Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of MatthewGibson, John Monro
Religion
Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of Matthew
Gibson, John Monro
Bible. Matthew -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
From this point onwards the plan of the discourse is not so apparent,
and some have given up the idea of finding orderly sequence in it; yet
there seems to be no insuperable difficulty, when the right point of
view is taken. The perplexity seems to have arisen from supposing that
at this point an entirely new subject begins, whereas all that follows
on to chapter vii. 12, arranges itself easily under the same general
head--the Righteousness of the Kingdom. According to this arrangement
of the discourse there is an introduction of fourteen verses (v.
3-16), and a concluding passage of almost exactly the same length
(vii. 13-27); while the main discussion occupies nearly three
chapters, the subject throughout being the Righteousness of the
Kingdom, dealt with, first as morality (v. 17-48), second as religion
(vi. 1-18), and finally as spirituality (vi. 19-vii. 12), beginning
and ending with a general reference to the law and the prophets (v.
17, vii. 12). The first of these divisions had to do with
righteousness as between man and man;[5] the second with righteousness
before God alone; while the third, on the consideration of which we
now enter, deals with righteousness as between the children of the
kingdom and the world in the midst of which it is set up. And just as
in the paragraphs already considered we have been shown that our Lord
came not to destroy but to fulfil the code of ethics, and the rules
for Divine service in the law and the prophets, so in this it will be
made equally apparent that He came not to destroy but to fulfil the
principles involved in the political code by which Israel was
separated from the nations of the world to be the Lord's peculiar
people.
The subject before us now, therefore, is the relations of the children
of the kingdom to the world; and it is dealt with--
(1) _As regards the good things of the world._ From the Beatitudes we
have already learned that the blessedness of the children of the
kingdom is to consist not in the abundance of the things they possess,
but in qualities of soul, possessions in the realm of the unseen. Yet
the children of the kingdom cannot do without the good things of this
world; what, then, has the law of the kingdom to say in regard to
their acquisition and use? The subject is large and difficult; but
with amazing clearness and force, comprehensiveness and simple
practical utility, it is set forth in a single paragraph, which is
also characterised by a surpassing beauty of language. As before, the
straight and narrow path is marked off by cautions on the right and on
the left. On the one side must be shunned the Scylla of _greed_, on
the other the Charybdis of _care_. The one is the real danger of
seeking too much, the other the supposed danger of having too little,
of "the good things of life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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