SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/12/2020 10:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The Evil
and Danger of Slander”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
5:22b
Message
of the verse: “and whoever shall say
to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court.”
I
believe that we have talked about the word “Raca” in an earlier SD, but I want
to quote what John MacArthur has to say about this word in this SD. “Raca was an epithet commonly used in Jesus’
day that has no exact modern equivalent.
Therefore in most Bible versions, as here, it is simply
transliterated. A term of malicious
abuse, derision, and slander, it has been variously rendered as brainless
idiot, worthless fellow, silly fool, empty head, blockhead, and the like. It was a word of arrogant contempt. David spoke of persons who use such slander
as those who ‘sharpen their tongues as a serpent; poison of a viper is under
their lips’ (Ps. 140:3). It was the type
of word that would have been used by the soldiers who mocked Jesus as they
placed the crown of thorns on His head and led Him out to be crucified (Matt.
27:29-31).” I want to quote those verses
here: “29 And
after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed
in His right hand; and
they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of
the Jews!" 30 They
spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head.
31 After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put
His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.”
In
his commentary MacArthur tells a story which he says is a Jewish legend about a
young man named Simon Ben Eleazar who had just spent some time learning from a
noted Jewish teacher. Simon was very
happy how he had handled himself before this great teacher, and thus became
very proud. Simon goes into a town where
he finds a man who in his estimation is very ugly and tells him so: “You Raca!
How ugly you are. Are all men of
your town as ugly as you?’ That I do not
know,’ the man answered, ‘but go and tell the Maker who created me how ugly is
the creature He has made.’” I hope with
these two quotations that we get the idea of what Raca is about.
If
a person slanders a creature made in the image of God then they are slandering
God Himself and this is the equivalent to murdering that person. Jesus is saying that contempt is murder of
the heart. This contemptuous person “shall
be guilty before the supreme court,” which in this case was the Sanhedrin, the
ruling “religious” body of the Jews during Jesus’ day. It was made up of a council of seventy who
tried the most serious offenses and pronounced the severest penalties,
including death by stoning as seen in Act 6:12-7:60 in the story of Stephen.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to say that I got my toes stepped on
this morning and had to ask the Lord to forgive me and also to not allow me to
do anything like that again. I suppose
the pride is the chief reason for what Simon in our story did what he did and I
don’t want to ever be like that.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Holy Spirit to keep my heart
clean in things that I have done wrong before the Lord.
8/12/2020 10:35 AM
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