CT067 - You Have Heard it Said, Part 2

Today, Matthew picks up the antitheses of Matthew 5 with two more illustrations of one argument. On oaths, Jesus refuses the loophole-driven question of which oaths are binding and asks for a different kind of person — somebody whose plain word can be trusted because there's nothing crooked underneath it that needs propping up.

On retaliation, he refuses the entitlement question of how much harm we're owed in return and pulls up the mirror-instinct itself by the roots. Same move, twice. Both halves are about how a kingdom person handles power over other people — words and the response we're permitted to give. Christ embodied this passage before he ever taught it; the Spirit is forming that same shape in us. Grace is not the absence of the call. Grace is the power to answer it.