We’re still on the hillside. Jesus is still preaching, teaching. We’ve heard him say, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, God’s new world, where God’s love rules human hearts and behavior.

So what does this higher righteousness look like? In that day the scribes and Pharisees set the bar extremely high. Even the Apostle Paul confessed that it was too high for him.

Jesus offers 6 contrasts between the righteousness of the old world, the one they knew, and righteousness in the God’s new world, the one he was demonstrating, proclaiming, and describing. Today we hear Jesus address two behaviors with which folks could readily identify: divorce and swearing.

I. Divorce

Jesus says, “In the old world, a man was considered…