Matthew 7:6

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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. ~ Matthew 7:6

Today, we return to our study of Matthew 7 where the Lord Jesus juxtapositioned His teaching with that of the religious leaders of Israel. In today's passage, the Lord Jesus admonishes us to avoid trying to control people. Don’t condemn them and don’t force them to be something they are not. We do well to remember what the Lord Jesus said just prior to the Sermon on the Mount: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." With the coming of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the loving rule of God has drawn near to us. In fact, He taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And, one of the greatest aspects of the kingdom of heaven is that God even uses bad to bring about good. 

The biggest difference between the teaching of the Lord Jesus and that of the religious leaders of Israel was the involvement of the heart. In order to be assured that our hearts are right in a given situation, we should first examine ourselves and remove anything from our own eye before considering the speck in another's eye. In so doing, we are granted a heart for others because we have chosen to be honest about our own allegiance to sin. And, it is from this honest evaluation of ourselves that we are best positioned to help a brother in need. It is always from a humbled disposition that we value the deepest spiritual truths the best. Sadly, the religious leaders of Israel lacked this kind of an appreciation for the truth. 

The Lord Jesus said, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs." Dogs, in their culture, were metaphoric for Gentiles or people who lacked a heart for God. According to Leviticus 22:10, the holy meat that was sacrificed in religious services was reserved for priests to eat. Everyone knew that to give such special meat to dogs, would have been a waste because the dogs would not have appreciated it. To a dog it is just meat. To this day, many cultures in the Middle East despise dogs because they scavenge, they eat unclean food, they are predators that feed off of others, and they are themselves unclean. 

Although today's verse immediately follows five verses admonishing the right and wrong ways to judge others, with it the Lord Jesus shifted attention from judgment to discernment. No one would consider giving away what he holds important, knowing it would be rejected as invaluable and destroyed without the slightest hesitation. That would be foolish! In fact, the Lord Jesus knew His audience would understand and appreciate this illustration. He knew that they got the greater theological point, that it would have been a waste. Our spiritual insights, experiences, and the good news of the gospel are precious treasures not to be wasted on those who do not value them.

Then the Lord Jesus said, "nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."

Like giving holy meat to dogs who will not appreciate it, pigs will never recognize the value of pearls. Pigs value slop a lot more than they do pearls. The pig in this case represented those who had no appreciation for the value system of God. And here, only after instructing us concerning the removal of the beam from our eye did the Lord Jesus instruct us concerning making right judgments. The pearl is representative of that which is precious and valuable. In this case, the Lord Jesus was metaphorically equating them to precious truths He has given us and that we should not invest these truths in someone whom we know will not appreciate them.

In context, the Lord Jesus here described the difference between the nature of true righteousness and that of self righteousness. In the general context of today's verse, the religious leaders were those who copied the law and acted as lawyers in the lives of the people concerning that law. They were those who prided themselves on keeping all the law according to the traditions handed down to them, but their hearts were not engaged. These people were those who were supposed to understand the value of the law, its holy nature and how it should be followed. But, they twisted the meaning of the Law and used it for their own selfish gain. 

The point here is we must exercise discernment and we do so by investing in the truth for ourselves. By giving it safe haven in our souls. By doing so we demonstrate that what is most important to God are most valuable to us. We will be serving God and we can rest peacefully in His promise to provide for our needs as we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And, sometimes we must be circumspect with people who do not appreciate the love and grace of God. Knowing when to step back requires the ability to separate the dogs and the hogs from the lost sheep looking for a shepherd. 

Our salvation is not cheap. Oh, it is free to us and we could never earn it, but it is by no means cheap because it cost the Lord Jesus so much. I cost Him pain, isolation from His Father, and loss. This makes God's grace the most expensive thing in the world. It was on the cross of Calvary that the Lord Jesus Christ became the final sacrifice for mankind's sin. He paid for our salvation with His very life. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of the unblemished and spotless Lamb of God. While human love is almost always based on the attractiveness of the object that it loves, God's love is based on the purity of love itself. Man's love says, "If the object is more attractive, there's more love. If the object is less attractive, there's less love. It is based upon the value, worth, status, and beauty of the object being loved."

God's love is different. God's love is not like human love. God's love is not object-oriented it is subject-oriented. It is part of His nature, His character, completely independent of the beauty, attractiveness, and value of the object. His love is completely dependent on the quality of the subject giving the love. It is unusual to love an enemy, but the God of the Bible is so inclined. He was so inclined that He sent His Son who had never committed one sin to take on the penalty of our sinfulness so that we could be pronounced by Him perfect in His eyes. This is true love.