The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, rev. ed. (The Bible Speaks Today)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
“The followers of Jesus are to be different,” writes John Stott, “different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture.” In the Sermon on the Mount, the “nearest thing to a manifesto” that Jesus ever uttered, we find Jesus' own description of what he wanted his followers to be and do.
In this Bible Speaks Today volume, Stott guides readers through Jesus’ well-known but often poorly understood teachings in Matthew 5 through 7. Leading us to listen carefully to the meaning of each verse in its context, Stott also confronts the challenges this text raises for today’s Christians and draws out practical applications.
This revised edition of Stott's classic features lightly updated language, current NIV Scripture quotations and a new interior design. A seven-session study guide at the end of the book will help you more deeply ponder the message of the Sermon on the Mount and how it speaks to your life.
- Explores the biblical text and relates it to contemporary life
- Features lightly updated language
- Includes seven-session study guide
- Introduction: what is this sermon? (5:1–2)
- Christian character: the Beatitudes (5:3–12)
- Christian influence: salt and light (5:13–16)
- Christian righteousness: Christ, the Christian and the law (5:17–20)
- Christian righteousness: avoiding anger and lust (5:21–30)
- Christian righteousness: faithfulness in marriage and honesty in speech (5:31–37)
- Christian righteousness: non-retaliation and active love (5:38–48)
- Christian religion: not hypocritical but real (6:1–6, 16–18)
- Christian prayer: not mechanical but thoughtful (6:7–15)
- Christian ambition: not material security but God’s rule (6:19–34)
- Christian relationships: to fellow believers and the Father (7:1–12)
- Christian relationships: to false prophets (7:13–20)
- Christian commitment: the radical choice (7:21–27)
- Conclusion: who is this preacher? (7:28–29)
Top Highlights
“The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed. It is the nearest thing to a manifesto that he ever uttered, for it is his own description of what he wanted his followers to be and to do. To my mind no two words sum up its intention better, or indicate more clearly its challenge to the modern world, than the expression ‘Christian counter-culture’.” (Page 1)
“Perhaps the simplest division is to see the first four as describing the Christian’s relation to God, and the second four the Christian’s relations and duties to other people.” (Page 22)
“For the standards of the Sermon are neither readily attainable by everyone, nor totally unattainable by anyone. To put them beyond anybody’s reach is to ignore the purpose of Christ’s sermon; to put them within everybody’s is to ignore the reality of human sin. They are attainable all right, but only by those who have experienced the new birth which Jesus told Nicodemus was the essential condition of seeing and entering God’s kingdom.” (Page 14)
“Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value systems.” (Page 35)
“This is not because we can earn mercy by mercy or forgiveness by forgiveness, but because we cannot receive the mercy and forgiveness of God unless we repent, and we cannot claim to have repented of our sins if we are unmerciful towards the sins of others. Nothing moves us to forgive like the sense of wonder that we have ourselves been forgiven. Nothing proves more clearly that we have been forgiven than our own readiness to forgive.” (Page 31)
- Title: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount: Christian Counter-Culture
- Author: John Stott
- Edition: Revised Edition
- Series: The Bible Speaks Today
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Pages: 202
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. N.T. Matthew 5-7 › Commentaries
- ISBNs: 9781789741490, 9781783590407, 1789741491, 1783590408
- Resource ID: LLS:BSTSRMNMT2020
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-08-30T23:11:26Z
John Stott CBE (1921 – 2011) was a Christian leader and Anglican clergyman who is noted as a leader of the worldwide evangelical movement. He is famous as one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974. John Stott was ordained into the ministry of the Church of England in 1945 and has served the same church ever since. He was assistant pastor of All Souls for 5 years, the senior pastor (Rector) for 25, and Rector Emeritus since 1975. During the last quarter century he had been set free (under the auspices of the Langham Partnership) to travel the world, especially for ministry to pastors and students. He has been a Chaplain to the Queen since 1959. He was President of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.