In a former issue of the New Yorker magazine there are two dogs talking to each other and the one dog says, “I actually know more commands than I respond to.” At first I thought this was a canine version of Romans 7:15 where Paul says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Then I realized it wasn’t. Paul wanted to do what was right. The difference is the dog knew but did not want to do it.
Finding one’s value system can be as simple as just saying I will do my best to keep the 10 commandments or it can be as complex as trying to figure out the rational for each of the commandments and expanding them as did Jesus that we would cover all of our human relations. The Sermon on the Mount challenges us to go beyond the level of law to the level of principle.
When Jesus said hating my neighbor was synonymous with murdering my neighbor Jesus raised the bar way higher. Jesus’ call to be perfect as God is perfect (Matt. 5:48) challenges us to keep reaching beyond ourselves to a standard we never thought we could reach. How grand it would be to reach a level of life that kept all the principles of God’s word not because they are written in a book, not because we want to please a divine power, not because we are rewarded extrinsically or intrinsically but merely because that’s the kind of person we are.
Written by Roger Bothwell on August 30, 2006
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