Build on the rock

February has been our month to review the Sermon on the Mount, viz. Matthew chapters 5 - 7.

Well here we are at the end of February (also marking the official end of summer here in Australia) and we haven't even talked about chapters 6 and 7! 

I've just read them in my copy of the Living Bible. 

Jesus' teachings are direct, practical, wise, and reassuring. They are our gold standard. Maybe we are still amazed at this sermon, as were the original listeners. It is recorded that he spoke with "great authority, and not as their Jewish leaders" (Matt. 7: 28 TLB).

Here's a passage that stopped me in my tracks this evening. Matt. 7: 24-25 - "All those who listen to my instructions and follow them are wise, like a man who builds his house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents, and the floods rise and the storm winds beat against his house, it won't collapse, for it is built on rock."

Now, we know that Jesus gave Simon the new name of Peter after he impetuously speaks up and identifies Jesus as "the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16: 16 TLB).  He says: "You are Peter, a stone; and upon this rock I will build my church..." (Matt. 16: 18 TLB). 

In her textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy tells us that "rock" stands for "Spiritual foundation; Truth" (SH 583)*. This hints at how we might build our lives on solid ground and thus avoid being blown off course when winds blow.

Readers will want to pull out their Concordances or open up the indispensable online Concord to study references to this mighty sermon in Mrs. Eddy's writings. Here are just a few to get us started: 

The first lessons of the children should be the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 3–17), the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6: 9–13), and its Spiritual Interpretation by Mary Baker Eddy, Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 3–12).
(Man. 62:24–4 The)

Every man and woman should be to-day a law to himself, herself, — a law of loyalty to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
(Mis. 12:12–14)

No purer and more exalted teachings ever fell upon human ears than those contained in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount, — though this name has been given it by compilers and translators of the Bible, and not by the Master himself or by the Scripture authors.
(Ret. 91:5–10)

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate morally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God.
(Rud. 3:14–17)

To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice.
('01 11:16–19)

Julie Swannell

*The whole definition reads: ROCK. Spiritual foundation; Truth. Coldness and stubbornness. (SH 583)