The Sermon on the Mount, home page

The Sermon on the Mount, overview, commentary, and background

Into just one discourse, now know as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus managed to pack the core of his ethical teaching. Recounted in Matthew’s Gospel, his words challenged the world of first century Judaism, provided a moral compass for early Christianity, and, over the past two millennia, have left a  legacy, in the form of ethical expectations that guide a substantial proportion of the global population. The Sermon on the Mount promotes a way of life that: embodies the love of God and touches people with it; knows the peace of God and helps others to find it; acknowledges the moral failings of humanity whilst offering solutions to them. It is a speech that touches the soul and changes lives in the process.

This site exists to help inquirers to climb the mount and sit with Jesus as his disciples did, understanding, through their culture, just how solidly the Sermon was founded on their Hebrew Bible, and hearing not just the grand sweep of Jesus' words, but also the more revealing nuances in his language. It also looks at some of the issues faced by those who now seek to understand these words in their current context, i.e. as part of Matthew's Gospel.

What's here

So what can you expect to find on this site? For the general reader there is:

For those who have a healthy curiosity and who want to go a bit deeper, there are sections written in a more academic style, as follows: