The Need For Spiritual Discernment
Dr. John Hoole – October 22 & 29, 2017
This morning we continue our study of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. And as we do, we come to a verse that – to the minds of many – seems very much out of place. There is much in the Sermon on the Mount that is beautiful and universally appealing. But then, when they come to this verse, many find its words to be shocking and ugly. They sound so “judgmental.”
Matthew 7:6 NKJV
6 Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
What in the world is Jesus talking about here? Well, first, if you look at the context, He had just been talking about judging. If you were here two weeks ago, you know we looked at the first five verses and how Jesus says in a command, “Judge not that you be not judged.”
And yet, in Matthew 7 Jesus seems to go from a command, in verse 1, not to be judgmental and condemning of anyone, to another command, in verse 6, where his followers are to make such a harsh judgment about some people --- a judgment concerning who we will NOT share the gospel with. It seems at first to be a contradiction.
SO, WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE JESUS PLACES THESE STATEMENTS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING A COMMAND NOT TO JUDGE?
If our Lord had finished His teaching at the end of verse 5, without introducing verse 6, it would, without a doubt, had led to a false position among his followers. Men and women would be so careful to avoid the terrible danger of any kind of judging, fearing it might be in a condemning and censorious manner, that they would have exercised no discrimination, no discerning whatsoever.
If we had only the first 5 verses, and what they teach us, would there ever be such a thing as church discipline -- without which the whole body would have become chaotic. There would be no such thing as exposing heresy, and the much-needed judgment against it. Everyone would be so afraid of judging the heretic, they would turn a blind eye to the heresy. As a result, error would come into the church more than it already does.
The disciples had been told earlier in this very sermon to love his enemies. Elsewhere Jesus tells them each to love their neighbor as himself. They had just been taught to be merciful – peacemakers. Christ’s message is clear – we are to mirror God’s graciousness --- the God who even-handedly sends his rain upon both the just and the unjust. And now they have been told to never adopt a judgmental mentality.
As a result, the follower of Christ is in chronic danger of refusing to make legitimate distinctions between truth and error --- between good and evil. He or she may easily succumb to a remarkable lack of discrimination.
So how does verse 6 fit with verses 1-5? How do we reconcile these two thoughts? It is an issue of balance --- like saying “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” It represents two sides of one equation. While our Lord exhorts us not to be hypercritical, He never tells us not to be discriminating.
There is an absolute difference between these two things. What we are to avoid is the tendency to be censorious, to condemn people, to set ourselves up as the final judge and to make a pronouncement on people. But that, of course, is very different from exercising a spirit of discernment or discrimination --- something we are often admonished to do. How else can we “prove” or “test the spirits” as we are instruction in 1 John 4:1. How can we, as we are exhorted later in the Sermon on the Mount, to “beware of false prophets,” if we do not exercise some sort of judgment and discernment.
As we have already seen in previous lesson, Jesus, in verses 1 – 5, does not exclude every kind of judgment. In fact, He just as plainly commands a certain kind of right judgment here as much as He forbids a wrong kind in the preceding verses. And so, after warning us against judgmentalism, Jesus warns against being totally undiscriminating.
The language Jesus uses in verse 6 is very picturesque --- but not without reason.
Matthew 7:6 NKJV
6 Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
To what, or whom, is Jesus referring when using terms like dogs and pigs? And what is the “holy” thing He mentions here? And what is signified by “pearls”?
The first thing we must do is try to answer the questions:
• What is the “holy” thing spoken of here?
• What are the pearls?
TO WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY ARE REFERRING??
In the Bible, “holy” things are often a reference to things belonging to God --- or authorized by God. The words “holy” and “sacred” come from the same Greek word. And sacred things are referring to that which is set apart for God.
What would the people listening to Christ on the hillside that day, think He was referring to as “holy.” The Jewish person, who heard Jesus speak these words, would have thought of the meat offered to God upon the altar in the Temple. The Old Testament offerings were handled very carefully and reverently. The altar in which these things were offered was called “most holy” (Exodus 29:37; 40:10).
Exodus 29:37 NKJV
37 Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and sanctify it. And the altar shall be most holy. Whatever touches the altar must be holy.
The utensils used to offer the sacrifice are called “most holy” in Exodus 30:28-29. And certainly, the offerings themselves were called “most holy” (Lev. 2:3. 10; 6:17, 25; 7:1; 14:13; 27:8)
For this reason, the remains of the meat sacrifice were to be eaten. But to toss those remains to the dog would have been unspeakably inappropriate. It would display a sinful lack of spiritual discernment. It would show a failure to discriminate between what is holy and what is common.
So, when Jesus speaks of “what is holy”, He is clearly speaking of something greater than simply how the meat on the altar is to be honored. The “holy thing’ in our text today is serving as a metaphor for something that was a very sacred and honored thing to be entrusted with. But, what exactly is the “holy thing’ meant to illustrate to us?
In the original language of the New Testament, the very same phrase used here – “the holy” – is one that is used to describe our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter once rebuked the Jewish people in the temple by telling them that they had delivered up Jesus to be crucified: saying, “…You have denied the Holy One and the Just …” (Acts 3:14).
I would suggest that when Jesus speaks here of “the holy thing,” He is making a general reference to anything that has to do with Him who is our Savior. It could be the truth of the gospel, or teaching concerning Him from Scripture, or the things God does that leads us to worship Him and serve Him.
Our text became associated with two activities, or practices, in the early church neither of which, in my mind, were accurate in their application of this verse.
WHO WERE THE JUDAIZERS AND WHAT DID THEY BELIEVE?
The Judaizers were Jewish converts to Christianity who would not let go of their Jewish practices. They tried to force believers from non-Jewish backgrounds to adopt Jewish customs as a condition of salvation. Evidence of this movement within the early church first emerged about a.d. 49, when, according to Acts 15:1, “certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’ ”
The apostle Paul denounced this idea, insisting that only one thing is necessary for salvation --- faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 15:1–29). In the letter to the Galatians, Paul continued this same argument, insisting that the believer is justified by faith alone. To become a new person in Christ is to be set free from the requirements of the Jewish law, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:15).
These Judaizers would use Matthew 7:6 as giving them authority to omit certain peoples from full fellowship with God.
There was another practice in parts of the early church which was not so blatantly heretical, but nonetheless incorrect in its interpretation of Matthew 7:6. They used this verse to refuse some people’s participation in the Lord’s Supper.
Within the first two decades following the death of the last disciple, John, we find the first documentation with regard to the order and protocol to be observed in the church services. This document is called the DIDACHE’. Sometimes it is referred to as The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles. In it we find these words:
“Let no one eat or drink your Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) except those baptised into the name of the Lord; for, as regards this, the Lord has said, ‘Give not that which is holy unto dogs.’”
Their belief that the Lord’s Supper should be served only to a specific limited group of people is absolutely proper and Biblically based. And their belief in the necessity of maintaining the purity of the faith, lest Christianity be gradually assimilated by and swallowed up in the surrounding sea of paganism, is also proper. It is true that only believers should participate in the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul speaks of :
• those who partake unworthily, thereby bring damnation to themselves.
• those who don’t discern – or understand – the death of Christ thereby not putting faith in what He wrought on the Cross.
But I do not believe that Matthew 7:6 is an instruction about the Lord’s Supper.
I believe it is easier to link the pearls spoken of in Matthew 7:6 with the “pearl of great price” in Christ’s parable found in Matthew 13:45-46. Like the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount, the Pearl of Great Price” has the Kingdom of God in view and the salvation needed for entrance and what is required of those who enter it. I believe Christ’s references to that which is “holy” and “pearls” is speaking of the declaration of the gospel -- or the dissemination of the truth of the Word of God.
Some of you might ask, “John, if Matthew 7:6 is speaking of sharing the gospel and the truth of God’s Word, then isn’t this verse instructing us that we should discriminate as to who we share the gospel with? I believe that is indeed what Jesus is saying. And yet we read Christ’s command earlier about preaching the gospel to every person. So, to understand who the object of this discrimination is, we need to know who make up the dogs and pigs in Jesus’ instructions.
DOGS AND PIGS
TO WHAT, OR WHOM, IS JESUS REFERRING WHEN USING TERMS LIKE DOGS AND PIGS?
The dogs in view here are not the cuddly pets with wagging tails and affectionate natures, loving to have their ears scratched. He is referring to semi-wild hounds that roam the streets and hills, tongues hanging from their mouths and burrs clinging to their filthy coats as they forage for food in savage packs. And the Palestinian pig was most probably derived from the European wild boar and capable of much violence.
Both dogs and pigs were considered unclean by the Jews. And undoubtedly Jesus, in using such language, is referring to something other than these specific animals. In the scriptures, we find these two words often referring to something other than these four-legged animals. They were expressions which the Jews often used to represent the heathen or the Gentiles. The word “dogs” is used more often than “pigs/swine” as representing people.
In the Old Testament, the term “dogs” was used by the Jews to identify the “Goyim” (the Gentiles). The word “dog” was used by Jews in the first century to designate the heathen. We see this in Matthew 15.
In this Chapter we see the Syro-Phoenecian woman (i.e. a non-Jew) identifying herself as a dog hoping to get the scraps off the Jew’s table.
Matthew 15:21-28 NKJV
21 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed."
23 But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, "Send her away, for she cries out after us."
24 But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
25 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
26 But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."
27 And she said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
In Proverbs 26:11, the term “dog” is used to describe a fool. In Deuteronomy 23:18, it is a term used to describe a male prostitute. In Philippians 3:2, Paul speaks of false prophets, and bluntly says “beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision”.
“But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed.
I think the dogs and pigs represent the same people. The dogs and pigs referred to by Jesus serve as a model of people who are savage and vicious. And even though Peter, in the verse we just read, does not refer to either pigs or dogs, but rather unreasoning animals, he brings these two animals together again only a few verses later in the same chapter --- in an equally negative context.
2 Peter 2:20-22 NKJV
20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and, "a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
In Matthew 7, Jesus sketches a picture of a man holding a bag of precious pearls, confronting a pack of hulking hounds or some wild pigs. As the animals glare hungrily, he takes out his pearls and sprinkles them on the street. Thinking they are about to gulp some bits of food (some nuts or peas), the animals pounce on the pearls. Swift disillusionment sets it – the pearls are too hard to chew, quite tasteless, and utterly unappetizing. Enraged, the wild animals spit out the pearls, turn on the man and tear him to pieces.
In this Passage, dogs and swine represent those who, because of their great perversity and ungodliness, refuse to have anything to do with the “holy” and precious things of God, except to trample them under their feet, and turn and tear God’s people to pieces.
In metaphorical language, Jesus is commanding his disciples not to share the richest parts of spiritual truth with persons who are persistently vicious, irresponsible, and unappreciative of that truth. There will be times when the gospel we present is absolutely rejected and ridiculed, and scoffed at without measure. And we have to make a decision – a judgment, if you will – to turn away and speak no more to them about the gospel.
When people not only reject the gospel, but insist on mocking and reviling it, we are not to waste God’s holy Word and the precious pearls of His truth in a futile and frustrating attempt to win them. We are to leave them to the Lord, trusting that somehow His Spirit can penetrate their hearts.
Matthew 7:6 NKJV
6 Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
On the face of it, this is a very difficult saying of Jesus, for it seems to demand us to exclude some from hearing the precious truths of God. This seems to be the reverse of what we are told elsewhere.
The disciples had been told earlier in this very sermon to love their enemies. They had just been taught to be merciful – peacemakers. Elsewhere Jesus tells them each to love their neighbor as himself. Christ’s message is clear – we are to mirror God’s graciousness --- the God who even-handedly sends his rain upon both the just and the unjust. And now they have been told to adopt a somewhat judgmental mentality.
The issue here is one of balance. While our Lord has just exhorted us not to be hypercritical, He never tells us not to be discriminating.
There is an absolute difference between these two things. In the first 5 verses of this chapter, Christ commands us to avoid the tendency to be censorious, to condemn people, to set ourselves up as the final judge and to make a pronouncement on people. But that, of course, is very different from exercising a spirit of discernment or discrimination --- something we are often admonished to do.
How else can we “prove” or “test the spirits” as we are instructed in 1 John 4:1. How can we, as we are exhorted later in the Sermon on the Mount, to “beware of false prophets,” if we do not exercise some sort of judgment and discernment.
Some of you might ask, “John, if Matthew 7:6 is speaking of sharing the riches of the truth of God’s Word, then isn’t this verse instructing us that we should discriminate as to who we share those truths with? I believe that is indeed what Jesus is saying. And yet, we know that late in His ministry, Christ commands us to take the gospel to every person.
Let’s look at our text again.
Matthew 7:6 NKJV
6 Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
I would like to draw attention to five implications or allusions embedded in this short injunction.
1. It is no accident Christ speaks of pearls and not of gravel.
I believe it is easier to link the pearls spoken of in Matthew 7:6 with the “pearl of great price” in Christ’s parable found in Matthew 13:45-46. Like the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount, the “Pearl of Great Price” has the Kingdom of God in view and the salvation needed for entrance and what is required of those who enter it. I believe Christ’s references to that which is “holy” and “pearls” is speaking of the declaration of the gospel -- or the dissemination of the truth of the Word of God.
Interpreting the metaphor, we know that the message of God to this world --- with all of history and revelation pointing towards it, --- really is a precious and priceless treasure. It is wonderful beyond words. All physical wealth pales to insignificance beside it. And nothing is more wonderful than the way God has accomplished this. God has graciously given to men, both in human language – the Bible, and in a human person – Jesus Christ, ---- a true and sure revelation of himself. And absolutely nothing is richer and more important or of more consequence than that.
2. Recognize that not all will receive the message
We studied earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, and will look at it again later in Matthew 7, the somber reality that not all men and women will choose the “narrow way that leads to life.” Not all will receive the revelation of God’s truths. It does not gratify their immediate appetites, and they may have no other criteria by which to assess it.
This verse is preparing us for the division of the human race into two groups of people which are depicted later in this chapter in 4 contrasting illustrations.
• Those who choose the wide or the narrow ways – vss 13 – 14.
• Those represented by the two trees, in verses 15-20,….which bring forth good or corrupt fruit.
• The two claims made by people. --- some of whom say “Lord, Lord” but don’t know the Lord.
• Those who build their lives using two different foundations --- the wise, who are obedience -- and the foolish, who are not obedient.
3. Some will be vicious in their rejection of God’s precious truths.
The main thrust of this Passage is that the dogs and swine represent those with whom the precious truths of God have been shared, possibly many multiple times, who, because of their great perversity and ungodliness, refuse to have anything to do with the “holy” and precious things of God, except to trample them under their feet, and turn and tear God’s people to pieces.
We all know – or know of – those who take great delight in putting down Christians and their “antiquated message.” In Matthew 7:7, using metaphorical language, Jesus tells his disciples not to share the richest parts of spiritual truth with persons who are persistently vicious, irresponsible, and unappreciative of that truth.
There will be times when the gospel we present is absolutely rejected and ridiculed, and scoffed at without measure. And we have to make a decision – a judgment, if you will – to turn away and speak no more to them about the gospel.
Their cynical mockery, their intellectual arrogance, their love of moral decay, and their vaunted self-sufficiency make them utterly impervious to the person and words of Christ. Over the years I have gradually come to the place where I am more reluctant to attempt to explain Christianity and introduce Christ to a person, who has shown they just want to mock and argue and ridicule. It accomplished nothing good, and there are so many other opportunities where time and energy can be invested more profitably.
4. We must observe the balance of the entire message of this Sermon
This injunction by Christ, in Matthew 7:7, is set in a broader context, which demands love for enemies and a quality of life characterized by perfect righteousness. The fact that Christians ought not throw their pearls to dogs and pigs does not give them a license to be nasty and vindictive in return. We cannot ignore all else that Christ has instructed in the Sermon on the Mount. Additionally, there is no justification in this verse for neglecting all verbal witness, on the grounds that there are only dogs and pigs out there. Many – if not most – who have become Christians as adults, begin their pilgrimage by balking or resisting, and not a few begin by mocking.
DID JESUS OR ANY OF THE APOSTLES FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN BY CHRIST HERE?
Were there occasions where they refused to share God’s truths to an individual or a group of people?
In Matthew 10:14, we find Jesus applying this principle. He gave the twelve disciples a charge before sending them out on their first mission. He warned them that in every town and house they entered, although some would be receptive others would be unreceptive. He says, “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.”
The apostle Paul also followed this principle during his missionary -journeys. On his first expedition, Acts 13:44-51 records what Paul and Barnabas said to the Jews who “contradicted and blasphemed” their preaching in Antioch of Pisidia, ”it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. But since you thrust it from you, and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. And verse 51 says Paul and Barnabas “shook off the dust from their feet against them” and they went then to Iconium.
This specific pronouncement was to the Jews in Antioch, not to all Jews everywhere. I say this because we find a similar thing occurring during Paul’s second missionary journey.
Acts 18:5-7 NKJV
5 When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.
6 But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them,"Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."
7 And he departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.
Again, late in his life, Paul reacts the same way in the city of Rome, when the Jewish leaders rejected the gospel.
Acts 28:28 (NKJV) records:
28 Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!"
In Matthew 15:14 (NKJV) Jesus said of the Pharisees, “Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” In other words, the disciples were to make no attempt to convert them. Whether Jesus was referring to all Pharisees, or to a local faction of them, I do not know. I tend to think it was a selective group. We do know that many Pharisees did believe and were saved --- Nicodemus being one of them --- Paul was another. In any case, Jesus instructs them not to share the gospel with them.
5. We must persist in our witness
There are many situations in which Christians need to persist in their witness and be patient with their sowing of God’s truth. The harvest will come in due time if we do not faint.
What Jesus is calling for in verse 6 is discernment. And the very subject of discernment implies there is no written law that applies in all situations. And thus we need to try to follow the example of Christ Himself.
• He could dismiss a group of people - Pharisees (Matthew 15:14) while being patient with another group – the Samaritans (in Luke 9:51-55), even though they first reject him, and the disciples wanted to call fire down from heaven on them.
• He could write off a Herod (Luke 13:31-33) but offer indisputable evidence to a doubting Thomas (John 20:24).
• He could promise judgment to a whole list of cities (Matthew 11:20-24) but still weep over another city that wouldn’t accept His message (Lk 19:41).
Christians must not decide which side of Jesus’ reactions they will follow most closely. We must follow both. And I suspect that the stronger the inclination to follow one side at the expense of the other, the greater the danger of imbalance, and the stronger the need to grow in discernment and conformity to Christ.
So, what is to be done with these people who mock the message of truth, and are utterly antagonistic towards the gospel? Are they to be abandoned as hopeless? Is the Christian message simply to be withdrawn from them?
I heard of a minister who was making a wooden trellis to support a climbing vine. As he was pounding away, he notices that a little boy was watching him. The youngster didn’t say a word, so the preacher kept on working, thinking the lad would leave. But he didn’t.
Pleased at the thought that his work was being admired, the pastor finally said, “well, son, are you trying to pick up some pointers on gardening?” “No,” he replies. “I’m just waiting to hear what a preacher says when he hits his thumb with a hammer.”
People are watching you and me! And it just may be the same people that scoff at your Christianity. So, what do they see? Whatever they see has an influence on them. What Christian words cannot do, a Christian life can often do. How many people do you know who are now saved, who once totally reviled and scoffed at Christians and their message? Maybe that represent some of you here today.
President Woodrow Wilson told the story of one such encounter.
He said: “I was in a very common place, I was sitting in a barber chair, when I became aware that a powerful personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself to have his hair cut and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done to me, I became aware an evangelistic service I had attended, because Mr. D.L. Moody was in that chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop. They talked in undertones. They didn’t know his name but they knew something had elevated their thoughts, and I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship.”
Our lives should be lives that reflect something more than the world has, because we have more than they have, we have Jesus. He has saved us, forgiven us, changed our hearts, given us hope, put His love in us, given us joy, set our feet on the rock which cannot be shaken.
A man may be blind and impervious to any Christian argument in words; but he can have no answer to the demonstration of a Christian life. It is often impossible to talk to some people about Jesus Christ. Their insensitiveness, their moral blindness, their intellectual arrogance, their cynical mockery, the tarnishing film of filth over their eyes, make them impervious to words about Christ. But it is always possible to show men and women Christ.