PEARLS AND PIGS

[New] King James, always the wordsmith! For whatever reason, I hear this middle portion of the verse all of the time. "Don't cast your pearls before swine", some well-to-do Christian would state, radiating with the holiness of Moses off the mountain. Even I would use it as an excuse for not giving when I believed a homeless person, for example, would instead use my charity for alcohol or drugs. Even writing that makes me feel gross. Gross or not, I felt validated thanks to this verse! I knew I was doing things right.

Then I read Luke 6:30.

Because I assumed Jesus, who is being quoted in Luke, had boundaries with giving, I didn't think much about this verse. However, in a recent effort to be a faux-theologian, I dive into just about every verse I read. Pausing to consider this verse and to see what others have stated about it, my mind was blown. To quote my favorite angle on this passage, the NIV Study Bible states, "Jesus again stresses that believers must be 'generous to a fault'". Generous to a fault?! Ridiculous.

Immediately, I thought about throwing all of those precious pearls before swine and how we are directly warned not to do it! Then it hit me. Jesus is not talking about money. He isn't even talking about pearls, or gold, or anything physical. He is talking about something holy. He is talking about the gospel. But if Jesus is talking about the gospel, then I can't use that verse as an excuse for Luke 6:30!

So, then what do we do with the whole, "give to everyone who asks"? Give! Give to the point where we look foolish. Do you know why? Because it doesn't matter! Money has no value in eternity (can you imagine how much inflation would devalue currency compounded to infinity?!). Not only that, when we do give these things that are worthless away, it becomes valuable. Jesus states himself that when we give to those in need we are giving to him! Now that is a win-win.

Ultimately, giving can often be an uncomfortable thing. We don't know what is going to happen in the transaction. We don't know what is going to happen with what is given. We believe that we would be more responsible with the money than those who receive it. Areas in our lives that are uncomfortable are opportunities for us to press in closer to Jesus and become holier! So, give. Give the next time you are asked by a homeless man or stranger. Give when your spouse asks you to do something that they could easily have done themselves. Give when it feels uncomfortable. Give, simply because it is the only model Jesus ever gave.