Year A, Lectionary 76
Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the Bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: Abolish • Adultery • Anger • Bible • Charity • Choice • Commandment • Decision • Depth • Discern • Encourage • Extreme • Freedom • Fulfill • Heaven • History • Holy • Holy Spirit • Journey • Lust • Mercy • Oath • Peace • Pharisee • Reconciliation • Reflection • Relationship • Salvation • Secret • Sermon on the Mount • Sin • Truth • Wisdom •
“Notice here Paul doesn't say they crucified 'Jesus of Nazareth' or even they crucified 'the Christ.' He says they crucified 'the Lord of Glory.'”
“Jesus is not forbidding the emotion of anger...what he is forbidding though is consent to that anger. Consent to that emotion which would lead to us acting on the anger either by insulting someone else or cursing someone else in outbursts and insults, to say nothing of you know striking someone else or for murdering someone else”
“that is why speech is given to us, in order to speak truth”
“what he was trying to express was the...natural experience of feeling attraction for the opposite sex and I had to be clear with him that's not what Jesus is condemning here. It's not a question of what you experience, of the passion itself, it's then what you do with that desire.”
“Instead of sitting in judgment against other people, let us harness that energy to work on ourselves in humility and let us pray that the grace of God may be sufficient for us until we come to our heavenly inheritance through Christ our Lord”
“The laws get us halfway there but our hearts have to change in order to be filled with faith, hope and love”
“The Sermon on the Mount releases the hidden potential of God’s Law. It is given not to enslave us in fear but to liberate us in love.”
“If we allow every situation of our life to shut us down, people of God, we can't love, we can't see, we can't move”
“Whenever I think about times when I've hurt others I can see that there is always a series of choices that got made leading up to that big hurt and unfortunately those things were almost impossible to notice while they were happening. The good news is that wisdom is knowledge born of experience.”
“everything Jesus did, everything was to remove burden and shame. Jesus did not diminish sin, he acknowledged it and forgave it and so banished burden and shame.”
“Our readings today challenge us to consider both how we make decisions and how we live them out as believers who seek to walk in God's wisdom”
“God's law can be trusted. Jesus invites us to go deeper. And the Spirit leads us through discernment that we can understand God's wisdom. These are lessons for our spiritual journey and none of them are simple but all of them are important as we cultivate a life of prayer and a response to God.”
“Laws in themselves can't transform people and that's what I think was part of Jesus' whole life...he wanted people transformed”
“He's not asking for a legalistic reading. Instead he wants us to do what ethicists often call 'interpreting the spirit of the law or the commandment.' And he's clear that it is the religious authorities who are not the final arbiters and often incorrect in their interpretations.”