This can't be true!

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

The Sermon on the Mount represents the tenets of Jesus's teachings as he started his period of public teaching.  It also represents the tremendous departure from the norm of teaching from the rabbis and scholars of the Law, and from the rule-keeping views of the Pharisees.  It was not merely one phrase or teaching that distinguished Jesus from the above three groups, but a plethora of teachings that did so.  However, one phrase that did represent his great departure is found in three different forms in his representative Sermon on the Mount.

For the life of the Jews from the time of the exodus from Egypt until the time of Jesus, the name of God had a privileged place in their minds.  Perhaps, privileged captures only part of the idea.  Sacred, even holy also were part of the aura surrounding the name for God.  For part of the Jews's history the name Yahweh, written as YHWH in transliteration, was not pronounced it was so revered.  The Old Testament also used terms such as Most High and Lord of Hosts to ascribe proper aura to his name.

Into this high and holy aura for the person and name of God comes Jesus, a young man from outside Judea, the center of good Judaism, calling himself the Son of Man, a title reserved for the messiah, and giving a name to God that no human should ever ascribe to him - ever, simply because no human could ever approach being on a par with the Most High, the Lord of Hosts.

Matthew 5.48 ends the section of Jesus's teachings in which he taught about Makarioi for the common, average person and he gave a parody of the Talmud critiquing the scholars of the Law and the Pharisees.  Verse 48 concludes,

εσεσεθε ουν υμειϛ τελειοι ωϛ ο πατηρ υμων ο ουρανιοϛ τελειοϛ εστιν

(You should have the same integrity as your father in the heavens.)

What was that?  Your father.  Wow!  Compared to not even pronouncing the name Yahweh, your father was more than a bit informal.  Some were very put off at Jesus's irreverence.  God was much more than father to his nation of people.

Yes, there was the irreverent factor all right.  But, in addition to that, this was a personal father, not a "father of the nation" idea.  Now that just couldn't be.  God's relationship to people was creator to creation, not father to child.  No sir, that could never be right!

Immediately following the initial teaching (Matthew 5), the twelve men Jesus had selected to be his personal followers asked him to show them how to pray (Matthew 6).  So, Jesus said,

ουτωϛ ουν προσευχεσθε υμειϛ πατερ ημων ο εν τοιϛ ουρανοιϛ αγιασθητω το οναμα σου

(So you should pray like this. Our father in the heavens we honor your name.)

What is this?  Father again?  A prayer to the Most High using the appellation Father?  No, No, No, YHWH is not our personal father!

Then as Jesus was wrapping up his teaching on this occasion (Matthew 7.21), once again he spoke of God, this time speaking personally,

ου παϛ ο λεγων μοι κυριε κυριε ειϛ ελευσεται ειϛ την βασιλειαν των ουρανων αλλ ο ποιων το θελημα του πατροϛ μου του εν τοιϛ ουρανοιϛ

(Not everyone saying to me 'Lord' will enter the realm of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my father in the heavens,)

Now that's just too far.  Way too far!  Jesus is calling YHWH his very own father which means he originated in Heaven himself.

Jesus exceeded the limits there. Your father, our father, my father - absolutely not! Not from a young man who is not even a rabbi, not from Jerusalem, but Nazareth, and who is irreverent with the name YHWH.  Never in a million years could this be the messiah or God's son.

A very tasty morsel confirms that the Scholars of the Law and the Pharisees were having an adverse reaction to this part of Jesus's manner and teaching, and that they were not merely misunderstanding him. Jesus followed his idea of God as father with the phrase εν τοιϛ ουρανοιϛ (in the heavens).  Sometimes the word simply meant the skies, and still could even here, but the phrase was a stock phrase in Greek that had been existence a really long time.  Poets and songwriters used it.  Storytellers used it.  Anyone referring to the place where the gods of the Greeks lived used it.  It was the realm of the Gods.  It was all about deities, their origins, and their living quarters.  Those were the words Jesus was using for everyone's father, so there was no mistaking that this father was the deity the Jews worshiped, the Most High.  The Pharisees and scholars's minds short-circuited.  This couldn't be true!  They would not accept it!

The part with the most clarity came immediately before "my father in the heavens.  "Not everyone saying to me 'Lord' will enter the realm of the heavens."  Jesus had used the same stock phrase that every other Greek speaking person used in referring to their gods, and had added the realm where they all lived and originated.  Then, he followed with "my father" in this realm.  No, there was no mistake on Jesus's part.  He and his father originated in the realm of the Most High.



Jesus started the people's connection to the creator and his own  from the beginning.  It was no secret.  Animosity started from day one and gathered strength from there.

It's all in the report

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

Television and cinema have made much of the four horsemen of the apocalypse of Revelation 6.1-8.  Writers for these visual panoramas see it as a sensational, unfolding of end-of-time series of events.  However, it's possible that John had an entirely different idea in mind when he penned the words from his island refuge of Patmos after a harrowing, death-defying experience with Roman authorities.

John had been rounded up as a Christian leader by the Romans in his latter years.  He had been put in a vat of boiling oil.  But, it didn't kill him.  The Romans, being a superstitious people, decided that the gods had deemed him worthy to live, so they honored that by not trying further to kill him.  Instead they banished him to the island of Patmos off the coast of present day Turkey.  While there John recorded a series of visions and experiences that became the book of Revelation.

John began the book by writing to the churches of Turkey surrounding Ephesus where he had lived during those late years of his life before his capture.  He wanted to leave them some words of encouragement and some words of warning.  He wrote to each church (Revelation 2, 3) at the beginning of the book to serve as set-up for the seals to follow with the purpose of encouraging his fellow brothers and sisters during their dire circumstances.  Having been nearly killed for his own faith, John was in a unique position to encourage those under the gun.

As a Jew, John had been instilled with the teachings of the Old Testament during his childhood and teenage years, his synagogue years.  He knew the laws and the prophets's oracles by heart.  So, to encourage his fellow Christians in Asia Minor, he relied on this knowledge to let them know that God was watching the terrible events unfolding on Earth and would soon act.  He recalled the 6th chapter of Zechariah where angels were summoned and then were sent from Heaven to view the actions of the peoples of the Earth and report back to God what they saw.

John began (Rev. 5) , as Zechariah did (Zech. 5), by setting up this angelic report with a scene from heaven with a scroll to read.  But in Revelation the living beings around the throne of God broke into worship for Jesus because he was the only one worthy enough in Heaven and Earth to break the wax used to seal the scroll from unintended eyes.

Then Jesus began to break the seals one at a time.  As he broke the first four seals, an announcement was made by one of the four living beings for a colored horse to come into view with a rider on it.  Each rider either had something with him or had something given to him or both as below.

White horse: ο καθημενοϛ επ αυτον εχων τοξον (the one sitting on it had a bow), and

εδοθη αυτω στεφανοϛ (a victory garland was given to him).

Red horse: το καθημενω επ αυτον (the one sitting on it), and

εδοθη αυτω λαβειν την ειρηνην εκ τηϛ γης (taking peace from the Earth was given to him).

Black horse: ο καθημενοϛ επ αυτον εχων ζυγον εν τη χειρι αυτου (the one sitting on it had a measuring cup in his hand).

Pale yellow: ο καθημενοϛ επανω αυτου ονομα αυτω ο θανατοϛ (the one sitting on top of it was named Death), and ο αδηϛ ηκολουθει μετ αυτου (the world of the dead followed him), and

εδοθη αυτοιϛ εξουσια επι το τεταρτον τηϛ γηϛ αποκτειναι εν ρομφαια και εν λιμω και εν θανατω και υπο των θηριων τηϛ γηϛ (power over a fourth of the Earth to end life by sword, famine, death, and wild animals was given to them). 

Zechariah 6 used exactly the same colors of horses and the same number of spirits (living beings) that John used in Revelation.  So, it would be logical to think that the mission of the horses would have been the same, that is, to patrol the Earth.  John needed very much to give Christians hope in their violent, dangerous world.  Some were dying for their faith.  Others were fearful.  Still others were fighting discrimination from the rich or from Jewish communities.  How could he give his "little children," as he called his fellow believers in his letters, the strength to carry on?

Each seal revealed what the horse patrols were reporting as the business of the world - people warring against each other (white horse), people living under the rule of oppressive authorities (red horse), people eeking out a living, enough to eat and stay alive (black horse), and people burying their loved ones due to various causes like hunger, violence, and natural death (pale yellow horse).

Letting them know that the Lamb and the powers of Heaven were reading the angels's sealed reports had to have lifted these Christians's spirits.  The one on the throne and the Lamb were absolutely seeing all the evil that was happening.

A tasty morsel lies in the middle of the passage.  The passage is mainly about what the riders of the horses had or had given to them.  But, in verse 6, associated with the actions of the black horse, a voice rose from the middle of the four living creatures with a message cryptically worded.

Χοινιξ σιτου δηναριου και τρειϛ χοινικεϛ κριθων δηναριου και το ελαιον και τον οινον μη αδικησηϛ (a day's measure of wheat and barley for a day's pay and don't allow the olive oil and wine to ruin).

The meaning of the saying was not given.  But, the four living beings had been doing nothing but singing praise to God in the previous two chapters.  Although the voice was not one of the living beings's voices, it rose from the middle of the beings that were constantly giving God praise and honor. So, the voice rising from their midst had to be most encouraging.  All was not lost.  The fears of the people were heard and the voice among the living beings was proof that God directly heard of his people's simple subsistence.  He would act as surely as he did in the days of Zechariah. Then, he reassembled his people from among the nations after 70 years to rebuild the temple.  During John's time, John was promising God would act in some similar earth-shattering fashion to bring together all the saints as he shows in chapter 7 of Revelation.

 The words Χοινιξ and χοινικεϛ in the message above are great words to use to depict the idea the daily grind. The words are different grammatical forms of the same word and mean the daily measure of grain for bread or cornmeal.  The idea here matches perfectly Jesus's model-prayer request, "Give us today our daily bread." And it matches the modern-day plea of Alcoholics Anonymous to its members, "Live one day at a time."  It's the perfect portrayal that God knows his people were living a day-to-day existence.  Bur, there;s comfort in the portrayal too.  Today, God will take care of me, and sometime soon he will act on the terror against his children.

I  receive this message in the same way that John's original readers received it.  During my life, all of the events reported by the horse riders have been true.  People have warred against each other, and war has touched my family.  I have faced scrutiny by the government and credit companies and background checks and fingerprinting.  I have lived out my simple existence and buried people I loved deeply who died from cancer, dementia, and other diseases.  Life has not been a bed of roses.

Am I looking forward to something magnanimous from God?  You betcha.  I take comfort in knowing that God is watching.  He hears his angels's reports.  He will act.  My days of eating my daily measure of wheat and barley are numbered.  I will get my white robe!  Let the heavens open!!

[For a fuller treatment of the entirety of the scene of the seven seals including the thoughts above about the four horsemen, read Discerning the Seven Sealed Scenes by David Singleton.]

It's about differentiation

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

Sometimes the structure of things throws off what is being said.  And sometimes, the order of things confuses the mind just enough not to make connections.  Deceptive people use both of these ideas to hide information so that people cannot easily see what is being said or done.

When a person tries to understand the organizational patterns or the order of things in a culture long departed from the scene of present time, the result is the same as for deceptive people in modern culture.  The intention of the ancient writers and storytellers was not, however, to confuse and thwart understanding.  The organization was just different, one that matched the expectations of the people of that time.

Ancient literature typically had a design to it so that its recitation by those who would be telling it later could easily recall the contents.  Sometimes, the structure was like modern poetry where part of the design was a rhyme scheme.  But, more often it was some other feature.  Sometimes people remembered a list by stringing the items together with participles, sometimes with relative pronouns, sometimes with conditional correlatives, and sometimes with a parody of a former work.

Since the words of Jesus appear to have been orally transmitted before they were written in the form we see them today, they follow the accepted cultural design for remembering the contents of something in order to perpetuate the message.  The words of Jesus at the outset of his early public appearances as recorded in Matthew 5.21-48 do have a design to them. As one looks at the design it becomes immediately apparent that Jesus directly set himself up as someone in opposition with and totally unaccountable to the Jewish religious authorities and the system of worship and law keeping they had established. In effect, Jesus deliberately started the clock ticking toward the ultimate showdown from the very beginning of his teaching.

Introductions to the main message were necessary in oral transmission.  One had to give a general setting in which to couch the words to follow.  That's what Jesus did on this occasion.  The following is his introduction.  The English text has been translated to reflect the use of the contrastive phrasing found in the Greek text.

Matthew 5.17:

Don't think that I have         come to make     the Law and the Prophets   fall into disuse.

                         I have not  come to make      them                                    fall into disuse,
                  but                              to make     them                               have fuller meaning.

Matthew 5.18:
Even if earth and sky vanish,            not one of   the Law's  smallest nuances of meaning
                            will vanish  until     all of            it                  
                            has happened.

Matthew 5.19:
Whoever dismisses    what he considers to be an insignificant rule   and teaches that to someone
Whoever acts on                                                                  this rule   and teaches it

will himself be considered    insignificant    in the realm where God lives.
will himself be considered    great                in the realm where God lives.

The structure makes it easy to see the contrasts Jesus included.  And, it is these contrasts, these statements of opposition to each other, that set up his own very clear opposition and non-accountability to the established religious system.  His last statement of introduction highlights Jesus's opposition to the establishment's view of keeping the rules of the Law.

λεγω γαρ υμιν οτι εαν μη περισσευση υμων δικαιοσυνη πλειον των γραμματεων και φαρισαιων ου μη εισελθητε εισ την βασιλειαν των ουρανων (Matthew 5.20)

(I'm telling you that if the quality of your actions is not more evident than those schooled in the Law and the Pharisees, you won't have a chance at entering the realm where God lives.)

Jesus's opposition appears at the very beginning of this day of teaching.  He wanted there to be no mistake about the difference between the Son of Man and the two well known groups who were the well-known rule keepers among the Jewish population.  The rule keepers had missed the point of the Law and the Prophets, so Jesus wanted to clear up what the rules were really about, that there were intentions in the minds of people before they acted.  Rules were for keeping people's actions above board while intentions were for keeping people's spirits (their attitudes) cheerful and willing while living decently.

So, in his introduction to his message Jesus singled out the two groups of people most responsible for instilling the erroneous idea that rules were much more important than intentions.  The first group were the γραμματεων, (grammateon) the men schooled in the finest nuances of rule keeping based on the Talmud.  The English word grammarian comes from this word.  People generally have as much respect for the role of grammarians in our modern society as the Jews did for their "Law grammarians."  The second group was the φαρισαιων (Pharisees), generally upper class people and very proud of the way they knew and were able to follow all of the oral traditions of the Talmud.

One apparent contrast in this statement to the people on the hillside came in the form of a comparison between what Jesus taught and what he did and what the two groups identified by him taught and did. He used two words to show this comparison, περισσευση and πλειον.  The first word means to do better than, surpass, or exceed.  The second means more in quantity or in quality.  One can see right away that Jesus made the conscious decision to take on the two most recognized groups known for their piety and precision in rule keeping.  Jesus wanted to establish immediately that the Son of Man, the messiah, didn't rely on rules but intentions, attitudes from the heart, and he didn't need the tedious research, memorization, and finger-pointing in order to know if he himself or others were living decently.  So, he drove his stake in the ground on a principle he repeated throughout his public teaching career: one's actions needed to come from good intentions, more than was evident from the scholars and Pharisees if he or she was planning to set foot in the realm where God is living.

The structure of the teaching that follows further shows a contrast of thought and a design for easy recollection.  Jesus uses a parody of what the two groups have used for years and years - the structure of the Talmud.

You have heard that it was said... (then explaining the verse, then quoting footnotes of famous scholars and rabbis).

Jesus started the "correct and formal" way of teaching (You have heard that it was said), but he differentiated his teaching in the second part, the explanation part.  That's the area in which he substituted the intention of the rules for the parsing of the rules by all the famous scholars and rabbis.  People noticed.  They understood he was both critiquing the current method and giving the messiah's insight to the most important part of Jewish life - acting out the Law and Prophets.

Eating a tasty morsel enters at this point.  The six points that Jesus used in his parody are divided into two groups of three - murder, divorce, adultery (group 1); vows, injustice, and enemies (group 2).  But the two groups are not six random laws.  They are 3 laws that are paired with 3 intentions found in other laws.  Scholars and rule keepers saw laws as being separate from each other.  Jesus saw laws as being interconnected, thus showing that they were related to an intention.  This relationship or interconnection is shown below.

murder > loving enemies             adultery > bearing injustice          divorce > vows               
v. 21        v.43                                v.27          v.38                             v. 31        v.33                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
V. 21     You have heard it said... You must not murder anyone.
V. 43     I'm telling you that if you're angry with someone leave your gift for God at the 
             altar and make the matter right.  Then return to offer your gift.

V. 27     You have heard it said... You must not have an affair in your marriage.
V. 38     I'm telling you if you study a woman to want her for yourself, you have already 
             had an affair with her in your heart.

V.31     You  have heard it said... A man should not send his wife away, but should give 
            her a certificate of divorce.
V. 33    I'm telling you that if a man divorces his wife he forces her to have an affair in her 
            marriage unless she is unfaithful to him, and a man who marries a divorced 
            woman is having an affair.

Modern readers are more aware of correlations in the above format, but in the Jewish culture one of the formats for correlating material was called chiasm.  There are many examples of this in the Old Testament.  It's a literary device used as a mnemonic, or easy design from which to recall details.  The structure of a chiasm is the ABCBA reasoning in the lines.  The two statements of A and B are parallel to each other. In the following case, A gives a premise; B gives another thought to further develop the same idea; C names the main idea of the premise.  The following idea comes back to the developmental thought B; A restates the premise.  Psalms 8.1-10 serves as a good example of chiasm.

A     Psalms 8.2-3   Oh Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name in all the earth.
        B     Psalms 8.4   When I see your heavens, your handiwork, the moon and stars.
                C     Psalms 8.5   What are humans that you are mindful of them?
        B     Psalms 8.6-9   All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field.
A   Psalms 8.10   Oh Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name in all the earth.

This chiastic structure is found in stories, like the story of Noah, and poetry, like Psalms 8, and in many other places.

The Jews were very familiar with the framework.  So when Jesus spoke about laws and intentions, he carefully wove his ideas into a structure easy to understand, remember, and retell.  Jesus couched his remarks in parallel chiastic statements, two parallel thoughts of A, two of B, two of C.  C was the crux of the matter which was the integrity of the person involved.  And Jesus ended this portion of his teaching in just this way: have the same integrity as your father (v. 48).

A     Verse 21   Oral tradition plus explanation - murder
         B     Verse 27   Oral tradition plus explanation - adultery
                 C     Verse 31   Oral tradition plus explanation - divorce
                 C     Verse 33   Oral tradition plus explanation - vows
         B     Verse 38   Oral tradition plus explanation - bearing injustice
A      Verse 43   Oral tradition plus explanation - revenge

Jesus's listeners that afternoon on the hillside received a number of messages as Jesus spoke.  The content was, of course, the main message.  But on top of that, they received his message in a format that they could easily recall; they heard a parody of the style used by those schooled in the Law, thus showing a certain amount of disdain, maybe only disagreement with what the Law had been reduced to; and they heard Jesus call out two groups of people for their lack of understanding of what the Law should produce, that is, people of decent living, not people burdened by rule-keeping.

Followers in the beginning understood that Jesus had set himself apart from the rest of religion.  Followers today understand the very same thing.  Since the time of Jesus, other religions have sprung up around the world.  But, like Jesus did from the very start of his pubic life, followers have learned to differentiate their living from all of the rest of the groups.

Just use your head

Morsels of food are delicious because of the little things, the subtle seasonings, the dash of salt, the sprinkle of garlic, the garnish of parsley, the touch of glaze, or the hint of lemon.  Ahhhh - so delicious!

What exactly would draw me to walk out of my village to spend a day walking 10 miles, listening to a teacher speak on matters of spirituality, and then walking back?  After I had listened to that teacher what would I remember?  What would I tell others?  What would make me go a second time to hear this teacher?

The words of Jesus found in Matthew 5.21-32 illustrate so well what I would have heard, repeated, and remembered.  It would have made me go back for more because I would have known that it was so different from the norm, so different that I would have had to judge it to be authentic or really, really fake.

Before this teacher appeared on the scene, I would have spent many days listening to the rabbis at the synagogue expound on the God of my fathers.  I would have listened to their really lengthy, but well-studied lessons about the Law passed on to us by all of our ancestors.  I would have heard of all of the traditions surrounding particular issues that were problematic in my society.  I would have heard the names of all the enlightened rabbis that had spoken on the subject because the Talmud would have been drilled into my psyche and reinforced every week of my life.  I probably would have wondered, like many, including my heroes of the past, the Maccabees, if a messiah would really come to establish a new Godly empire, and if so, when.

But, then I know my friends would have told me, "You've got to go hear this man.  He's not anything like you have ever heard before.  Really.  Go see him!"

So, I would have ventured out to hear Jesus.  And, I would have heard Jesus say, "ηκουσατε οτι ερρεθη τοις αρχαιοις" (you have heard it said to our ancestors).  I would have tuned out his voice at that point.  "Blah, blah, blah... I thought this was going to be different.  That's because I would have heard synagogue lessons like the following from the Talmud.

Tractate Kethuboth:  Folio 2a, Chapter 1
Mishnah [oral tradition, actual] : The saying is, "A maiden is married on the 4th day of the week and is a widow on the 5th day,"  because twice in the week the courts of justice sit in the towns, the 2nd and 5th days of the week.  If a husband has a claim as to the virginity of his bride, and he marries after the first day of the week, he has to wait until early on the morning of the 5th day of the week to go to the court of justice.

Gemara [rabbinical explanation of the Mishnah above]:
Kethuboth 2a - [paraphrase]
If a man marries on the 1st day of the week, he can go to the court of justice on the 2nd day to present his evidence for his wife not being a virgin.  But if the man marries after the 1st day of the week, he has to wait until the 5th day to present his evidence.  In the meantime, he is supposed to feed his new bride unless she is sick or is in her menstrual cycle.  Feeding her until the 5th day doesn't constitute marriage while he is waiting for the 5th day. Appropriate rabbis were cited.)

Kethuboth 2b, paragraph 2 - [actual, but partial, with rabbinical footnotes (fn)]
And with regard to divorce, it is not so (fn: An accident does not invalidate a divorce).  Accordingly, Raba holds that an accident is no plea in regard to divorce (fn: literally, "there is no accident with divorce).  Whence does Raba get this rule?  Shall I say from what we have learned: behold this is your bill of divorce if I don't return from now until 12 months (fn: These words the husband says to the wife. "From now until 12 months" means "within 12 months") and he died within 12  months, there is no divorce (fn: It is not the equivalent of a writ of divorce, that is, the divorce does not take effect).  If he died, there is no divorce (fn: because there can be no divorce after death),but if he became ill (fn: And he could not return within 12 months due to his illness), there is a divorce (fn: Which proves that we do not admit a plea of force majeure to invalidate a writ of divorce)....  Perhaps our teachers are excluded from this (fn: From the view of our teachers.  If this is the object of the Mishna of Cit. 76b, Raba cannot deduce from this Mishnah that if the husband became ill, the divorce took effect.  Also in the mishnah quoted by Rabbi Ahai).  For it has been taught: Our teachers allowed her to be married again (fn: "our teachers" regard her as divorced {against the Mishnah}and allow her to marry again without "halizah" {the ceremony of a brother taking off a shoe}.  If she is regarded as a widow and she has no children, she requires halizah before she can remarry).  And we said, "Who are 'our teachers?'" Rab Judah said that Samuel said that the court allowed the oil of the heathen.  They (fn: The members of the Court of Justice) hold like Rabbi Jose who said, "The date of the document shows it."....

"Yeah, I've heard enough of what was said to the ancestors," I would have thought.

I hope that I wouldn't have left, however.  Because if I had stayed, I would have listened to something very different.  It would have been refreshingly simple, memorably succinct, and unbelievably sensible.  I would have heard:

ηκουσατε οτι ερρεθη ου μοιχευσεις 

(You have heard it was said not to have an affair in your marriage) [Exodus 20.14].

εγω δε λεγω υμιν οτι πας ο βλεπων γυναικα προς το επιθυμησαι αυτην ηδη εμοιχευσεν αυτην εν τη καρδια αυτου
(I'm telling you if you study a woman to want her for yourself, you have already had an affair with her in your heart).

Now that was short and sweet.  It was the 7th commandment reworded for understanding and masterfully combined with the 10th commandment about επιθυμησαι (wanting your neighbor's wife for yourself). Simply brilliant!

But there was a little more.  Jesus had appealed to one's sense of reason.  No mishnah, no gemara, no reference to esteemed past or present rabbis, just a simple a appeal to a person's reason.

ει δε ο οφθαλμος σου ο δεξιος σκανδαλιζει σε εξελε αυτον και βαλε απο σου συμφερει γαρ σοι ινα αποληται εν των  μελων σου και με ολον το σωμα σου βληθη εις γεενναν

(If your dominant eye is causing you trouble, remove it and dispose of it.  It is much better to lose only a part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into the despicable dump of the Valley of Hinnom).

και ει η δεξια σου χαιρ σκανδαλιζει σε εκκοψον αυτην και βαλε απο σου συμφερει γαρ σοι ινα αποληται εν των  μελων σου και με ολον το σωμα σου εις γεενναν απελθη

(And if your favored hand is causing you trouble, cut it off and dispose of it.  It is much better to lose only a part of your body than for life to depart your body in the despicable dump of the Valley of Hinnom.)

So logical, but also a challenge.  It's not easy to end something before it grows to be much worse at a later time.  Better a mistake than a downfall.  But, even so, it's hard to do.

There's a really tasty morsel at this point.  Jesus's term for where a person's body was to be thrown was the horrid Valley of Hinnom.  The events that happened there are recorded in three places in the Old Testament (2 Kings 23.10; 2 Chronicles 28.3, 33.6; Jeremiah 7.31-32, 19.2-6, 32.35).  γεενναν (gehenna) was the Greek word.  In Jesus's time the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, was a trash dump where refuse was brought to be burned along with animal carcasses.  Jesus probably had both meanings in mind when he spoke to the people on the hillside this fair day, what happened in the place in Israel's history and the current function of the place as a dump ground.

The whole point of the comparison was about the specific issue of divorce.  Jesus's teaching seemed to have three applications to it.  First, marriages would have no problem if the partners didn't look for love in all the wrong places.  The 10th commandment told a person not επιθυμησαι (to want his neighbor's wife for his own), or covet his neighbor's wife.  It was a matter of a person's heart being in the right place.

The 2015  Country Music Awards Song of the Year illustrates very well what is meant by επιθυμησαι.  If the thoughts of this song are running through a man's mind when he sees another woman, then the rest of Jesus's advice about the eye and hand might apply.

Second, marriages don't usually survive if cheating is going on.  So, divorce can be avoided altogether by stopping a cheating heart before a truly unconquerable problem arises. Divorce shows a heart problem.  And third, that heart problem leads to actions that cause people to face dire choices after two people split on the order of the decisions made long ago at the despicable fires of γεενναν (gehenna), a place of putrid smells.  An affair would indicate this black heart.  One's marriage would be lost probably, one's status in the community would be lost, one's relationship with his or her children would be lost.  One's integrity would be lost (linking this idea to verse 48).  It was simple.  Don't let it happen.

On the hillside that afternoon, I would have heard this refreshingly simple, succinct, and sensible teaching along with others.  I know I would have been impressed, given the laborious, ever-so-tedious recitation of the Talmud that took place in the synagogues.  I would have gone back for more occasions of this kind of teaching.  I would have followed the reports of this teacher as he made his way around the countryside.

That's what I would have done.  But, I have to measure that against what I am actually doing today, 2000 years removed from the time speculated about.  Jesus's teachings still amaze me.  They are still simple, succinct, and sensible.  They form the basis for my heart condition today.  I have learned that life is not about the tedium of study but about the color of my heart - black or white.