May 1, 2017
In this upcoming session of Devotionary, we’re going to take a slight departure and deal with a particular passage of Scripture, but not an entire book. That’s not normally how we operate, but I think you’ll see what I’ve chosen to give this passage special treatment. I am talking about Matthew, chapters five through seven. You’ll probably recognize it by its more familiar name: The Sermon on the Mount. Of course, what sets this passage apart is not its name, but its author. In it, we have the words of Jesus Himself, as recorded by Matthew. It was Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, who first coined the title, the Sermon on the Mount. That was all the way back in the middle of the first century, and it has stuck with us to this day.
While less a traditional sermon, and more a collection of teachings shared in a classroom like format, the words found in these three chapters in the gospel of Matthew are nevertheless significant because of what they say and who said them. So, over the next weeks, we are going to dig into this powerful passage and see what we can learn from words that came directly from the lips of Jesus. Hope you enjoy it.