When Jesus said, repeating Old Testament law (Ex 21:24), eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth (Matt 5:48), some might call that overdoing or extreme.  They mock scripture.  In fact, God was modifying the typical overreaction to personal wrong.  If someone takes an eye, you don’t get to take a head. The response must be just, equal.  Taking the head instead of the eye might be what you want to do when you look in the mirror and see with your remaining eye that the other one is gone.  This speaks of proportion that is built into the perfection of God’s law.

Some hate the law of God unless it benefits themselves.  They don’t want it as it applies to their keeping it.  It serves as their own Gumby® toy to twist into what they want God’s law to be.  Millennials don’t often walk about quoting with warm embrace, honor thy father and thy mother.  Many of them hate that law and refuse to keep it.

Proportion is a scriptural principle.  God’s law brings proportion.  With proportion, what’s important, what’s of greatest value, is what gets the most accolades, mentions, time, energy, and love.  Giving in the Bible is proportional.  God wants the firstfruits, the first ten percent, of what we earn.

A reason that God does not want to be represented by images, either drawn, painted, or sculpted, is their lack of proportion to His majesty.  God can’t be contained in human devices.  God is greater than any of these things, so He designates the only means of revealing Himself:  Jesus Christ Himself in the flesh, symbols His has ordained like the Old Testament system of worship, and the Word of God.

99% plus of social media elevates the superficial to important and what or who is the greatest in value to almost nothing.  It is the worst kind of lie, as it fools people in a more effective manner than someone just saying that God or His Word are insignificant.  In the latter, at least God gets a mention.

The Lord Jesus communicates proportion in Matthew 12:41-42:

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.  The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

There is Jonah, Solomon, and then Jesus.  Nineveh repents at Jonah’s preaching.  The queen of Sheba repents at Solomon’s preaching.  First century Jews in Israel reject the greater, Jesus.  The judgment is proportional to the greatness of the Spokesman and His Message.

When someone talks about himself, herself, entertainment, television, sports, a house, a car, hobbies, music, recreation, trips, or just jokes with rare to no mention of Jesus Christ, that isn’t someone who loves Jesus Christ.  Proportion communicates this reality, loud and clear.  The Lord Jesus brings this truth in His warning to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:17, 19:

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? . . . . Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

The gold and the animal brought to the temple and altar became greater than the temple and altar itself.  The temporal worldly things take on an unproportional significance in relations to God.  Proportion says the church is no longer about worship of God, but about self-help, about good feelings, about success, and about looking good and fitting into the world.  Proportion communicates through the sheer number of mentions, enthusiasm, excitement, and superlatives for what is meaningless, banal, and even profane in comparison to the paucity, near silence, and dullness of expression for the greatness, goodness, wonder, beauty of the holiness of God.

To expose missing or lack of right proportion, sometimes extreme forms of exposure of this wrong are required.  Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal for them to see that there was nothing beautiful or reverent about the religion of Baal.  When a friend or loved one loves something that is not lovely, sometimes the most helpful thing to do for him or her is to expose his or her beloved or revered thing to ridicule. God does this to and for Israel in Isaiah 44:9-20 (click to read).

The psalmist writes in Psalm 48:1:

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.