Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount

Alright, we are continuing our study through the Gospel of Matthew here on the listeners commentary and our next section of text is the beginning of the well-known sermon on the Mount. And so before we jump in and look at some details of the text, I thought it would be really helpful to us to first look at sort of a general introduction to the sermon on the Mount and overview of the sermon on the Mount and get us up to speed on that before we walk through the details of the text. Also, if you want more details than I can give here on the listeners commentary, I actually began my very first podcasts going through the sermon on the Mount. Over five years ago on my other podcast, The Bible in Life, and so I have a whole series that is more kind of devotional and reflective and surmonic with some of the same teaching points, but walking through it and thinking through the implications. And so there's even more detailed teaching on the sermon on the Mount there on the Bible and Life podcast go all the way back to the beginning. Quality is probably not the same. I had a lot to learn about podcasting myself, both the technical side as well as finding my own voice in that, but solid teaching through the sermon on the Mount there on the Bible and Life podcast. So what we're going to do on this episode is we're going to just kind of look at some of the background and introduction and overview of the Sermon on the Mount to set up our walking through the Sermon on the Mount. And just to make it clear into the flow of the whole gospel of Matthew, we've noted how Matthew has these five big blocks of teaching that punctuate his story of Jesus's life and ministry. And the Sermon on the Mount is one of the largest of those blocks of teaching and certainly the most well-known. And so in the previous setting at the end of chapter four, Jesus called his first few disciples and then he has continued his ministry teaching throughout Galilee and his his kind of notoriety has grown, his ministry has expanded and crowds are coming to him from all different kinds of places, Jewish lands, Gentile lands, you get different kinds of people. That's sort of the setup for the Sermon on the Mount. And so as we enter into the Sermon on the Mount, the way we should think of it is like this that Jesus has some newly appointed disciples right in front of him who are signing on to learn from him how to live in his kingdom and live his way. You also have some other kind of disciples that maybe aren't formally going to become like the twelve apostles, but they are people who say they want to learn from this new rabbi Jesus. And then you have massive crowds of would-be disciples, curiosity seekers, all sorts of different kinds of people. And what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is, as his ministry is really taking off, Jesus declares some of the core values of his kingdom to in our language, say, to cast a vision for what really matters to him and what he wants for his disciples. That's what the Sermon on the Mount really is doing. So first little thing by way of introduction is just the location where was the Sermon on the Mount taught. We don't know 100% for sure, but the traditional location is actually called the Mount of Beatitudes just outside of Capernaum on a grassy hill. And as you sit on that hill, you look out, if Jesus were down towards the bottom, speaking up the hill, which is most likely, the crowds would be sitting there and they can look out across to the east, across the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful location. And it's an area that has ample space for large crowds. In fact, a number of years ago, the Catholic church was actually going to host a large service there in the traditional location. And they planned for over 100,000 people. That's much room there was now. The day of the event it rained and fewer people showed up, but there was room for 100,000 people on this hillside. So it gives you an idea of the space we're talking about. We don't know how many people were here at this moment. We just know from the end of Matthew chapter four, large crowds were following Jesus. So that's the location. I'll actually put some info in the study hub with some pictures and all of that about the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount. Now what about the structure? How is the Sermon on the Mount put together? This is really important because it kind of gives us a map for walking through it and the lay of the land. And there have been there are various ways that Bible teachers and scholars have sought to think through how the structure of the Sermon on the Mount. What I'm going to give you here is the way I think the Sermon on the Mount works. And so here's the parts as I see it. I think the first chunk of the Sermon on the Mount is sort of serves as sort of like an introduction to the Sermon. And that introduction includes the Beatitudes. It includes the information about Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets and about letting your light shine. All of that seems to be sort of like introduction to the Sermon on the Mount leading up to what I see as the thesis statement for the Sermon on the Mount. And that thesis statement is the bit about surpassing righteousness. Jesus says unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. I think that in a lot of ways serves as the thesis statement. So the first movement of the Sermon is up to that thesis statement. And what the first movement does is shows how Jesus is in Jesus' kingdom, the door is open wide to anybody in the crowd. Anybody in the crowd is welcome into Jesus' kingdom. But as they come into Jesus' kingdom, they're coming in with a calling and a vocation on their life to be salt and light to the world. And the way Jesus intends to make them that doesn't negate the law and prophets, but fulfills it. And that's why you have to have surpassing righteousness and that then becomes the thesis. And then you enter into the body of the Sermon on the Mount. And what you get in the body of the Sermon on the Mount is two big chunks. And the first chunk is examples of surpassing righteousness. Jesus begins to flesh out this theme of what do you mean by surpassing righteousness Jesus? He gives some examples. And that's where you get things like you have heard that it was said. But I say to you, what Jesus is doing is he's showing that he's not negating the law on the prophets. He's actually fulfilling them, fulfilling their intent, fulfilling their purpose, fulfilling their goal. And he's doing that by calling people to actually live out the very heart and soul of the law, not just the letter of the law. And so you've heard that it was said to you, you shall not murder. And anyone who commits murder is liable to the court. But I say to you, anyone who's angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. And anyone who says just as brother Raka, or you fool, shall be guilty enough for the fire of hell. This is an example of surpassing righteousness. And you get all of those examples through the rest of chapter five of the gospel of Matthew. And so you just get a bunch of different examples of what surpassing righteousness looks like, not just avoiding adultery, but also avoiding lust, being a person of integrity so that you don't have to cross your heart and hope to die. No, when you give your word, people know it's good because you're a person of integrity, surpassing righteousness, not just loving those who are nice to you, but also loving your enemies surpassing righteousness. And so, so that's the first chunk in the body of the sermon is examples of surpassing righteousness. And then beginning in chapter six of Matthew's gospel and that in the sermon on the mount, you get the second major chunk of the body of the sermon. What I like to call barriers to surpassing righteousness. So the first barrier is keeping up religious appearances. Jesus says in chapter six, verse one, that beware of practicing your righteousness before men in order to be noticed by them. And then he gives, again, a couple examples, illustrations of the way it played out in their culture with some traditional examples of things that made you look good religiously. The your arms giving, your praying, your fasting, those are traditional forms of Jewish piety that if you do those to just keep up religious appearances, you're never actually going to be changed from the inside out. It's going to be a barrier to surpassing righteousness for you. You get money and possessions and all of that. And it's like if you're living for wealth and you're constantly focused on that and your eye is fixed on that, it's a barrier to surpassing righteousness. No, you need to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these other things will be taken care of for you. And then the third barrier that inventions is kind of a religious superiority complex. It's the whole plank eye syndrome that he deals with at the beginning of chapter seven. And so through all of chapter six and the first little bit of chapter seven, you get three different barriers to surpassing righteousness. And then the final part of the sermon is the conclusion where Jesus then calls people to action. And he really gives two ways. Not the broad way but the narrow way, right? And there's several different examples and you know, be a good tree, not a bad tree. And Jesus calls people to put into practice what he has just taught because the one who puts it into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on a rock. The one who doesn't put it into practice is like a fool. man who builds his house on the sand. And that's the way I see the sermon on the Mount working. So you get an introduction up to the thesis statement about surpassing righteousness. You get examples of surpassing righteousness in the rest of chapter five, then from chapter six to chapter seven, verse six, you get barriers to surpassing righteousness, and then Jesus concludes with a call to action, a call to put into practice what he says. Now another important little topic by way of introduction to the sermon on the Mount is the relationship between Matthew's version of the sermon and Luke's version. So Matthew's version is here in Matthew five, six, and seven. Luke's version shows up in the middle of Luke chapter six down through the end of Luke chapter six. And there are many similarities and there are many differences. As far as similarities go, like the general content, there are certainly differences. There's stuff that Matthew includes that Luke does and there's some differences. But the basic content is very similar. Both Luke's version and Matthew's version begin with beatitudes and both end with the illustration of the two builders and the two foundations. And both Luke and Matthew address large crowds that include a smaller subsection of specific disciples of Jesus. So there are some similarities between them, but there are also some significant differences. For example, Matthew's version is much longer than Luke's. Matthew's version is three whole chapters. Luke's version is 29 verses. Luke has nothing about the Old Testament law where in the introduction section Matthew has an entire little paragraph about that. Matthew interacts with issues of traditional Jewish piety, the giving and praying and fasting section. Luke doesn't have any of that material in there. And even though they both include beatitudes, the beatitudes are different. In fact, Luke's wording is slightly different than Matthew's on the blessed part. And Luke also includes woes along with the blessings, woe to you and woe to you, right? So there are differences in their beatitudes. And the timing is somewhat different between the two of them. Although to be fair, the gospel writers tended to organize things in other ways rather than strict chronology more thematically. And so why there's such differences between them? Well, we're not sure. Is it just the way they've arranged it? Or did Luke just include material that fit his distinctive emphasis in his gospel? Whereas Matthew included more material because it fit his emphasis in his gospel? Or, just as likely as Luke recorded a version of the sermon, it was preached on a different occasion. And it was slightly different as a result. And we can tell from reading through Matthew, Mark, and Luke that a lot of the same things that Jesus said, he kind of recycled certain themes and certain sangs and certain statements. And so it's quite possible that Jesus actually preached one sermon on one occasion and then a slightly different version of it to a slightly different audience on a different occasion. And maybe that's the one Luke recorded. We're not exactly sure why there are differences between the two of them. The differences do communicate two different infacies. In Matthew, as I noted, the theme revolves around the idea of surpassing righteousness. In Luke, the theme revolves around becoming a genuinely good person who routinely produces good fruit in their life. Now those themes obviously are very similar and overlap and significant ways, but they are different in emphasis. And the reality is, however, these sermons came about, why ever they are different, both Matthew and Luke record the sermon to communicate core values of life in Jesus Kingdom, calling his disciples then, calling his disciples now, to live in a radically different way in the current world around us. And so for our purposes here on this commentary on the gospel of Matthew, we're going to focus on Matthew's version. We're not going to do a whole lot of comparison with Luke as we go through it, maybe a little bit, but we're going to focus on Matthew's version of the sermon and the reality is Matthew's version of the sermon on the Mount is the more well-known version and it includes some incredibly central material for living as a disciple or a follower of Jesus. The teaching of Jesus in this section is the kind of material that we should read back through on a regular basis. We should read it reflectively and meditatively and prayerfully. We should read it with an eye to our own life, letting Jesus as our rabbi teach us how we ought to really live life. If we believe Jesus is smart, if we believe that he actually knows what's best for us and how human life is supposed to function and how we really are supposed to do life, then we should take the sermon on the Mount to heart and read through it regularly, pray through it regularly, meditate on it, make the effort to even try to memorize the sermon on the Mount and I've made that effort multiple times. I probably need to remake that effort times I've had it largely memorized. I have found it very challenging for me to memorize if I'm being very honest with you. In fact, the first time I worked on it, I spent a whole year, and made very little progress, tried it a second time, again for almost another year, made a little bit more progress, but not much third time. Third time is a charm, I guess. I actually succeeded in memorizing the whole thing, but it's the kind of thing you need to go back to and tune up regularly, or just kind of seeps out, and that's where I'm at right now. So we should revisit this material, think through this material, and not just think about it as general teaching, but we should read it with an eye to ourself and for how it calls us to live differently in this world. And so this is some really important critical teaching, and we're going to walk through it in slightly bigger chunks as we go through it here on the commentary. It just makes sense to do that for explaining it, but as far as for teaching it, preaching it, meditating on it for ourself, there's a lot here for us to wrestle with. And so again, I recommend to you checking out my more reflective teaching and my slower teaching through it on the Bible and Life podcast, clear back at the beginning of that podcast. So check that out for a little bit more on this, and with that, let's wrap this up, and we will jump into the text of the sermon on the mount, specifically the be attitudes on our next session. 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