Sermon on the Mount ~ Part D

For those of whom may not have started at the beginning of this series, I stated in Part 1:

We will be looking at His words as best we can in chronological order using“The Narrated Bible in Chronological Order” by F. LaGard Smith. ^[1] While going through the Synoptic Gospels, I will focus more on Mattityahu’s version with appropriate references to Mark and Luke.

To date, we have covered the Beatitudes from Mattityahu 5 with reference to Luke’s version. As we saw in Part 21, Luke 6:24-26 includes the Woes immediately after the Beatitudes chronologically. Using a typical apocalyptic pattern, Yeshua declares that the present circumstances of the rich and poor will be reversed in the future.

²⁴ “But woe to you who are rich, for you, have already had all the comfort you will get!

Comfort was a blessing of the Messianic era (e.g., Isaiah 40:1; cf. Luke 16:25). Most of Yeshua’s hearers were poor, but Luke’s urban, Greco-Roman readership was probably better off (1:3–4); Luke pulls no punches for his audience. Laughter was often associated with scorn.

²⁵ “Woe to you who are full now, for you will go hungry! “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and cry!

Woe to you who are full now continues describing the rich, who have no worldly cares but are not rich in faith (cf. 1:53; James 5:1). Woe to you who are laughing now is not a condemnation of all joy and laughter, only the condescending, boastful, or mocking laughter of the callous, complacent rich who care little for others or God. They shall mourn and weep when God’s judgment comes.

²⁶ “Woe to you when people speak well of you, for that is just how their fathers treated the false prophets! ~ Luke 6:24-26

The fourth woe warns that, while true prophets were hated, excluded, reviled, scorned, beaten, tortured, and killed (cf. Heb. 11:32–38), false prophets were well spoken of, for they prophesied what people wanted to hear (or as we would say today “tickled their ears”). This is a warning against seeking the world’s approval rather than being faithful to God.

We now return to Mattityahu’s version of the Sermon on the Mount.

You Are Salt & Light

¹³ “You are salt for the Land. But if salt becomes tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except being thrown out for people to trample on. ¹⁴ “You are light for the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Likewise, when people light a lamp, they don’t cover it with a bowl but put it on a lampstand so that it shines for everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before people so that they may see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven. ~ Mattityahu 5:13-16

Jewish Believers are the salt, seasoning, and a preservative, for the Land of Isra’el, that is, for the Jewish people, and light for the world, for the Gentiles, as taught in Isaiah 49:6. God established a “covenant of salt” (Numbers 18:19), which is applied to King David and his descendants – that is, to the Messiah – in 2 Chronicles 13:5.

Then, the Jewish Believers in the Messiah are the righteous remnant (Romans 11), for whose sake God preserves Isra’el and the world. Sometimes Isra’eli Messianic Jews feel they are not part of the “real” Jewish community in the Land. But the reason Messianic Jews are there is to be the righteous remnant, for whose sake God preserves the nation of Isra’el. This motivates us to trust God, try to realize the Messianic Jewish vision, and proclaim Yeshua to her people.

In our next post, we continue to explore the Sermon on the Mount from Mattityahu’s Gospel.

Click here for the PDF version.

[1] Copyright 1984 by Harvest House Publishers. I highly recommend this edition as it tells the story of all 66-books of the Bible in the order they were written. It’s like reading a non-fiction novel from beginning to end. Citations are placed in the margins so as not to disrupt your reading.