Self-Control

Jesus' taught a lot about living in community.  He focused on breaking down barriers that destroy community such as unforgiveness as well as judging and criticizing others.  In this blog I will direct your attention to self-control.

The Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew 5) has 3 areas of passion (anger, lust and revenge) that break down community, whether that community is between two people or a whole lot of people.  

Jesus framed each one of these three issues within the context of the Law of the Old Testament.  He said that the Law tells us not to kill, but Jesus warned that uncontrolled anger is evil as well; the Law tells us not to commit adultery, but uncontrolled desire for a woman (or a man) is evil too; the Law tells us to keep revenge fair (an eye for an eye), but Jesus told us not to get revenge at all.  Jesus' interpretation of the Law focused on personal and community relationships more than the things the religious leaders held dear, such as holiness, the Sabbath, and tithing. 

In some ways Jesus was more conservative and held us to a tougher commitment to the Law than his contemporaries, but in other ways he was more liberal.  When it came to self-control over anger, lust and revenge, he was tougher; but as far as holiness (in the realm of clean and unclean) and the Sabbath, he was not as rigid or dogmatic.  Indeed, Jesus did say that we should tithe (Matthew 23:23), but he emphasized that mercy, judgment and faithfulness were more important.

Note that the religious leaders of Jesus' day focused on commands that were centered on giving to God, whereas Jesus focused on those commandments that were centered on other people.  For Jesus, serving others was the way to serve God and neglecting others to serve God was sin.  I may have simplified this a bit, but do your own homework and compare what Jesus said was important vs. his opponents.

The next 3 blogs will deal with 3 social poisons against which Jesus warned his followers.  The three are anger, lust and revenge.  All 3 of these have one common theme - they are all a lack of self control.