Don KirklandIt was an especially good day for Christianity when Matthew, a tax collector who also went by the name of Levi, abandoned his job and signed on as a follower of Jesus. Matthew, an able writer, is credited with producing the opening book of the New Testament, a portrait of Christ that became the teaching gospel of the early church.
Matthew was not the first gospel writer; that distinction belongs to Mark, who gave us a fast-paced and unadorned account of mostly events in the life of Jesus that he probably drew from the preaching of, or interviews with, the apostle Peter.
Matthew made extensive use of Mark’s writing, reproducing most of it. Matthew, however, includes in his gospel much material not found in Mark that deals more with what Jesus said than what he did. Moreover, Matthew even arranged the sayings into five “teaching blocks,” all having to do with the kingdom of God and beginning with the laws of the kingdom as taught by Jesus in what we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7.
Whether Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount at a single sitting, or whether Matthew used the context of a sermon to present a collection of sayings by Jesus, has no bearing on the authenticity of what Jesus said or the authority his words carry. Matthew left no doubt that the words of Jesus are authoritative. In setting the stage for the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew said that Jesus sat down, which was the posture of a Jewish rabbi when he taught officially.
Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist and spiritual leader, spent hours studying the Bible and the life of Christ. He particularly advocated the philosophy of Christ as taught in the Sermon on the Mount – words which the Indian leader said “went straight to my heart.” A Christian friend of his once asked him why he did not become a Christian since he admired the Sermon on the Mount so much. Gandhi replied, “When you convince me that Christians live by it, I will be the first to become a Christian.”
That no Christian consistently lives up to the ideals set forth in the Sermon on the Mount is, of course, not a valid reason for not becoming a Christian. It does, however, call attention to a serious shortcoming on the part of Christians who freely accept the salvation offered by what Jesus did and then live with little regard for what Jesus said.
The standards established in the Sermon on the Mount are difficult, some would say too difficult to be realistic. Many who listened to our Lord’s teachings in that day thought the same thing, and some left him because his sayings were too hard. Someone has written that the Sermon on the Mount can be viewed either as a mirror in which our flaws are reflected or as a window through which we can see God’s intentions for a fuller, richer life. It is both, but we should never become so obsessed with the reflection that we cannot see beyond our failings to a life enriched by the teachings of Jesus.