Pearls and Pigs Do Not Mix

While the Bible is the dearest book to me, it can also cause me utter confusion. Jesus spoke and taught in parables most of the time, and his reasons for this was so that those who have ears to hear will hear (and understand) what he is saying. This is a little unnerving for someone like me who might read something a few times, and still be like…what the heck, I don’t understand this. Then my mind goes on turbo speed through thoughts of “Am I saved?” and other ridiculous notions. The thing with the Bible is that it is the Living Word. This is a difficult concept for believers to understand, so people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus just can’t even begin to grasp this concept.
Let’s start with the fact that I am no Biblical Scholar. Just a girl who loves Jesus with everything I am. There are lessons I learned right at the beginning of my walk with Christ, but honestly in the last few years I’ve understood and learned more than ever before in my life. This is just a passage that was always confusing for me, and has now had some light shed on it.

Pearls before Swine
Matthew 7:6
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs (swine). If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Parentheses Mine
If you are like me, you’ve read this one, and wondered why anyone would have pearls around pigs. I mean it’s not like you would ever wear your fine jewelry out to feed the pigs some slop. And feeding dogs what is sacred seemed to be the same thing to me, I just assumed that this passage was a literal passage. Don’t feed dogs food that has been sacrificed to the Lord, and don’t give pigs pearls. Yep, ok, I think I can handle both of those tasks. Seeing as the sacrificing doesn’t happen anymore, and I don’t own a strand of pearls or a pig, I should be good with this one.
I am not one to dig into the ancient Greek text, or meanings behind the Greek words. If it’s not spelled out in layman’s terms in the NIV Bible, then I tend to gloss over it. I just figured this was an irrelevant passage to me, and skipped along my merry way.
Until I understood. It wasn’t until standing in the shower, (which as a mother of 5 elementary age children is my ONLY alone time with God) that He spoke to my heart…child that is what I meant by casting your pearls before pigs. Tears had been streaming down my face, and all of a sudden they stopped as the most gentle and tender of words were spoken to my heart: I cast my greatest pearl down to swine. Some treasured Him, and some trampled Him. You are in good company, my child.
It was Christmas morning and I checked my phone first thing in the morning as I always do. I had a few Merry Christmas texts, and one that made my blood turn cold. The husband of a woman I had shared my story with had messaged me. In his message he heaped all the condemnation and disgust he could muster through the written word onto my head, and let me know exactly what he thought of my sin. I wept that Christmas morning. Even though I knew that I was clearly forgiven by Jesus and those I had wronged, his words stung. They were lies that I had used to believe, and had had to work so desperately hard to no longer believe that there was any truth to them at all.
My heart was so hurt. I had shared with his wife the story of my redemption as a way of reaching out to a women who was struggling to see past her sin to find our Savior. She took my beautiful story, the one that God gave especially to me, a rare and beautiful treasure beyond words…or a pearl…and repeated it to her husband. It wasn’t her story to share, even with her husband. It was/is mine. The beauty of it, was lost in when a mouth other than my own speaks of my story, because the words he heard focused more on the sin and less on the redemption.
In his anger, he felt the need to message me to tell me how disgusting I am to him. And when I contacted his wife to let her know that I would not be communicating with her husband, and to please inform him that all further communication from him to myself needed to cease, I was met with coldness.
Unclean, pigs. Dogs that devour what is sacred. Delighting in the gossip that my story allowed them to share.
I was so shocked. I thought this woman and I were friends. But she’d fooled me. I’d given her my most precious of gifts, my testimony of Christ’s redemption, and she used it to hurt me.
Standing in the shower and the tears rolled down my cheeks, asking God to remind me that I am not that girl that used to dwell in a pit of destruction, but to remind me of who I am in Him, those tender words were spoken to me, and my eyes were opened to such a confusing passage of the Bible. Tears of sadness were replaced with feelings of utter joy. I understood!!!! I saw God more clearly, and I thanked Him for His unceasing tenderness with such a foolish child as myself. Oh, how He loves.
From that tender moment in the shower, I have been pondering what it is to share your testimony. God has called some of us to live out so boldly for His Kingdom, and others to live quietly for it. What am I to do?
For one, I know I am not to live in the fear of rejection. I AM in good company. Jesus was rejected and scorned, and He was faultless, to think that I will go through life and have everyone accept every part of me is foolish.
Second, I have learned to never share my testimony out of fear. More than once, I have shared intimate details of my story with people who have used it against me. I wage war within myself on how much is too much to share, and how much is too little. The imagination is a crazy thing, but sometimes the details are far crazier. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people who know the details of my testimony because they walked through it with me. Those are safe people for me to talk details with, everyone else does not know the entire story, nor do they need to know it. Generalizations are just fine. And it is harder to cast stones of condemnations when you are uncertain of the details.
Third, no matter what we are not God. My desire to be known should be by my Creator, not of other humans. Humans no matter how good their intentions were not designed to love as completely as God does, there are some things that we just don’t want to know. I mean our curious selves wants to know them, but once we do…we are like…wait…can we just un-know that little fact about you, because someone we once held in high regard has just fallen down on her pretty little face and we don’t know what to do with that mess. So in our humanness we retreat or repeat, and both cause hurt.
So it’s a fine line, as is much of the life of a Christian. We are to walk boldly but know what we are going to say (and disclose) before the situation arises, so we are not left with a big ole’ mess when we walk out. Share, be honest and transparent…but save the nitty gritty for God.