Our late brother Glen Isaacs exhorted the Free Hill Ecclesia in Jamaica on January 10, 1993. The New Testament reading was Matthew 12. His exhortation is reproduced from the notes he left behind.
A LARGE proportion of Jesus’ teaching concerned priorities. Nowhere is this clearer than in Matthew 12. His opposition to the Jewish religious teachers and holy men – the chief priests, elders, scribes, and Pharisees – was based upon his perceptive insistence that they had got their priorities all wrong. He was at them relentlessly, continually presenting a different set of priorities altogether from theirs: A different religion, almost a different God!
Jesus always turns our “natural” human values and priorities upside down. This chapter presents three aspects in which our Lord did just that.
Priority number one: “Do good!” (v. 12)
The priority of the holy men was formal righteousness: it was cold and outward, almost a heartless thing. It consisted principally of formal praying, outward demonstration of piety, avoiding work on certain days, and avoiding ritual defilement.
Jesus’ priority was then, and is now, a warm inward godliness, “doing good” because of a deep love inside the heart (vv. 1-13). The holy men’s righteousness will assist a sheep, because it represents economic value, but will totally ignore a man or woman in trouble because they have some church activities to attend to, and turn a deaf ear to the cries of a hungry fellow human. Jesus’ priority is to deal compassionately with human need.
So, firstly, never, never let our religious observances within the church be so formal and pharisaical that our priority is our own holiness and our own salvation.
Priority number two: “Speak good!” (v. 34)
In speech, the priority of the holy men was justifying themselves, while criticizing and condemning others. They criticized everything Jesus did. Their words were “idle words” (v. 36) — hurtful, unkind, ungracious words, full of malice, envy and conceit.
Jesus, in contrast, wants our speech to consist of words that uplift, support and encourage. His plain teaching, that we will have to give account in the day of judgment for every idle word we speak, has seemed to some people tough and almost unmerciful. Not at all. He is reminding us of the obvious truth that idle and malicious words reveal an idle and malicious heart. We will not only give account of our idle words, but the very words themselves, Jesus insists, will guarantee our rejection at the judgment.
So, secondly, speaking often one to another with holy, kind, and loving speech must be one of our priorities, or we shall find the door of the Kingdom closed in our face.
Priority number three: Build up the family of God (v. 50)
It was natural for Jesus’ own personal family to think that they ought to be the first priority in his life, and they tried to tell him that plainly (v. 47). If, as is possible, Joseph was already dead, then Jesus would be expected, as the firstborn, to take full responsibility for supporting the family. But Jesus was not impressed. For him, spiritual, not fleshly values and concerns were paramount. He had to drive that lesson home as usual by posing questions, “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren” (v. 49).
There was surely nothing wrong in Mary and his half-brothers wanting to see him and perhaps bring him some family problem. The issue was simply one of priorities. They expected him to drop everything right there and then, leave the meeting, and go outside and deal with family business. Clearly they thought that they should be more important to Jesus than the work of his God, or the people he was dedicated to saving.
They were not more important. I am sure that even if they had been believers at the time (they were not), then Jesus’ response would have been exactly the same. There is nothing wrong in our mother calling us, or our wife expecting our reasonable attention and concern, provided that blood and family ties do not get in the way of our higher service to the family of God. As with Jesus himself, our primary commitment is to “those who do the will of God,” the bigger divine family.
So, thirdly, let us put God, His work, and our spiritual brothers and sisters first. If that bigger family also includes our own personal family, we are blessed indeed.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One