I known I’ve been complaining about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John not giving us more of what Jesus actually said. They’ll tell us that Jesus went into a synagogue and taught, that people were astonished at his doctrine, that he delivered it with authority—but wouldn’t tell us what his doctrine was.
Well, we’ve discovered that the reason for that supposed lapse is that the doctrine is conveyed to us elsewhere in the gospel accounts. Jesus was an itinerant preacher, and many of his messages were the same in one location as they were in another. So we can presume that when we do find a comprehensive lesson from Jesus, we are getting what he taught in most of those places where the evangelists neglected to include the message.
In our study on the words of Jesus, we have come to Sermon on the Mount—which is the longest, and perhaps the most comprehensive statement of Jesus’ doctrine in the New Testament. And we have come to the point where Jesus is about to tell his audience something very important. I don’t know how his audience took it, but I know it poses major problems for modern Christian students. First, let me explain a little background that those listening would already have known…