The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

This week, I've been pondering how the individual paragraphs of Matthew 7 fit into the whole chapter. It's always a mistake to take a paragraph of Scripture away from its context, and to read it with no regard to where it comes. In this case, these paragraphs were spoken by Jesus, but he said them as part of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. We won't understand those paragraphs rightly unless we understand what Jesus was saying by them, and we won't understand that unless we see them as contributing to Matthew 5-7.

I discovered that Matthew 7:12 is the end of the body of the Sermon, and that Jesus' conclusion begins in Matthew 7:13. Therefore, rather than trying to place the paragraphs into Matthew 7 as a unit, I treated Matthew 7:1-12 and 7:13-27 separately.

But now it's time to draw all these threads together. It's time to ask how Matthew 5-7 is structured.

There won't be anything blindingly new here for anyone who has studied this Sermon in any detail, But it's important to take stock of how the Sermon coheres. I'm about to preach on Matthew 7:1-6, and then to preach on the rest of Matthew 7 at different points throughout the autumn. I will need to keep coming back to the whole Sermon, otherwise I'll get the individual units badly wrong.

Introduction: 5:1-16

• 5:1-12 - What Jesus gives us. Jesus paints himself as the bringer of God's blessings to those who lack / need his blessing. God does not reward those who help themselves, but graces those who come empty handed.
• 5:13-16 - The identity Jesus calls us two. We are like salt in the earth and light to shine on the world. These similes paint pictures both of distinctiveness and influence. They are fundamentally corporate - the light is like a city on a hill

The Body of the Sermon: 5:17-7:12

• 5:17-19 - Jesus and the Old Testament. He did not come to abolish it, but to fulfil it.
  • 5:20-48 - Jesus fulfilled the law in general. Taking laws that speak of how we relate to God and to our neighbours, Jesus shows how his people keep God's law from their hearts.
  • 6:1-34 - Jesus leads us to love God
    • 6:1-18 - We are to love God sincerely - not as a way to win the favour of others
    • 6:19-34 - We are to love God trustingly - not with a parallel greed or worry for material possessions
  • 7:1-12 - Jesus leads us to love our neighbours
    • 7:1-5 - We are not to judge others
    • 7:6 - We are not to be totally undiscriminating as we relate to others
    • 7:7-11 - Loving others in this way is hard, so we will need to ask God to initiate us into this way of life. (Compare 5:1-12)
    • 7:12 - In summary: Loving our neighbour means doing as we would done to.
• 7:12 - Jesus and the Old Testament: He summarised it as treating others as we would be treated, which only God's adopted children could do

Conclusion: 7:13-29

• 7:13-14 - Jesus' way is narrow and hard - but it's the way to life
  • 7:15-20 - Don't miss out because false prophets tell you there's an easier way.
  • 7:21-23 - Don't miss out because you think it's enough to speak of Jesus.
  • 7:24-27 - Don't miss out because you think it's enough to listen to Jesus.
• 7:28-29 - Follow Jesus as the Lord, the one who has God's own authority.