The traditional view has a more refined meaning, recently stated briefly anew by Tom Wright,6 and it is the more accurate one. As “dogs” and “pigs” were terms used so widely by Jews of Gentiles (cf. 15:26–27) and all of Jesus’ hearers would have made that connection immediately, and as Jesus urged his disciples (for the time being anyway) not to preach the gospel of the kingdom to the Gentiles (10:5–6; cf. 24:14; 28:19–20) and to be circumspect (10:16), so here: this is a simple prohibition of taking the gospel and the kingdom vision to the Gentile world until after the resurrection, the Great Commission, the ascension, and Pentecost, which unleashed the Gentile mission—a theme that unfolds in Matthew’s gospel.7 For the time being Jesus wants his followers to “gospel” the Jews of Galilee and Judea even if at times gospeling will spill over to the Gentiles during his lifetime. Deliberate expansion to Gentiles will come later.
LIVE the Story
Sometimes in our zeal to “apply” a text, we fail to read the text in its context. And more often than we may all care to admit, our frustrations over how to apply a text can be completely resolved with a more accurate interpretation. The fuss that has been created over what “sacred” and (its oft-neglected twin) “pearls” might mean can be silenced if we admit that the best reading of this text is that Jesus was telling his disciples in metaphorical terms what he would say again in more direct terms when he sent them out: do not (yet) evangelize the Gentiles; they aren’t ready for it; it’s time for our fellow Jews right now (10:5–6).
Begin Close to Home
At one level, of course, history has completely uprooted this saying because from Matthew 28:19–20, Acts 10–11, and Paul’s mission, the gospel has gone out to the Gentiles. The church today is a Gentile church far more than a Jewish church. As we have interpreted Matthew 7:6, then, it has been “fulfilled” or run its course and it now belongs to a period of history—the two to three years of Jesus’ public ministry prior to Pentecost.
But on another level the point Jesus was making may obtain meaning for us in a new way: we could learn to focus our gospeling energies on those closest to us, on those who are in our orbit with whom we have natural connections, and to leave the worldwide preaching of the gospel to those who have that calling. Perhaps more of us need to gospel our families, our neighbors, and those in our community more than we are.
This does not prohibit gospeling in Africa, Asia, South America, or Australia, but it does remind us that the approach of the apostle Paul is one that can be replicated: he was a zealous missionary, but he always began on his home turf, at the synagogue with his fellow Jews. Jesus too began with his own people. But we do perhaps need the reminder that this saying pertains to a specific time in history—to the time when Jesus was gospeling the Jews prior to his crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost. That period will never occur again.
Hold Sacred Things with Care
But this text is telling us something about the sacred trust of the gospel. The gospel is sacred. In this Story of Jesus the mysteries of God are now disclosed to us, and in the privilege of knowing it and telling others of it we are in possession of ultimate truths. We are to honor what we have by treasuring it, we convey it to others with the most profound of speech acts, we are to study it because in it we come to know and be known by God, and we are to learn to talk about it only in ways that honor the glories that it holds. Yet we are charged by God to tell others about Jesus, the kingdom, and the gospel.
While some seem to enjoy the biting response of rejection when they speak of the gospel and may even take a sense of pride in “suffering for Jesus,” I am not persuaded our task is as much about being offensive as being wise and using our gospel energies appropriately. I learned in high school that taking my Bible into the locker room can be a good way to become an object of ridicule, and speaking up—which I did—is just another opportunity for ridicule, and I learned at that time that there’s a time to speak and a time to be silent.
What Jesus has in mind here is not fear about speaking but profound respect for the gloriousness of the gospel, a desire to honor God, and an approach to gospeling that does the most service to Christ. In other words, we need to ask if speaking up in a given situation will honor or vilify Christ, and then to act accordingly. There is no reason to venture forward if we discern confidently that this will yield nothing but an opportunity for someone to take a shot in public at God and the church. Instead, we need to learn from such discernments to spend our time on those who listen. What this text teaches us is that we have to learn when to speak and when to walk away, and sometimes walking away is the most gospel-honoring thing we can do.
Notes
1. Davies and Allison (Matthew, 1:672) see 7:6 counteracting potential misuses of 7:1–5. Guelich (Sermon on the Mount, 376–77) sees a connection to the salt of 5:13 and the sixth and seventh petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (6:13). Keener (Matthew, 244) offers this: 7:1–5 says don’t prejudge; 7:6 says don’t force the gospel on others. Turner (Matthew, 210): disciples are to be neither inquisitors (7:1–5) nor simpletons (7:6). John Stott (Message, 174–75) sees the whole of 7:1–27 shaped by various relationships.
2. Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 171.
3. N. W. Lund, Chiasmus in the New Testament: A Study in the Form and Function of Chiastic Structures (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 32.
4. Exod 29:33; Lev 2:3; 22:6–7, 10–16; Num 18:8–19. At Qumran a text, called 4QMMT394 (Halakhic Letter) in which dogs are prohibited from the “holy camp” because they are known to eat bones and meat (see fragment 8, 4.8–10).
5. Luther, Sermon on the Mount, 225–28. Luther’s concerns are the schismatics and the Catholics. Calvin (Harmony of the Gospels, 1:227–28) was concerned with foul scorners of the gospel. Stott (Message, 182) focuses on those who have decisively and defiantly rejected the gospel. This view was held by Augustine as well: ACCS: Matthew, 148.
6. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, 1:70–71.
7. It begins with Abraham in the genealogy of 1:1–17, shows up in the Gentile magi of 2:1–12, comes to the surface in Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (4:12–16). Along the way there are hints and glimpses, but it comes to full expression only with the Great Commission of 28:16–20.
Chapter 19
Matthew 7:7–11
LISTEN to the Story
7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
9“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
Listening to the text in the Story: Psalm 37:4; 84:11; Jeremiah 29:13–14; John 16:23–24; James 1:3–5, 16–17.
Most of us at some point in our Christian journey were taught Matthew 7:7 as a progression: first, Ask, then Seek, and finally Knock. The cleverness of seeing A-S-K in the first word seemed to make the interpretation right. Of course, the complicating factor is that in Greek this clever little mnemonic device doesn’t exist (although it’s close: A-Z-K).
Furthermore, many of us were taught that the three verbs (ask, seek, knock) were present imperatives, which means we are to persist and not give up, and if we kept on asking, kept on seeking, and kept on knocking, God would hear us.1 If we are not careful with this persistence theme, we create a God who seems to be either tired or busy, or perhaps uninterested, but persistence might stir his attention. Some appeal to Luke 11:5–8 (the knocker at midnight) or to Luke 18:1–8 (the persistent widow) to prop up the persistence view of our verses. Then along comes the preacher or author who tells us that any view that teaches God responds to persistence demeans God’s glory and character, and so we get stuck with these texts, wondering what they might mean—and so this text pushes us to think hard again abo
ut what prayer is: Does it really make a difference? Does God change the course of history because we pray, or don’t pray? Does persistence pay off? Is God sovereign? Why does God answer prayer—for his own glory or to form an interactive relationship with us?
This makes us wonder about what prayer was like in the world of Jesus.2 We perhaps need to remind ourselves that Israel was a praying nation. One of its favorite books, if we judge by the number of quotations in the New Testament, was the book of Psalms, a prayer book. The back of my Greek New Testament contains a list of passages alluded to or cited from the Old Testament. The book of Psalms has ten columns of passages cited in the New Testament, while no other book has more than five other than Isaiah, which has seven. It has been said that the average Jew had the entire book of Psalms memorized.
A personal experience with the monastic traditions taught me that some have always memorized the book of Psalms (in Latin, of course!) in order to recite it weekly in the daily office of prayers. As I mentioned earlier, Kris and I stumbled into an Italian basilica, sat down in the last row to cool off, only to be a treated to a Benedictine concert of prayer. The monks were chanting Psalm 119, which they knew by heart, as part of a weekly routine of chanting the entire Psalter from memory! Israel was a praying nation, and one central element of their prayers, and you can find these sorts of prayers throughout the Psalms, was petitions. The Israelites learned at an early age that part of praying was asking God for what one needed (e.g., Ps 55), and petitionary prayer forms the heart of everyone who learns to pray the way Jesus taught us in this Sermon (Matt 6:9–13).3
But petitionary prayer always faces a few problems, not the least being whether God, the God of the cosmos and beyond, really cares about my personal petitions. Jesus’ teachings here are shaped to speak to that struggle in prayer, and it leads us to see that God is a Father who is altogether good, and therefore a God who will respond to his people when they pray. We can finesse this text all we want, but Tom Wright brings it directly home: “But, for most of us, the problem is not that we are too eager to ask for the wrong things. The problem is that we are not eager enough to ask for the right things.”4
EXPLAIN the Story
This text virtually proves that Matthew 7 is more or less an eclectic collection of teachings of Jesus.5 Judging does not clearly lead to the teachings on not giving out the gospel, and neither of those sections lead directly to the theme of prayer. Moreover, none of these sections leads naturally to the Golden Rule in 7:12. It is wise to let the Bible be what it is—in this case, a random collection of Jesus’ teachings. But 7:7–11 itself is tidy: exhortations to pray are followed by promises (7:7). Verse 8 broadens verse 7. The exhortations and promises are anchored in the character of God (7:9–11).
Exhortations with Promises
Jesus’ view of prayer is probably drawn from the Jewish wisdom or prophetic tradition (cf. Prov 8:17; Jer 29:13–14): ask and it will be given, and so on. In each of these there is a conditionless promise that God will answer the prayer. Of course, Jesus wasn’t naive; this is part of Jesus’ exaggerated rhetoric, and Jesus knew that his own disciples prayed and didn’t get what they wanted (Matt 14:22–33; 17:14–21). This is why we have James 1:5–6, which can be read as a commentary on this text, as can James 4:3. Most importantly, it can be said that Jesus himself prayed and didn’t get what he asked for (cf. Matt 26:39).
Realities push us to probe under the surface promises. Jesus teaches that his disciples are to go to God, ask him, and expect him to respond. Why does he need to say this? Because the disciples are wondering if God will answer their prayers. Thus, 7:7–8 isn’t a promise that everything everyone asks will be given. Instead, it is addressing doubting disciples who need to be assured that God indeed loves them and that they can trust God (see John 16:23–24).
The Jewish tradition of sages or holy men illustrates the Jewish ideal of petitionary prayer. Thus, we think of Elijah (2 Kings 17:7–24) and Honi the Circle Drawer.6 Here is the Mishnah’s account of Honi (m. Taʿanit 3:8):
A. On account of every sort of public trouble (may it not happen) do they sound the shofar,
B. except for an excess of rain.
C. M‘SH S: They said to Honi, the circle drawer, “Pray for rain.”
D. He said to them, “Go and take in the clay ovens used for Passover, so that they not soften [in the rain which is coming].”
E. He prayed, but it did not rain.
F. What did he do?
G. He drew a circle and stood in the middle of it and said before Him, “Lord of the world! Your children have turned to me, for before you I am like a member of the family. I swear by your great name—I’m simply not moving from here until you take pity on your children!”
H. It began to rain drop by drop.
I. He said, “This is not what I wanted, but rain for filling up cisterns, pits, and caverns.”
J. It began to rain violently.
K. He said, “This is not what I wanted, but rain of good will, blessing, and graciousness.”
L. Now it rained the right way, until Israelites had to flee from Jerusalem up to the Temple Mount because of the rain.
Prayer’s Anchor: God’s Character
Jesus anchors petition in God’s goodness. Thus, if a son asks for bread, does any father (other than a creep) give instead a stone?7 If that son asks for fish, does any father give him a snake? This father-son relation is pressed into service here by Jesus to focus on God’s goodness. If we humans, who are evil,8 are good enough to give good things to our children, how much more will God give to us! Why? Because God is both better than us and is altogether good! This perception of God’s goodness can be found in Psalms 37:4; 84:11; and Isaiah 49:15, but we are also reminded of James 1:16–17. For both Jesus and James God is good, and God gives nothing but good things.
Matthew’s version varies from Luke’s in one significant way: Matthew 7:11 has “good gifts” while Luke 11:13 has “the Holy Spirit.” Perhaps Luke thought that all good gifts are found in the Holy Spirit, or perhaps Matthew flattened “Holy Spirit” to “good gifts.” Are there any textual clues about what specifically Jesus has in mind with “good things”? Some have suggested this refers to the necessities of life (as in 6:25–34), but the language of this text emphasizes not so much a particular kind of good thing but the goodness of God in responding to God’s children with good things, including provisions.9 God is good—God creates, orders, sustains, listens, adjusts, disciplines, elects, protects, guides, ransoms, saves, reconciles—and we could go on and on.
LIVE the Story
My experience teaches me that it is easier to make Christians feel guilty about their lack of a prayer life than it is to motivate them to become more active in prayer. The former (guilt) rarely produces the latter (active prayer). Jesus’ words in this text may be the most insightful words in the entire Bible on how to motivate people to pray: instead of using guilt to motivate, we need to cast a compelling vision of the goodness of our Father. Knowing God’s love, knowing God’s goodness, and learning to embrace those attributes of God prompt us to pray.
When it comes to those from whom I have learned about prayer and whose example spurs me to more prayer, I can do no better than A. W. Tozer.10 His practice, or better yet obsession, with bathing himself in the presence of God in prayer has been described by Lyle Dorsett:
Although the author [of The Pursuit of God] never boasted about his devotional habits, those few who knew him well knew that the angular man with little formal schooling learned much about his Lord and his God in the secret place. Tozer spent incalculable hours in prayer. Most of his prolonged prayer time—with his Bible and hymnals as his only companions—took place in his church office on the back side of the second floor. He would carefully hang up his suit trousers and don his sweater and raggedy old “prayer pants” and sit for a while on his ancient office couch. After a time his spirit would drift into another realm. In time, he would abandon the couch, get on his knees, and eve
ntually lie facedown on the floor, singing praises to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Genuine prayer, Tozer reminds us, is about a passion for God and an obsession with entering his presence. God delights in our presence and delights in sharing his presence with us. We are summoned to enter.
Two Temptations
There are many temptations when it comes to our prayer life; I focus on two. First, we are tempted as humans to figure things out ourselves and to make things happen under our own power. Martin Luther offers a powerful reminder in our temptation to go at life on our own:
The world is insane. It tries to get rid of its insanity by the use of wisdom and reason; and it looks for many ways and means, for all sorts of help and advice on how to escape this distress. But the shortest and surest way is to go into a little room (Matt. 6:6) or a corner and there to open your heart and to pour it out before God, filled with complaints and sighs, but also with confidence and trust that as your faithful heavenly Father He wants to give you His help and advice in this distress.11
The second temptation is to think God is distant and uncaring. This temptation assails me at times. How so? Kris and I have been in Cape Town and Johannesburg, Sydney and Perth, Copenhagen and Aarhus, Vienna and Frankfurt, and from New York to Miami to Dallas to Chicago to Seattle, and right down the Californian coast to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. We encounter a diverse world of people, entirely unknown to us and as busy as we are in their own worlds, and one has to wonder how in the world God can care about so many people at the same time. But this only reveals how earthly and earthy our conceptions of God are: the God of the Bible is so immense, omnipotent, and omniscient that for God, knowing each of us in the depths of our beings is an afternoon walk in Sydney’s botanical garden. The God of Jesus knows us by name, knows our minds and hearts and emotions, loves us (anyway), and summons us, as it were, into the divine presence to lay out our requests. This is not a challenge to God so much as it is incomprehensible to humans. Jesus calls us to trust him when he says God knows, God cares, and God wants us to ask for what we want.12
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