February 20, 2023

Peachtree Church is reading through both the Gospel of Matthew and Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in 2023 with New: Rediscovering the Story and Significance of Jesus.  Devotionals are sent by email three days each week. Monday’s email includes additional background, history, and cultural information to help us better understand the texts. On Tuesday and Thursday you will receive a devotional based on one portion of the texts for this week.

Text for this week

Introduction to the  Texts

The Gospel of Matthew gives us the teachings of Jesus in five long discourses made up of his various sayings: Matthew 5-7; 13; 18-19; 24-25. The sayings in each discourse are linked by key words, so that a saying or cluster of sayings has a word or words in common with the saying or cluster of sayings that proceeds it and with the saying or cluster of sayings that follows it, in daisy-chain fashion. 

 

Some of the links in those chains are not so apparent, but we can still seek them out (with the help of a commentary or two).

Devotional

In Matthew 7:1-2, the verb “to judge” is the Greek verb kríno, which means to distinguish, make a choice or a decision; to pick and choose. The word originally meant “to separate,” as in separating grain from chaff. 

 

In Matthew 7:3, the word “hypocrite” is derived from two Greek words: hypó, “under” and that verb kríno, “to judge,” that we saw in v. 1-2. The word literally means, then, “one who judges under,” that is, under a mask: “hypocrite” is what an actor was called in ancient theater, where every actor performed wearing a mask according to the role he was playing. The word later came to be used to talk about anyone who “judges under”—that is to say, anyone who says what he says and does what he does while pretending to be what he is not.

 

Another link lost in translation is that between the exhortation to enter by way of the narrow gate in 7:13-14 and the warning against the false prophets in 7:15. The word “enter” is the Greek eisérchomai, from the two words eis, “in,” and érchomai, “to come”—the same verb in the phrase “false prophets who come” in v. 15.

 

The daisy-chain of sayings in Matthew 7, then, links up as follows:

 

1-2 Judge (kríno) not...

3-5 ...hypocrite, (hypokrités) first cast...

6 Give...neither cast...

7-11 …man, ...give...

12-14 …men... the prophets... Enter (= Come in)...

15 ...false prophets who come...

16 Ye shall know them...

17-20 ...fruit...by their fruits...know...

21-23 ...I never knew you...

Outro: Saying

24-27 ...these sayings...

28 ...these sayings...

For Reflection


In the Gospel of Matthew, it is the words of Jesus that provide the lesson plan for Christian discipleship. The words of Jesus—his words and his alone—are the theory and practice of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sure guide to doing the right thing and doing the thing right.

Prayer


Dear Heavenly Father: May the words we use bring forth your Kingdom. Use me today as your mouthpiece for peace, love, hope and comfort to everyone I see. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

Dr. Stephen Newby
Minister of Worship
404-842-5847