This final week teaches us why historical context matters. Exodus 21:24 says, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” To modern ears, that can sound like permission for revenge, as though Scripture gives us the right to hurt someone back because they hurt us first. But in its historical setting, this law was not a license for personal retaliation. It was a limit on escalating violence. It taught that justice must be proportionate and that harm must not become an excuse for unlimited vengeance. That context changes how we hear the verse. What may sound harsh to us may have functioned as restraint in its own world. Then Jesus takes this already-limiting command and calls disciples even further, away from retaliation and toward a deeper righteousness shaped by mercy, courage, and love. As we close the series, we remember that careful Bible reading matters because Scripture can be misused to bless what it was actually trying to restrain. Faithful interpretation asks what a passage meant in its own world, how it fits within the wider witness of Scripture, and how it leads us toward the way of Christ.
