Dogs And Pigs

Good morning! If you have been here for a while, you know we are continuing the series called Learning to Live Like Jesus. It is a sermon series based on what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. We are getting close to the end. We are actually on chapter seven. Last week, Austin introduced the topic of judging others. This week, we are going to continue on with chapter seven with somewhat of a strange, interesting passage. A passage that is a little bit cryptic. It is only one passage, so I thought rather than having somebody read it, I would just read it from the screen. It says “Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under your feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.” This is one of those very strange verses and a verse that I think I could have probably skipped over and would have gotten no objections. We know in 2 Timothy 3:16 that all scripture is God-breathed and it is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness so we can believe in faith that we can glean a couple lessons even from passages like this. One thing we know off the bat is that Jesus is not being literal here. As much as it would not be advisable to give pearls to pigs or sacred things like a Bible to a dog, he is not being literal. But he is suggesting that there is something so valuable out there that we really have to be careful of who we give it to and how we give it out. This is one of those passages that is really tough because Jesus doesn’t seem to give us a lot of clues as far as how this passage should be interpreted. Consequently, you have a lot of different commentaries that seem to take all sorts of views on exactly what is going on here. The challenge as a pastor is to look at all the commentaries, listen to the Holy Spirit, and come up with some interpretations that we think would be beneficial for you. There is a lot of disagreement on exactly how to read this passage, but one thing that is in agreement is that Jesus is talking about something of really, really high value. When he is talking about something of high value usually he is referring to something that has to do with God or his kingdom. This isn’t the first time we would see this association between something like a pearl and the kingdom. If you were here last year, you might remember Austin preached on a passage out of Matthew 13 that compared the pearl to the kingdom of God. Matthew 13:45 says “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” If we were to look deeper into Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we would see that the gates of heaven are described as gates of pearls. It is where we get the idea of the Pearly Gates. Revelation 21:21 says “The 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was a pure gold like transparent glass.” When you see the word pearl in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, it always has a positive connotation, unlike the dogs and the pigs.

When Jesus is using the term dog, he is not talking about a house pet. He is talking about street dogs. He is talking about scavengers, wild dogs that would roam the streets looking for any morsel of food that they could get their hands on just to survive. If something was to try to take that from that wild dog, the wild dog would pretty much go on the attack. These were unclean animals. They were animals that were mean. What would happen is that the word dog would often be associated with unworthy people. So unworthy that some suggested they are excluded from the gates of heaven. Reading again in Revelation 22 it says “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.” He is talking about believers here. Outside are the dogs. Those who practice magic arts. The sexually immoral. The murders. The idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. So again dogs weren’t given a very positive light in the New Testament but neither were the pigs. Pigs also were considered unclean scavengers that would roam the streets and countryside. They were often associated with the Gentile population because the Gentiles would often keep them in large herds. You may be familiar with the story where Jesus went into the Gadarenes region where there were people that would have this large herd of pigs and Jesus encountered the man with an unclean spirit. Jesus cast out the unclean spirit from the man and cast the spirit into the herd of pigs. An association with the unclean animals. The word dog and pig were often used in a derogatory way especially in the New Testament. So that is a little background on that.