“Do not give what is holy to dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” (Matthew 7:6)
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) was not a laundry list of free-standing epigrams. One thing leads to another. The whole bunch is a corrective restatement of the Law of Moses according to the higher spiritual principles to which the Law points. In this context, Jesus shows how previous Talmudic teachings are actually against the Law of Moses. The dominant school of thought in Jewish society was Pharisee, and it had to be broken. In the previous chapter of Matthew, Jesus hammers home the requirement to divorce ourselves from materialism.
Pharisees would judge the handling of property by a long list of rules and customary assumptions, all of which formed a very complex and heavy burden of regulation. Yet it was clear all that teaching tilted the playing field in their favor. Whatever it was they were doing could always be justified, but whatever it was poor peasants were doing was usually wrong. This was an obvious double standard. In particular, the Pharisees made much of what we today would call “saving for a rainy day.” Their teaching and legal maneuvering kept the peasants poor, but kept themselves wealthy. They gave exemptions for tithing and charity which applied only to the wealthy, largely by virtue of exempting things only the wealth could manage. They complained the peasants were being greedy when they didn’t bankrupt themselves for the Temple offerings and taxes, but always paid their own out of pocket change. Everybody could see through this, and it was a common complaint of that day. They made wealth their true god, and Jehovah could sweep it all away overnight.
Thus, the rather obvious meaning of the verses just before verse 6, about the speck versus the beam in the eye, warns the Pharisaical minded to apply the condemnations of greed to themselves. Our own modern day proverb for that one is, “Clean up your own backyard first…” No one says we cannot judge sin in others, but we should only preach about things we’ve conquered (or are conquering) in our own lives. Jesus wanted His listeners to understand this was not a blanket condemnation on pointing the finger at sin, since the Law called for such (Ezekiel 33:7-9). He next told them something which literally required them to judge — recognizing some folks were proverbial swine or dogs.
Most of us have a tough time accepting, much less understanding, the Jewish cultural distaste for dogs. We tend to think anyone who doesn’t like dogs is barbaric. Without tracing down the lineage of why dogs were hated, let’s say simply this: For as long as anyone could remember in that part of the world, dogs were a serious threat to life and limb. They were wild, and would kill just for the thrill of it. They carried diseases which made them all the more repugnant. Further, the term “dog” was used to label the homosexual male prostitutes in pagan temples. Dogs served no useful purpose in Jewish society.
So when Jesus advised His listeners not to throw anything holy to dogs, it seemed on the surface He was “preaching to the choir” — to suggest they would do so was almost insulting. No one would knowingly feed anything at all to dogs, much less food which had been part of a sacred meal. What most likely came to mind when Jesus said this was the Passover Lamb. According to the Law of Moses, the host was required to throw leftover lamb in the fire before morning. Tossing it to dogs was unthinkable, an abomination.
While most of us Gentiles love ham and bacon, we aren’t likely to be fond of live pigs in their natural state. They wallow in any damp spot during warm weather, and will consume anything which even vaguely resembled food at one time. If it smells rotten, they are all the more excited by it. In ancient times they carried a host of diseases and parasites which could infect humans. No surprise then God made it forbidden for Israel to eat them. In fact, Jews would never willingly get within stone-throwing distance of pigs.
Pearls were one of the most valued jewelry items in Jesus’ time. Few people had even seen pearls up close. About the only place the translucent cream-colored beads could be seen was decorating the extremely wealthy and powerful. The idea of offering them to pigs was, again, completely beyond their imagination.
Of course, this was a parable, not to be taken for its literal meaning. It represents a higher principle. The teaching of Jesus was the Word of God. It was holy, valuable beyond measure. It could not be priced in worldly terms. It was precious, and living its principles made one precious to God. It was to be shared with others, spread abroad to all the world. It was God’s precious gift to all humanity.
This Truth of God was all encompassing; it applied to, and affected, every detail of life. Indeed, it defined life, was life. Obeying the underlying spiritual principles of the Law of Moses would make life worth living, and would reveal God’s heart. It was the substance behind all Creation, the Divine Principle of existence itself. Having received this treasure from God, the Jewish leaders corrupted it, twisted it into an empty husk of legalism. Such careless handling of God’s Word made them no smarter than pigs or dogs. They had no idea what they had been given. Taking the true meaning of the Law back to the Pharisees was no better than feeding Passover Lamb to dogs, or offering pearls to swine. But this image has broad implications.
On the one hand, you must look deep in the mirror of God’s Word and take His power to victory over sin in your life. What you have not conquered is difficult to preach. Either way, we are not called to condemn people, but sin. People will condemn themselves when you speak the truth with love, because their own conscience will witness against them. If not, don’t get worked up over it. They are like pigs or dogs, and don’t know the value of love and grace. Only God can change hearts.
In our daily walk with the Savior, there are people crossing our paths who will simply never grasp the testimony of His power in us. Sometimes we can tell immediately; sometimes we have to work with them a bit. As we reach out to them in love, that same love grants them the full right to avoid that love. We persist as long as He presses us to present His love to them. We move away, not if they reject it, but when His love says so.
But they are not the pigs and swine to which Jesus refers; He was pointing at those who claimed to have the Word already. It tires me to hear the teaching of evangelism presented with such a false human urgency that everyone listening receives unjustly a sense of guilt and condemnation. I am angry at all those who chopped the gospel message up into neat little packages to be memorized as canned presentations. Their reasoning was it would save time if everyone could learn “this proven technique.” Yes, people are dying and going to Hell every moment of every day. If it truly depended on us to save them all, then we might as well lie down and die now. We cannot save them. Only Jesus can save them. This sort of frantic spirit of fear, that we dare not even sleep lest we miss some opportunity, comes not from God. It is from Satan to make fools of us and to ensure our ineffectiveness.
I’ve seen over-zealous “soul-winners” literally close the door on someone’s heart because they pushed when their target was least receptive. The canned words and cutesy outline failed utterly to register. The Gospel is not our message until it is living in us, in our unique situation of life. It takes time with God, His Word, and His people to even begin. If it is our nature to be gregarious and eloquent, we may have a head start. If not, it’s best to remember: How we act in general is more important, and must precede any words. This writer can affirm beyond a shadow of any doubt how all the people I know who came to Jesus through my efforts were unanimous in telling me that they were touched by how I acted, and only later by what I said. It has been ever true from the first day I served Him.
It takes good, wise judgment of situations and people. Far more important it is that we make our every waking moment simply in His Spirit, and in His power, whatever it is our bodies and minds find to do. Let us be found faithfully going about the business of life as He gave it to us. Early or late in our walk, this is the one proper way to share the pearls of truth.
