CC 05: Fulfillment (Part 2)

A group of behavioral economists did an interesting study. They created a test where people were encouraged to cheat and by doing so they could make more money by answering more questions correctly. They then divided the participants into two groups. One group, before taking the test, had to write down all the Ten Commandments they could remember. The other group, just had to write down recent movies they had seen. When they took the test, the group that had to write down the Ten Commandments beforehand BY FAR, cheated much less than the other group, even though many claimed not to be particularly religious. My assessment? When people are confronted with an ethical standard, their behavior seems to change, whereas if one does not have integrity on the brain, it seems ethics are up for sale. Jesus challenges us in this next passage of the SOTM for a deep, all- encompassing integrity, that does not sway with circumstances.I bring this up, because this analogy works well when describing what the Pharisees were doing with the old law. They were interpreting it in a way that it made it easier to accomplish for them, basically defining it all by what you could show on the outside. In our next section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges this. More importantly, Jesus says this new way of viewing the law is not an attempt to get rid of it, but to fulfill it. This morning, let’s see what he means by this, and what it looks like for us.