While we cannot heal our hearts by the mutilation of our own bodies, we must never forget that Jesus came to heal our hearts through the mutilation of his own body. Gouging out our eyes, or cutting off our hands, could never cleanse the impurities of our hearts; however, Jesus’ broken body and shed blood is the only way to purify our souls.

In view of the serious nature of sexual sin, Jesus urges extreme measures: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matt. 5:29–30).
This is a challenging message because Jesus’ meaning is so clear: we must do whatever it takes to avoid the sin of adultery. It would be better even to cut off members of the body rather than be thrown, body and soul, into hell forever.
Still, this passage always raises the major question: is Jesus really calling us to mutilate our bodies for the sake of the kingdom? There are two unsatisfying ways of answering this question.
Bad Interpretation #1: “Don’t Take it Literally”
The first unsatisfying way to interpret this passage is simply to insist on a non-literal interpretation: “The point of these admonitions is clear without pressing for a literal understanding of the words.”1 This approach seems to make some sense in that it relieves the difficulty of such a horrifying duty.
This approach does not work well, though, when we remember the overall point that Jesus is making throughout this section: the requirements of the law reach infinitely further than any of us would imagine. If it is true that anger renders us liable to the death penalty (Matt. 5:22), is it so outlandish to believe that we should rather cut out our eyes and cut off our hands rather than go to hell?
We cannot smooth out this passage simply by wishing away its offensiveness. We need a better explanation for what Jesus is saying than to simply wave the difficulties away as “non-literal.”

Bad Interpretation #2: “Literally Mutilate Your Body”

Still, it is also an unsatisfying interpretation of this passage to do precisely what Jesus suggests here. We never read in the Bible anywhere else of people gouging out their eyes to prevent themselves from lusting.
In the only passage that comes even close to suggesting such an action, Paul commends the people of Galatia for their willingness to gouge out their eyes for his sake—but with an acknowledgement that it would not have helped anything (“if possible”), and that they did not ultimately do such a thing (“you would have”; Gal. 4:15).
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Perhaps most neglected of all anthropological doctrines has been the idea of culture. Culture fits squarely into the doctrine of humanity (with overlaps into the doctrines of revelation and bibliology). It examines the question of how humans are shaped by religion, how meaning is transmitted and represented, and how God’s providence and revelation has used and interacted with cultures over the centuries. 

When Joab prepared for battle with Ammonites, he realised he was now to face conflict from behind and before: from the city walls of Rabbah, and from a hoard of arriving mercenaries (2 Sam 10:9-12). He told Abishai to be ready to run to wherever the battle was hottest. It did not make sense to simply divide their forces evenly, for they did not yet know from where the fiercest opposition would come. Furthermore, enemies attack more fiercely where they sense the defences are weakest.
Believers who earnestly contend for the faith must mimic that approach: run to where the battle is. Practising swift sword-strokes in the air while on the battlements facing south when you can hear a real battle raging to the north is wilful ignorance, and probably cowardice. The quote attributed to Luther (which is a very dynamic paraphrase of his original words) runs thus :”If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
Similarly, the spiritual forces of wickedness are likely to assail that point of doctrine which has been neglected, poorly guarded, or merely taken for granted.
In our day, the theological battle is on many fronts, but none rages so hotly as the battle over anthropology. Anthropology – the doctrine of man or the doctrine of humanity – is one of those doctrines that usually gets short shrift in Systematic Theology 101. Along with hamartiology (sin) and angelology (fallen and unfallen spiritual beings), these doctrines have usually been seen as auxiliary to the grandly developed doctrines of Christology, soteriology, and even bibliology.
But today we see the painful consequence of neglecting any area of doctrine. For many of the false ideas of social justice, intersectionality, critical race theory and the LGBTQ+ are simply heretical ideas of the doctrine of man.
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It is entirely right to use logic to work out what seems right and true. However, we should not make our logical reasoning ultimate. For one thing, it depends on our prior commitments as to what appears logical. Unless we are able to assess all our priors, whilst we will reason logically, commitment to logic alone won’t lead us to a helpful conclusion. What do we do, for example, when the Church says things that are contrary to our logical understanding? It may be that what the church is arguing is totally illogical; it may be that our logic is faulty. We might be right in not merely accepting every word that comes from the pulpit just because it is uttered in church, nevertheless, it isn’t necessarily wiser to slavishly follow what is logical to us. The Lord, by his own reckoning, does not always work as we believe he ought.

If you are in church leadership, it won’t be long before someone disagrees with something you do or some doctrine that you teach. And that’s okay, we aren’t expecting total agreement on every issue within the church membership. It is okay to disagree.
But when we disagree, there need to be clear grounds for doing so. All too often, we default to certain arguments that really aren’t credible. Here are some of the common ones.
I was brought up to think…
There is, of course, nothing wrong with drawing upon what you were brought up with. No doubt, if you have been to a bible believing church, there will be some good things that they established. But some of those things, that may well be legitimate, are not demanded by the bible. Other times, it may simply be a blind spot in our church that what we were doing wasn’t biblical.
When we hit upon other churches doing things differently, defaulting to ‘I was brought up to believe…’ doesn’t get us very far. Two people, brought up in two different places, might be brought up to believe two different things. Who is to say which tradition is right and which is wrong? This is not a solid ground for reaching a biblical conclusion.
Our tradition says…
This is usually a more nuanced version of the previous point. We might not be rooting things in our particular, individual church’s practice, but in the established practices of our denomination. That might be a legitimate thing to raise if you are in an Anglican Church, who claims to hold to Anglican doctrine, polity and practice, but you think might be departing from that tradition. It isn’t unreasonable to say that, assuming the purpose is to be in line with the tradition and not some biblical matter on which the tradition is being challenged. Even then, no tradition can be above the scriptures. The aim of any tradition should be to act in line with scripture, so even a reference to tradition may not end matters.
But let’s say you have moved beyond denominations. You clearly are not wedded to your denominational way of doing things. You are now dealing with two different traditions. Again, which tradition is right? We can’t settle that with reference to our particular tradition. Instead, we have to go back to the scriptures to reach a conclusion.
Everybody interprets the Bible differently
Well, that’s not entirely true. Some of us do interpret the Bible in the same way as a significant chunk of other believers. So, we might be able to establish a fairly consistent pattern of thinking. It isn’t quite true to say we all interpret differently; many of us agree on significant amounts.
But where there is a disagreement that arises from interpretation, what are we to do?
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