Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Isaiah 23-28
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 7:6
Jesus: Don’t give precious things to dogs. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. If you do, the pigs will trample the pearls with their little pigs’ feet, and then they will turn back and attack you.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
We have a tendency to break up Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount by the convenient chapters and verses given to us in our current Bibles, but few today realize those chapters and verses didn’t exist until the publication of the Geneva Bible in 1560. Until then, each book ran from beginning to end as a single narrative or collection of poems, stories, etc. Just like an editor today uses page numbers and line numbers to help his staff find specific passages for his writing team, the translators of the Geneva Bible inserted chapters and verses to assist their translators, then left them there as an aid to all readers.
The problem with the chapters and verses is that sometimes they break thoughts and concepts in the wrong places. So it is with the Sermon on the Mount. Start in Chapter 5 and read through Chapter 7 to get the full effect of Jesus’ message. Here we are at Matthew 7:6, but it really references all those things Jesus has said up to this point. He has given his audience so important information about what’s really important in life and now he adds this tiny proverb into the middle of his sermon.
Don’t give precious things to dogs. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. They don’t understand the value of those things and they’ll just trample them into the ground. What does He mean putting this parable into His sermon at this point? I’ve taken it out to talk about it as a single verse today and we can use it as a stand-alone proverb. But taken together with everything He has said about attitudes, the law, offerings, thoughts and actions, real love and relationship with God and man, prayer, fasting, forgiveness, heavenly treasures, I think we can begin to see a much richer, deeper thought as Jesus shares this proverb with those on the mountain that day.
He shared a lot of illustrations with them to help them understand what’s really important to God in His relationship with us. He wants us to enjoy our life, but enjoyment doesn’t come with the collection of stuff. Enjoyment comes in the company of friends and family. Jesus talks about the family of God and the relationship we have with Him. The actions and the heart change, the attitude change that means real joy for the individual and the community as a whole when as a society we honor God as God instead of trying to put ourselves in His rightful place.
You say, “I would never take God’s place.” You’re right, you can’t. Ever. But we try. We try to put everything else in His place. Sometimes good legitimate things. But they are not God. And when we put any created thing above Him we practice idolatry. Idolatry doesn’t have to entail bowing to a gold or silver statue. It is any failure to honor and respect God as God and remember we are not. That’s the crux of the message Jesus has here. We so often put insignificant things in front of God and lose sight of what’s important.
We in essence throw the important to dogs. We throw pearls before swine. And after they trample our “precious treasures”, they turn around and attack us. They destroy and devour us without any thought whatsoever.
On the other hand, we can take the precious treasures God gives us, the relationships nurtured and grown with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and throw them away with the kinds of attitudes, unjust judgments, blind criticisms, and wrongs Jesus shared with His listeners. We can forget all the things He has said and just live the way we want with self on the throne of our heart and do what we want. When we do, we will lose the relationships we worked so hard to build. It takes little to destroy relationships, but years to develop them. Just like it takes little to toss your treasures at the feet of dogs and swine. How hard is to recover them from those beasts once done, though? Not so easy is it?
Recognize the treasure you hold in your hand as a child of God. Share it, but don’t throw it away. Listen to Jesus’ words and meditate on them today. What are you doing with your treasure?
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