Matt preached at Takanini Community Church last Sunday and gave the first sermon in his series on the Sermon on the Mount. Download and listen to the MP3 of Matt preaching on The Sermon on the Mount Part 1.
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:1-6 NIV
Matt will be preaching Part 2 at 10:00 am on Sunday 20 March 2011 at Takanini Church of Christ, 160 Great South Road, Takanini, Auckland – all welcome.
Hat tip: Christian LIFE Church Takanini
Tags: MP3 · Podcast · Preaching · Sermon on the Mount · Takanini Community Church1 Comment
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
I appreciate all the insight, these are the kind of sermons that I would like to hear more often from pastors. Some get a bit too practical, flaky or just ignorant and others may get a bit too much on the theological side of debates while not having much of any practical application. In fact, I wish more philosophers were pastors because clear God-centered thinking is needed rather badly.
With regard to the passage you’re covering, I am surprised at how much detail I have missed by ignoring the context and not spending enough time meditating on it. I completely passed over the allegory to Moses and the significance of Jesus sitting down or opening His mouth to speak. Typically I’ll just sit down and read the Bible but I do need to put much more thought into it than I have.
I do have one question: You said that one extreme is to let people walk all over you. What exactly would not “letting” someone walk over you mean? What would it look like and in what circumstances would it be justified? I realize that in one sense, it means that we do not put up some empty facade of being “nice”, especially when it comes to speaking out our disagreements, but often times when people use that it seems more like “I won’t let someone get away with doing this to me”. Perhaps not in a revengeful sense since you clearly said that it was wrong but at the least they will say “That’s enough” and attempt to put an end to it somehow.
This is important for me because some have had said that I do not “stand up for myself” enough. I am not sure what that would really mean, but apparently I let people boss me around? I wouldn’t let them command me to do something immoral but at the same time I am not exactly treated fairly either. It really doesn’t bother me much though, but some say I should be. Any thoughts?