Exodus 34:1-17
Psalm 50
1 Thessalonians 2:13-20
Matthew 5:21-26

Matthew 5:21-26


The Pharisees

The Pharisees were not bad people. They meant well, just like you and me. They were devoted to being the holiest that they could be and for this reason followed the Law, both written and oral so that they did not mess up by missing out on any of God's orders. Today Jesus justifies his statement from yesterday

20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

We know how zealous the Pharisees were for doing the right thing and Jesus says we must be even more ardent than them. To think about murder is just a bad as to murder. I think that Jesus is saying "Do not let anger or malice even get a foothold in your brain." Not only that, if we are aware that we are the cause of another person being angry than we need to sort out the problem.

Perhaps if I tried to emulate Brother Lawrence, the seventeenth century Carmelite monk and focus on God then I might have less problems with myself.

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it."