Tag: Matthew

You Have Heard It Said

We live in a world of things we have heard.

I heard someone say it on a podcast. I saw a pastor explain it on Instagram. There was a TikTok about it. Someone posted it on Facebook.

Pretty soon a statement gets repeated often enough that it begins to feel true. We may not remember where we first heard it. We may never have checked the original source. But somehow it becomes part of what “everybody knows.”

Maybe we’re not as different from Jesus’ first listeners as we might imagine.

Six times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus used some variation of a striking phrase:

“You have heard that it was said…”

And then: “But I say to you…”

I’ve read those words for years. But recently this word caught my attention…

Heard.

A World That Heard Scripture

Jesus did not say, “You have read…”  He said, “You have heard…”

That distinction matters.

We live in a culture where Bibles are everywhere. Many of us have several in our homes, another on our phone, and dozens of translations available within seconds. We can easily assume people in Jesus’ world were engaging Scripture just like we do.

They didn’t.

Literacy estimates for the first-century Roman world vary widely, partly because literacy itself is difficult to define. Someone might have been able to recognize a name, read a short inscription, or conduct basic business without being able to read and interpret a Torah scroll.

What seems much more certain is that sophisticated reading ability belonged to a minority. For most people, Scripture was something they heard.

The synagogue played an important role. People gathered, Scripture was read aloud, and teachers explained what had been read. Torah was heard, interpreted, remembered, discussed, and passed along.

So when Jesus said, “You have heard…,” he was speaking into a world in which people’s understanding of Scripture was intertwined with what they had been told Scripture meant.

Does that sound familiar?

What God Said – and What We Say God Said

There was also a developing body of interpretation surrounding Torah.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus described traditions the Pharisees had received from previous generations – teachings and practices not found explicitly in the written law of Moses. The Gospels referred to something similar as the “tradition of the elders.”

That doesn’t make those traditions necessarily sinister. Any community that takes Scripture seriously has to interpret it…

What does this command mean here? How do we apply it there? What happens when two principles seem to collide?

Over generations, interpretations accumulate. Practices develop. Teachers explain what earlier teachers taught. Eventually it can become difficult to tell where the biblical text ends and our explanation of it begins.

We still do this.

  • “The Bible says…”
  • “Christians have always believed…”
  • “My pastor taught…”
  • “I’ve always heard…”

Sometimes what we hear is actually Scripture. Sometimes it is a fair and thoughtful interpretation of Scripture. Sometimes it is an inference built on an interpretation that someone else handed down. And sometimes an idea has simply been repeated so often, for so long, that we stop asking whether God actually said it at all.

When Interpretation Starts Sounding Like Scripture

Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 were more complicated than simply, “You’ve been taught incorrectly, so let me tell you what the Bible really says.”

Much of what followed Jesus’ “You have heard…” came directly from Torah:

  • Do not murder.
  • Do not commit adultery.
  • Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.
  • Love your neighbor.

But one example stands out. Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”

The first half came directly from Leviticus: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”(Leviticus 19:18)

The second half did not. Nowhere did Torah command, “Hate your enemy.” Nowhere.

Yet ideas like it were circulating. The Qumran Community Rule found among the Dead Sea Scrolls instructed members of that Jewish community to “love all the sons of light” and “hate all the sons of darkness.”1. 

It shows how easily interpretation can begin to sound biblical.

Love your neighbor.  That is Scripture.

But if “neighbor” simply means my people, my group, my tribe, then maybe those outside the group are another matter.  Before long, we end up with Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

The first part was God’s command. The second part could sound like a perfectly reasonable conclusion. Until Jesus said: “But I say to you, love your enemies.”

Suddenly the assumption was exposed.

Our Own “You Have Heard” World

We may own more Bibles than any generation before us, yet we still live largely in a world of things we have heard.

Today “our synagogue” fits in our pocket. Thus, a 45-second reel explains a difficult passage. A meme summarizes a theological debate that has lasted centuries. A podcast clip gets separated from a two-hour conversation. Context gets lost, and a single verse becomes a stand-in for the whole story.

We share it. Someone else repeats it. Soon thousands of people “know” something few of them have actually investigated.

The technology has changed. Apparently the human tendency hasn’t.

We can confuse what we have heard about Scripture with Scripture itself. Christians can be especially susceptible to this. Once an idea is labeled “biblical,” challenging it can feel dangerously close to challenging God.

“But I Say to You…”

Which makes Jesus’ next words all the more striking: “But I say to you…” Jesus was not simply adding another interpretation to the pile.

Matthew wrote that the crowds were astonished because Jesus taught “as one who had authority.” Again and again, he took what his listeners had heard and urged them to listen more closely – to Torah, to their assumptions about Torah, and ultimately to him.

That may be where these words still confront us. Some of the most difficult misunderstandings to recognize aren’t outright lies. They’re the things we’ve heard so often – from pastors, parents, churches, books, podcasts, and now social media – that we no longer stop to ask: Did God actually say that?

Or maybe the harder question: Is that what God meant?

Jesus’ invitation remains: You’ve heard what people say…

But listen to me.

1Community Rule (1QS 1:9–11), Dead Sea Scrolls

He Picked Levi, Too!

Ten years ago we started Young Life in Elk River, MN, the town where I grew up. After a 20+ year absence from the community, we returned and I became the director of youth ministries at a local church. Five years into my tenure at the church, at the urging of the senior pastor, I left the youth ministry work in the hands of others and helped start the community outreach ministry.

A local Young Life presence exists only if the community deems it important enough to provide leadership and financial support. One way of communicating the importance of the ministry and to garner financial support is an annual fund-raising banquet. At our first banquet, we invited the Mayor of Elk River to close the evening with prayer. Prior to praying, she made a couple comments, including the belief that my late-father and former mayor would have been immensely proud of his son. I assumed she was right. Over the years, unfortunately, I’ve known of a number of dads who could not say they were proud of their sons. Take Alphaeus, for example.


Alphaeus’ son, Levi, had gone over to the dark side – he became a tax collector for the Roman empire. Conquerors relied heavily on the taxes collected from their subjects. Given the aggressive building of infrastructure including entire cities, the Romans especially needed to collect significant monies. Their approach was to outsource tax collection – the recruitment of locals as tax collectors. With community eyes, these local tax collectors were well aware who they could bleed for funds. They worked on commission – the more they could collect, the more for themselves. It has also been suggested that a tax collector had a quota to reach. Anything above and beyond was theirs to keep. In essence, a tax collector was a traitor in the eyes of his community.

In Palestine, the tax collector was more than simply a traitor. He was in league with the pagan government. They were doubly despised for their choice of occupation – traitors to the people and traitors to their God. The Mishnah, the written collection of Jewish oral tradition, tells us that Jews who collected taxes were disqualified in every manner – expelled from the synagogue, shunned publicly, and a family disgrace. Thus, tax collectors and sinners were considered one and the same (cf. Matthew 11:19, Luke 5:30, 15:1).

We don’t know anything about Alphaeus’ response to his son’s career choice. But we do have record of Jesus’ interaction with Levi, also known as Matthew (cf. Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:13-17, Luke 5:27-32). Jesus was walking along the beach, much like he had when he called the fishermen – Peter, Andrew, James, and John – to become his followers. The Gospel of Mark indicates he was accompanied by a crowd that he was teaching. We can surmise that his newly called fishermen followers were among the crowd. We can also surmise that a source of revenue for Levi was the Galilee fishing industry.

Imagine the scene. Jesus is sitting on the beach teaching. Somewhere in the background, maybe down the beach a hundred feet or so, sits Levi at his tax booth. Imagine the fishermen in the crowd seething with anger just at the sight of this shunned traitor. Imagine, if you are Levi. What’s running through your mind as you watch the interaction of Jesus with the crowd? You long for such interaction.

Then Jesus breaks the rules again. He gets up, walks over to Levi and invites him to become a follower. Levi left everything, rose and followed Jesus (Luke 5:28). Everything. The fishermen left their fathers, but they could always go back to fishing as a fall-back option. Levi left everything. There was no going back. And he did not have family as a fall-back.

We should also imagine the crowd’s reaction to Jesus’ invitation of Levi. Imagine the deep and rightfully held indignation of the people when Jesus not only entered into a conversation with this shunned character, but invited him to join the crowd that was following him. Specifically, imagine the indignation of the fishermen. Jesus gave James and John the nicknames “sons of thunder.” Peter was passionate and zealous about injustice. I can imagine Jesus needing to physical hold these guys back when Levi rose to follow. Then Jesus broke the rules yet again – he accepted an invitation to a party Levi threw for him, inviting his “tax collector and sinner” associates.

Fast forward three years as Jesus said to his followers, “In the same way the Father sent Me, I am now sending you” (John 20:21). I suspect this experience was in the back of their minds as they listened to Jesus’ directive. Jesus expected them to set aside their righteous indignation in favor of the outsider. I assume he expects the same of us.