Sermon on the Mount summarizes Jesus's teachings

Apr. 1—Told in its entirety only in Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount is a compendium of Jesus Christ's teachings that was meant to correct the inhumane religious leadership of that day.

Ministers Johnny Touchstone and Scott Sheppard say its themes are carried throughout the four Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

"It's the best sermon ever preached, starting with the Beatitudes," said the Rev. Touchstone, pastor of Vine Baptist Church. "We can fake it with people, but God knows our hearts and our thoughts. He tells us our hearts are deceitful, so we have to be focused on him.

"The Sermon on the Mount tells us to know how to live and says not to be anxious about anything but to seek the kingdom of God. It stands out for me because it has a lot of common sense."

Touchstone said the Sermons' lessons about adultery, taking oaths, being vengeful, loving one's enemies, giving to the needy, prayer and other topics are a guidebook to achieving holiness.

"Jesus wants us to be holy like him," he said. "He knows our hearts and thoughts and he knows if we're living with clean minds, pure thoughts and clean hands. I may fool you, but I'm not going to fool him."

Touchstone said the opening of Chapter 7 is often misinterpreted. "Jesus says judge not that you may not be judged," he said.

"We are to hold our brothers to account but not judge them for condemnation because that is not our job. It's God's job."

In Matthew 6:9-13, The Lord's Prayer, Touchstone said, "Jesus teaches us how to pray for adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.

"Prayer is something that's taught," he said. "We learn how to do it and then we practice. The Sermon on the Mount is full of good information that helps us to live before God."

Sheppard, minister of One Hope Church of Christ in Midland, said the Sermon "stands out because Jesus preached about 200 sermons in one.

"Everything he mentions could be a sermon in itself," he said. "He was concerned about how the people were being treated by their religious leaders because the leaders had reached a point where they were not very humane or Godly. "The people were bereft and spiritually downturned because they couldn't live up to God's law or the hundreds of laws that the leaders had imposed. But now we have freedom in Christ."

Sheppard said the most quoted verses are Matthew 5:13-16 and 25-30 about Christians being the light of the world, settling disputes short of court and the seriousness of adultery.

"Adultery was as rampant in that culture as it is in ours," he said. "God wants us to be as committed to the covenant we have with our spouses as we are to the covenant we have with him. We make a covenant to each other and we need to stay united in that.

"The Book of Hosea was written to show that we can be adulterous to God. God had Hosea marry an adulterous woman to prove that that was what Israel was doing to him and to call them back to their covenant with him."