UPSIDE DOWN KINGDOM Week 19: UNOFFENDABLE IN AN OFFENSIVE WORLD - Matthew 5:38-42

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Powell Butte Christian Church

Religion & Spirituality


This is a message I have long been waiting to preach about. It's about being offended. Today's passage from the Sermon on the Mount has been used in a number of ways: to talk about non-retaliation, to justify pacifism… but I believe it speaks to the idea of becoming unoffendable in an offensive world.The passage: Matthew 5:38-42. The Old Testament  law it's based on is in Leviticus 24:19-21. And Jesus quotes it in verse 38.The purpose of that law was restraint and equitable punishment. In other words, if someone hit you and knocked out a tooth, you weren't allowed to go all John Wick on them.If you knocked out a tooth, a tooth was required. That was fair. Good had always cared about the fair treatment of His people. If this passage meant to become a doormat then 13 chapters later, Jesus wouldn't have taught his followers the proper way to confront people who HAVE sinned against you.That's a time and a correct way of confronting. Jesus didn't teach us to just pretend we weren't sinned against. But he DID teach that God's way of dealing with it could be trusted.So I think a more relevant application of this passage from the Sermon on the Mount has to do with the things that happen to us that DON'T require us to strike back to make things right.