Jesus' Sermon on the Mount

Lynn G. Jackson

There were many times in Jesus' life when he went off alone to pray. Sometimes after he prayed, he'd call his disciples aside to teach them.

One of his early followers put Jesus' most important sayings together. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew tells of Jesus sitting on a hillside talking to his followers in the form of a sermon. Today we call this the Sermon on the Mount (see Matt., chaps. 5—7). Some of the ideas in the sermon can also be found in the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke (see Luke 6:20—49). Jesus probably gave talks like this at many times. The Gospel of Matthew records four other long talks (chaps. 10, 13, 18, 24—25).

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks with a lot of wisdom and power, even more so than Moses or the Jewish scholars. He speaks as the Son of God and shows his disciples a whole new way of life.

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