Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 7:6:
Give not that which is
holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample
them under their feet, and turn again, and rend you (Matthew 7:6).
In keeping with the
theme of discernment in Matthew 7, this verse calls for wise judgement in
sharing gospel truth.
We can divide the content of this
single verse into three parts:
1.
A command to disciples NOT to give that which is
holy and precious to those who are spiritually incapable of receiving it (v.
6a).
2.
If one does so, he risks bringing reproach to the
truth (v. 6b).
3.
If one does so, he risks bringing injury to himself
and to the fellowship of the saints (v. 6c).
Let me offer some
application of this teaching to various circumstances:
First, with respect to
evangelism:
Some of us may have
friends and family with whom we are eager to share the gospel and bear witness
to our faith in Christ. We need to recall Ecclesiastes 3:7, which says, there
is “a time to keep silence and time to speak.” We need to exercise discernment.
This does not mean,
however, that we are to use this teaching as an excuse never to share the
gospel. In 1 Peter 3:15 the apostle urges believers to be “ready always to give
an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear.”
Remember
in Christ’s parable of the sower that the sower sowed promiscuously so
that the seed fell on the path, the shallow ground, the thorny ground and the
good soil (Matt 13).
See
the record of Christ’s encounter with a Canaanite woman with a demon possessed
daughter (Matt 15:21-28). When Christ tells her it is not right to give the
children’s bread to the dogs (v. 26), she responds that even the dogs eat the
crumbs from the table (v. 27). Christ then declares her to be a woman of great
faith (v. 28).
We
are not to use Matthew 7:6 as an excuse not to share the truth with those whom
Christ is drawing.
Second:
With respect to apologetics (defending the faith):
Christ
here suggests that there can be diminishing returns in merely seeking
intellectual dialogue about religion with those who are hostile to the faith or
false teachers.
I
recall reading the memoir of a Brethren missionary to the Berber people of North
Africa who lamented the “missionaries” who spent more time in speaking with nominal
Muslims about comparative religion (essentially teaching them Islam) rather
than simply sharing with them the gospel.
Look
at Peter’s teaching on this in 2 Peter 2. He addresses false teachers (v. 1),
referring to them as “natural brute beasts” (v. 12), and concludes by saying it
would have been better for them if they had not known the way of righteousness
(v. 21), for they are like dogs returning to their vomit or pigs wallowing in
their mire (v. 22).
Spurgeon
observed: “When men are evidently unable to perceive the purity of a great
truth, do not set it before them…. Saints are not to be simpletons; they are
not to be judges, but, also, they are not to be fools” (Commentary on Matthew,
70).
Third,
with respect to our own self-understanding:
The capacity
of the “dog” and the “pig” here recalls Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that
the “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned.”
Reading
Matthew 7:6 might bring to our minds a remembrance of what we were like before
our conversion, before the change of our nature. We were hostile dogs and
indifferent swine, till the Lord opened our hearts and renewed our minds
through spiritual regeneration and made us new creatures in Christ.
Grace
and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
No comments:
Post a Comment