September 28, 2013

From Jim McGuiggan... Matthew 7:6 and pearls before swine

Matthew 7:6 and pearls before swine

Matthew 7:6 has Jesus saying, "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you in pieces." A reader wonders what he meant. We all wonder what he meant.
I think the view taken by Donald Hagner and R.T France is probably the prevailing one. Hagner says it is urging discernment in preaching the gospel and France says that what is holy and valuable (with the primary stress on teaching) "must be given only to those who are able to appreciate them." Hagner goes in that direction but stresses response rather than the character of the hearers. Hagner says if hearers aren't receptive the disciples are to stop preaching to them. He links it with Matthew 10:13-14 where the disciples are expressly told to do just that.
Maybe that view is correct but there are aspects of it that just don't ring true. There's nothing in 7:6 that suggests they should preach and then if they experience rejection that they should stop. There's just a plain declaration that they were not to do it and if it has to do with teaching then they weren't to do it at all. Matthew 7:6 is not at all like 10:13-14 in that respect. And how would you be able to tell who was worthy of hearing holy truth? Would we have thought the Corinthians were? Even after they got it? Probably not and yet Paul taught them for eighteen months and taught them by post later.
The images are clear. Imagine a priest going to the altar, taking a piece of sacrificial meat and throwing it to one of the mangy street dogs. Imagine a woman taking valuable pearls (instead of peas) and throwing them to hungry pigs. Both acts are the abuse of the holy and the valuable. It's not simply a lack of discernment, as if people didn't know better. These are unthinkably stupid and in the case of holy meat given to dogs there's the added moral/spiritual offence.
It wouldn't matter if the dogs licked the giver's hand in gratitude or if the pigs simply walked off disappointed but non-violent; the acts would be what they would be whatever the response—offensive and abusive. Whatever the images are to convey—it is plainly forbidden!
Maybe we're not supposed to figure out who the dogs and pigs are or what they represent (if they're supposed to represent anyone or anything in particular). This isn't an allegory. I think we're supposed to recognise what is holy and valuable and treat it accordingly.
To minister to the needy became an occasion for self-aggrandisement (6:1-3)—sacrificial meat to dogs and pearls before pigs. Prayer and times of special devotion became a stage to strut on (6:5-8)—meat and pearls for dogs and pigs. Personal integrity, relationships between husbands and wives and brothers were all being abused and dishonoured—pigs fed on pearls and dogs on holy meat.
Such moral stupidity and insolence may well damn a man or woman (7:6) but whether, in the end, they do or they don't—they're forbidden by Jesus Christ.
When he speaks of the possibility of the animal turning on the giver I think he's saying that the abuse of the holy and the valuable could have self-destructive consequences. We've all said things like, "Those words of yours will come back to haunt you." And we all know, I suppose, what it is to reap what we sow. 
So, in the end, it isn't about how dogs or pigs will react it's about our use and treatment of what is holy and precious.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

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