Matthew 5:25 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 5:25 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Agree 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.”

Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. The practical wisdom of quick settlement extends the anger antithesis into the domain of legal disputes. The escalation from accuser to judge to guard to prison communicates the compounding consequences of unresolved conflict: what could be settled quietly becomes a public legal process that produces confinement. Luke 12:58–59 records the same instruction in a slightly different context, suggesting it was a recurring element of Jesus' teaching. The practical advice about legal disputes is simultaneously a parable about the consequences of refusing reconciliation: the imprisonment that results from stubbornness in human courts images the deeper imprisonment of unresolved spiritual enmity.

Church Fathers on Matthew 5:25

The Lord suffers us at no time to be wanting in peaceableness of temper, and therefore bids us be reconciled to our adversary quickly, while on the road to life, lest we be cast into the season of death before peace by joined between us.
Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century

The word here in our Latin books is 'consentiens,' in Greek, ευνοων , which means, 'kind,' 'benevolent.'
Jerome · 4th century

Let us see who this adversary is to whom we are bid to be benevolent. It may then be either the Devil, or man, or the flesh, or God, or His commandments. But I do not see how we can be bid be benevolent, or agreeing with the Devil; for where there is good will, there is friendship, and no one will say that friendship should be made with the Devil, or that it is well to agree with him, having once proclaimed war against him when we renounced him; nor ought we to consent with…
Augustine · 4th century · Serm. in Mont, i, 11

Read all 19 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

Publish a reflection on this verse

No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!