, which to me are the attitudes of, and lead to, the kingdom of heaven. It is a kingdom where humility is valued over pride, where grieving over one’s spiritual poverty is rewarded with the comfort of relationship with God, where power stems from gentleness, where hunger for righteousness is satisfied, where mercy, purity and peace reign even in the midst of persecution. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom ruled by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus did not come to abolish the law, He said He came to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17) Instead, Jesus took issue with the people’s interpretation of the law, which had exceeded God’s original intent. In The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus deconstructed their human thinking with the kingdom perspective.

Judgment follows crime in our system of justice. If I commit murder, naturally the law says I will face the judge and be punished. The law says do not commit adultery. The law says if a man plans to divorce, give a legal certificate. But Jesus said before arriving at murder, check antagonism at the door. Before facing adultery, curb the lustful thoughts and intents of the heart. Before loosing a spouse, develop greater tolerance and forgive.

According to the people's interpretation of the law, a man could divorce his wife for any cause. The Pharisees tested Jesus with this topic in Matthew 19. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter by reminding them of God’s intent for marriage—to make of the two, male and female, one flesh. “What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:6/Genesis 2:21-25) God intended marriage to exist between one man and one woman, to make of them one flesh to the glory of God and to extend His kingdom here on earth through the creation of a people set apart by God to bring the Messiah. (Genesis 9:1, 17:6-7, 15-16, 28:1-4)

Moses gave the law for the establishment and preservation of the people of God, and to create order in the new nation. The law allowed for certificates of divorce in the case of sexual immorality. (Deuteronomy 24:1-4)

If a man viewed his wife “without favor” meaning he was unable to look past her indiscretions, forgive her issues and love her anew, he was to release her with a certificate of divorce. Those issues or indiscretions, as Jesus rightly pointed out, involved sexual immorality. However, over the course of time, the people stretched the law to extend past infidelity to all sorts of things over which a husband might disapprove and consequently divorce his wife.

A meal served too late in the day, not at all, or not to the husband’s liking, became an excuse, for men to divorce their wives. And, because women had no rights to property or anything else, they would soon become destitute if they did not remarry. Jesus rightly defined the law Moses gave, and then in Matthew 19:8, Jesus cut to the heart of the matter. “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

Jesus is not condoning divorce, nor is He condemning those who have been divorced, He is simply saying, this was not the original intent of marriage or of the law for certificates of divorce. He was saying, in marriage, aim for fidelity and forgiveness and don’t make excuses for a lack of commitment or willingness to cooperate and compromise.

Long ago, I read a marriage self-help book in which the author said “compromise” wass the biggest or most important word in marriage. Not to compromise fidelity, but rather compromise in the sense of grace or cooperation. When two are becoming one—and that may take a lifetime to sharpen—compromise occurs when I die to myself and esteem my spouse greater than myself.

For example, I may like to have a light on at night and read in bed. However, because my spouse has to wake up early and can’t sleep with the light on, I choose to read in the living room or not at all. And I don’t hold that fact over my spouse’s head for the entirety of our marriage. Instead, I choose to die to myself, to cooperate with my spouse, so the marriage may continue and the family unit may grow stronger. This is a simplistic example, but over such things many marriages deteriorate and irreconcilable differences, dominate in divorce proceedings.

I don’t remember if it was the same book, but because of the title alone, I read the book by David & Carole Hocking, Good Marriages Take Time and Bad Marriages Take More Time. When the Hockings struggled in their marriage and stepped down from pastoral ministry, I was sad, but also they earned my respect for struggling through, forgiving one another and forging a stronger married relationship.

Good marriages do take time investments, and difficult marriages take more time to heal, develop and grow. There are no easy answers to why things happen, and sometimes, people harden their hearts and walk away from a marriage, and it seems nothing can be done to change their mind. However, I think one of the lessons from The Sermon on the Mount is, God is predominantly concerned with the attitude of the heart. If our hearts are centered on God and ruled by the principles of the kingdom of heaven, the results of our actions will be dramatically different than if we are governed by self-gratification and the principles of human thinking.

Every time I think of defining self-centered, self-governed, and undisciplined by the Holy Spirit of God Almighty, I think of the book Lord of the Flies. The book shows humans, left to ourselves become horrible, greedy, selfish and mean-spirited creatures.

In contrast, when I choose to die daily to self, that Christ might, when I allow the Spirit of the Living God to guide and direct me, and the living, active word to transform my mind so that I will not be conformed to this world, then I will respect authority in the present and have hope for God’s righteousness to rule in the future. Though still flawed, while in this flesh, I am at my best and able to walk in the Spirit, implementing the principles of the kingdom of heaven in my life.

Watch The Sermon on the Mount from the film Jesus of Nazareth