Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount

No end of books

Several books with red, yellow and orange covers

A random selection of commentaries

How many students can echo the words of Ecclesiastes, “of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Eccl 12:12 KJV). Yet the verse prefixes this statement with “And further, by these, my son, be admonished”. A good commentary can bring fresh understanding of the text and with that, new directions in our lives.

Hundreds of printed commentaries have addressed the Sermon on the Mount, a few being pictured above. Just as those pictured, they range from the devotional to the academic. This site also has plenty of information on the Sermon, including much that is original. However, if you don’t find what you are looking for here we have suggestions for other sources of information.

Opinions have varied considerably over what to make of the sermon. The early Christian theologian St. Augustine thought it was a perfect rule for Christian living and a new law, whilst the author Tolstoy described it as a plan for ushering in utopia. Some monastic orders believed it was a ‘counsel of perfection’ for an elite to aspire towards in the here and now. By contrast, a Dispensationalist might claim that it will not be truly kept until a future time, when Jesus reigns supreme. Amongst the scholars who later studied it, Kittle saw it as an exaggerated set of requirements that rendered faith a necessity, whilst Weiss believed it was a temporary arrangement, pending an imminent and dramatic intervention by God.

When scholars attempt to interpret Jesus’ Sermon, some of the important questions that they ask are:

Was it meant to be taken literally, or does it use figures of speech?
Was it presenting a minimum requirement, or a picture of perfection?
Were its commands timeless, or for a specific period?
Did it extend the law of Moses, or entirely replace it?
Was it for everyone, or only a chosen group?

Augustine and Tolstoy, Monks and Dispensationalists, Kittle and Weiss, are but a selection from the host whose varying insights have highlighted differing facets of Jesus’ words. But these are just a handful of all the hundreds who have sought to interpret and apply it (see the Bibliography for a few of them). No doubt, so long as God’s Spirit continues to inspire the text and bring fresh revelation to its meaning, and so long as academics remain puzzled by its intricacies, such books will never stop being written.

. . . now lets think about making the Sermon a bit more accessible by subdividing it into manageable chunks