The Teaching on the Hill

Jesus provides a pathway to human flourishing.

You see, that’s what this sermon on the mount is all about. Or, since it likely wasn’t just one sermon, word-for-word as we see in Matthew chapters five through seven (for that only takes about 16 minutes to read out loud), I think we can call it “The Teaching on the Hill.” It was probably delivered over a number of hours, at a leisurely pace, maybe even with back and forth from the disciples.

I’ve been studying the teaching from Jesus in these three chapters of Matthew in my personal communion time since my 55th birthday this last April. And now I get to share a bit of what I’ve learned, and what Jesus is teaching, over the next few Sundays for our church family. I’m so eager and excited to do so!

For what could be better than sitting at the feet of King Jesus, hearing what he has to say about how my life can be one of flourishing!?

Here’s how John Donne put it in a sermon preached during Lent 1629, not without a little pardonable hyperbole:

All the articles of our religion, all the canons of our church, all the injunctions of our princes, all the homilies of our fathers, all the body of divinity, is in these three chapters, in this one Sermon on the Mount.

And here’s how attractive it was to John Stott, reflecting on the sermon in 1978:

I have to confess that I have myself fallen under its spell, or rather under the spell of him who preached it. For the last seven years at least I have been constantly pondering it. In consequence, I have found my mind wrestling with its problems and my heart set on fire by the nobility of its ideals.

I hope you’ll be able to join us the next few weeks, in person or via our podcast, so that your heart, too, may be “set on fire by the nobility of its ideals.”