He raised the bar

Some people assume Jesus came to relax the old moral law. He said the opposite, plainly:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:17, 19

Whoever does them and teaches them. That sentence is the DNA of this whole challenge. Not admire them. Not debate them. Do them, and then hand them on.

Then he immediately shows what fulfilling the law looks like, and it is not looser. It is deeper. Six times in this sermon he says, you have heard it said, but I say to you, taking a command everyone knew and pressing past the behavior into the heart. He starts with murder:

If you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.

Matthew 5:22

The old standard said do not kill, and a person could keep it while quietly despising everyone around them. Jesus says the anger and the contempt are the root of the killing. Marriages rarely die from one dramatic betrayal; they die from a thousand small acts of contempt. Wars do not start when the first weapon is raised; they start years earlier in how people learn to talk about each other. What you let grow in your heart eventually moves your hands.

So he gives a command that is stunning in its urgency: if you are in the middle of worship and remember that someone has something against you, leave the altar, go, and be reconciled first. Then come back. God would rather have you repairing a relationship than performing a ritual. And settle things quickly, he adds, before small conflicts harden into permanent ones.

Tomorrow: his most drastic advice, and why you might need to delete an app.