Matthew 5:25
25Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Darcy
When the accuser (Satan) accuses us we are required to agree with the said accusation. When Satan accuser us he tries to deceive us by getting us to focus on our own righteousness. We need to remember that our righteousness is not acceptable to God therefore we need to go to him in humbleness and weakness with the area we were accused in. We need to realize that Jesus alone is our only righteousness hence agreeing with the accuser. When we receive and accusation we should take that accusation to Christ for grace to grow and overcome in that area. When Satan accuses us we need to speak truth back to him. For example if he accuses you of not praying enough you could say "Your right I do not pray enough, but Gods word says that I have been given everything I need for life and godliness through my knowledge of Jesus Christ so I put my trust in him. We need to remember that we are not standing before a throne of judgment but a throne of grace. Humility is the key to victory over these accusations. Looking closer to home we need to have the same attitudes in our hoime and in our relationships. When someone dear to us speaks what looks like an accusation, accept it and search the heart of the father for further revelation,and if they speak truth, admit it and pray through it together.
Holly
Looking at Matt 5:35-26 we are to agree with our adversary so that we show humbleness to Satan and continue to put Christ as our righteousness. When we look at Satan as our adversary and God as our judge we can then look at how Satan will accuse us of a sin. If we argue with that sin then Satan has the right to point that out, so God can judge us. What we need to do is to agree with Satan and humbly say yes you are right but through Jesus I am forgiven. Satan constantly wants us to focus on our own righteousness being he knows that, when we are before God our righteousness is always unacceptable. We need to realize that there is always a basis of truth to the accusations Satan throws at us. Even if we try and justify or defend ourselves, if we stop and quiet ourselves we know the truth Satan is speaking. What we must continue to remember is that salvation is not all about what we are doing, but purely about who Jesus is becoming in us and to us. We need to constantly remember that Jesus is our only righteousness and we are justified by our faith in our Lord Jesus. When Satan comes to accuse us, we need to humble ourselves and really see the truth he speaks and then, say yes I am sinning in that way. But being Jesus is my savior, and died for all my sins even this one. Then we need to turn to God and ask him to forgive us to help us to walk in the way he would desire for us in that area, and to teach us the best way.
2 comments:
If you were to read the whole chapter of Matthew 5, it would be clear that Jesus is not referring to Satan at all in these verses. Rather he is speaking about relationships between brothers (and sisters). He takes the commandment: "You shall not commit murder" and goes further saying that "everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court" (Matthew 5:22). He continues on and talks about being reconciled to your brother (v.24). So verse 25 & 26 are about brothers who are taking each other to court over some grievance and Jesus admonishes them to reconcile with each other before arriving at the courthouse ("on the way"[to court]).
Paul also speaks to this issue of believers taking other believers to court in 1 Corinthians 6. He said that having such lawsuits was a defeat to the believers at Corinth. What kind of a message was that to unbelievers that Christians would even have lawsuits against each other?
As what Jesus was speaking about in Matthew 5:21-26 was actually happening in the church in Corinth, I believe He knew this would be an issue and so he was giving instruction on how to handle those situations in advance.
Words are being put into Jesus' mouth that He did not speak when it is inferred that Matthew 5:25-26 is about Satan and his accusations. This is dangerous ground to tread - to use passages of scripture to make a point that is not referred to in those passages. People have done this, making scripture say whatever they want it to say and false teaching has been the result.
I agree that Satan is referred to as "the accuser" (Revelation 12:10). All I'm saying is that if you are going to speak about Satan being the accuser and what is our Biblical response to that, you should reference passages that actually speak about that particular topic.
You are correct. The explanation is not in complete context, but if you see the bigger picture here you will see where I was going with this. It also doesn't contradict the word of God either.
Although the context of the verse is not fully explained, we focused on the first four words "agree with your adversary" Yes this verse is talking about brothers and sisters. We took a further look at agreeing with our adversary.
In Zech 3:1 God shows us that Satan is our accuser. In Timothy 5:14,16 and 1Peter 5:8 God confirms that Satan is our adversary. The point here is not in complete context of Matthew 5 25,26 but in principle. In the spirit of humbleness we take Satan's accusations, apply Gods truth, agree and turn our eyes to Gd in the heart of being strengthened in our weaknesses and Gods strength.
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