In the previous blog post: What Christians Can Learn from the Jewish Ten Commandments, we discussed the division of the Ten Commandments into two primary categories: laws governing humanity’s relations to God and laws addressing how we relate to our fellow man. Now let’s consider what Yeshua said at the outset of His Sermon on the Mount, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Torah or the Prophets! I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). As mentioned in part 1, Yeshua’s fulfillment of the Torah not only presented God with the obedience that people had failed to embody, but it also gave us a model for how to live faithfully. How people deal with each other is a fundamental concern for those who wish to take God’s commands seriously.
“Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and dill and cumin, yet you have neglected the weightier matters of Torah—justice and mercy and faithfulness. It is necessary to do these things without neglecting the others.”
Imagine someone sitting and meticulously counting cumin seeds or mint leaves so that every tenth one goes to God! The Pharisees went to that pedantic level of compliance to ensure they observed the laws between man and God. Yet they neglected the “weightier matters.” Respectfully, it’s safe to say that God is a “big boy.” In other words, He has more than enough grace to endure a slight (or three) from us. However, as Hosea points out, when someone messes with His kids (i.e., us!), He can be a frightful sight, like a bear robbed of its cubs. This issue was not a recent development in Yeshua’s time. A careful reading of the prophets will show that they were far more concerned with how people were treated than with the idolatry that was rampant in their times.
Let’s take a look at what those oracles said.
The opening chapter of the Book of Isaiah begins with, “The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah”… The tricky bit is that the vision doesn’t formally commence until the sixth chapter. What do we do with these first five chapters? In his “prologue,” Isaiah presents a legal brief of sorts. These chapters are essentially God’s case and terms against the people (possibly including us), which unfold in the remaining sixty chapters.
For example, in Isaiah 1:10, we read, “Hear the word of Adonai, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the Torah of our God, you people of Gomorrah!” That should be a wake-up call. We know what end Sodom and Gomorrah met—this address is a grave warning and call to repentance. It makes sense to ask what the purpose of this warning was. We have tended to see homosexuality as THE sin of Sodom; however, in numerous biblical texts, the Bible tells a different tale. “As I live”—it is a declaration of Adonai—”your sister Sodom with her daughters have not done as you have done, you and your daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, gluttony, and careless ease—so had she and her daughters—and she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:48-49)
To comprehend Ezekiel’s statement well, we must understand the world at the time. They were subsistence farmers with primitive tools, working day and night year-round to have enough to eat. You had to work roughly ten acres of land to feed a single person a vegetarian diet. Sodom and Gomorrah were located in the most fertile part of the Jordan Valley and had what they considered ease and abundance because they didn’t starve in years of drought; the river still flowed.
With this background in mind, let’s go back to Isaiah 1, “When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you. When you multiply prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood! “(v 15). When God tells you to shut up and sit down, it might be time to rethink some things. He goes on, “Wash and make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your deeds from before My eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (vv 16-17). These verses encapsulate Yeshua’s concern with “weightier things.” They show that God despised the very festivals and offerings that He commanded because the people were allowing the mistreatment of others. These are eternal truths that shall persist until the end of time. These moral claims rest on the foundation the Ten Commandments provide.
Reprove the ruthless. The Body of Messiah, as a whole, has a prophetic calling always to speak truth to the power. The Almighty has not called His holy nation to align with any government or political party besides the Kingdom of the Lamb. After all, none of these earthly systems can ever be or bring the Kingdom to earth in a meaningful way. Until God’s Kingdom comes, we must speak truth to that power—to governments, to political parties, to corporations—to everything that has the ability to help or harm God’s creation.
Protect the orphan, plead the cause of the widow. We tend to over-emphasize culture wars while neglecting our role as God’s hands and feet to impact culture. We are the Body of Messiah! There are far too many pet issues to list, and most of them will not positively affect some of our most significant social ills. Walk down just about any street in our greatest cities and you will find widows and orphans in need, people living in the worst conditions, and even being sold into various forms of slavery. Is it possible that the culture wars we eagerly embrace are similar to tithing mint and cumin?
The two sections of the Ten Commandments remind us that there are issues we should engage in, but we must keep the “weightier matters” of justice, mercy, orphans, widows, etc., the “main thing.” This primary focus does not negate the battle for our culture but contextualizes it. People in every city, town, and suburb of America and the world cry out to God for help daily. It is our privilege as Yeshua’s physical presence in the earth to be the very answers to their prayers. We are His “sent ones,” which means we must go. Though it need not be very far.
Let us end this with a moment of reflection. What would an energized, unified, and engaged Body of Messiah look like? What impact would we have on the world around us? On hunger, on exploitation, on human trafficking? To make it more personal, whose prayers might you be an answer to?
