Chunks: The Sermon on the Mount

<p>How can one tell between a sheep and a wolf? Jesus answers the question by shifting metaphors: you can tell what kind of a tree you’re looking at by the fruit it produces. His words help us understand one of the...

<p>Jesus’ second warning is about false prophets, whom he likens to wolves disguised as sheep so they can infiltrate and devour the flock. False prophets claim to speak God’s truth, but spread lies, potentially leading...

<p>Sometimes, the gospel is presented as a choice between two destinies: heaven and hell. Choose Jesus and go to heaven, or refuse Jesus and go to hell. But the Christian life is more than just choosing where to spend...

<p>Psalm 1 portrays life as a continual choice of which path we will walk: the path of righteousness that leads to blessedness, or the path of wickedness that leads to destruction. That image permeates the whole...

<p>We expect to be encouraged and uplifted when we listen to sermons; we don’t hear someone preach “hellfire and damnation”—like the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But Jesus...

<p>We may not have enemies of the kind that crucified Jesus. But we do have people we don’t want to love. We know that Jesus commanded us to love our enemies. How might the Golden Rule give us a place to start?</p>

<p>The Old Testament contains 39 books, many of which are quite different from each other in style and content. Who would dare to distill all of that wondrous complexity down to a sentence or two? As we’ve seen, Rabbi...

<p>One of the most famous lines from the sermon is what we know as the Golden Rule. Others before Jesus had taught similar principles, including the great Rabbi Hillel. But Jesus’ teaching was more demanding morally...

<p>In the sermon, Jesus teaches his hearers to pray for what they need. And he insists that God, as our trustworthy and loving Father, gives only good gifts to his children. But again, that doesn’t mean that God will...

<p>We sometimes come to Scripture looking for promises that God will give us whatever we ask. Virtually any Bible verse about God's care and compassion can be turned into a "promise" that obligates God to grant whatever...

<p>One of the oddest verses in the sermon refers to dogs and pigs—and not surprisingly, scholars have debated its meaning for centuries. The language seems harsh and off-putting, and it’s easy to imagine the Pharisees...

<p>In teaching about hypocritical judgment, Jesus uses the humorous metaphor of someone with a plank in his eye trying to take a speck out of someone else’s eye. Indeed, there’s a well-established principle of...

<p>Many if not most of us have been judged unfairly at one time or another. And we have done the same to others, though we may not have known it. At the beginning of Matthew 7, Jesus warns his hearers not to be...

<p>Jesus has told his hearers not to worry; it’s unnecessary and pointless. But that’s not to say that worrisome things won’t happen. Whether large or small, troubles will come our way. Can we still trust God in the...

<p>Jesus’ instruction to seek God’s kingdom above all is one of the best-known lines of the sermon. But we have to read it rightly. It can sound like he’s saying, “Do a good job of seeking the kingdom, and God will...