Matthew 5:1 & 7:28-29 – Preaching and Teaching the Kingdom

We have read about the king’s heritage, the king’s herald, the coming kingdom, and the king’s baptism and temptations, but it isn’t until Matthew 5 that we encounter the king teaching the kingdom. It may seem as though there is a preposition missing in that last sentence but there isn’t; the king — Jesus — is not teaching about the kingdom — he isn’t saying, “This is what the kingdom is like” — Jesus is saying, “This is the kingdom.” When John and Jesus preached “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” they were announcing the coming of the kingdom, but when Jesus taught in the synagogues (Matt. 4:23) and taught his disciples on the top of the mountain (Matt. 5:1-2), Jesus instructed them in the ways of the kingdom. Jesus’s teaching, as recorded in Matthew 5-7, is often called “The Sermon on the Mount,” a seemingly appropriate title since this lesson was given on the mountain. But this wasn’t really a sermon, it was more like an outdoor classroom instruction between Jesus and his disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John (Matt. 4:18-22); Matthew doesn’t become a disciple until Matthew chapter 9. It seems safe to say that this was a very small classroom — Jesus and four disciples — at least that is how it began. Matthew writes,

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

Matthew 5:1

The most literal meaning of this passage is probably that Jesus and his four disciples escaped the crowds and sat down on the side of a hill. But, by the time Jesus finished teaching, more had joined them. Matthew wrote,

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,

Matthew 7:28

What began as a few guys sitting around on the mountainside ended up as masses huddled around Jesus listening to him teach, and, Matthew tells us, they were astounded at what they heard.

I was a student for many years and a teacher for a number more, and there is at least one thing I learned while in the classroom: the teacher either brings the material to life or he kills it. When it comes to Jesus and from what we read in these verses, it seems that he was a teacher who brought the material to life. Matthew even tells us why. Matthew wrote,

for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:29

Jesus’s teaching we call The Sermon on the Mount sets, even by the standards of the Pharisees, a high benchmark. For instance, Jesus said a number of times, “You have heard…but I tell you…” With those words, he told his students that the law required more of them, not less. They understood that the law restricted their behavior, but Jesus told them the law really restricts their thoughts as well. Sure, murder is wrong, but you can’t hate someone in your heart. Sure, adultery is wrong, but you can’t lust. Sure, you need to love your friends, but you also need to love your enemies. But Jesus didn’t stop there. Every other portion of his teaching that day was more restrictive than the law, not less. Jesus didn’t teach that we had freedom from the law, he taught that the law hadn’t been fully understood.

Paul helps us understand a little bit more what Jesus’s teaching did when he wrote, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Before the law — before Moses — there was no direct knowledge of the law, God’s moral standards. The people at that time lived under what might be termed a cloud of ignorance. But when Moses came down the mountain with the law, that cloud lifted to reveal God’s standards. But, I might suggest, in place of the cloud a mist remained. But that mist was finally dispelled when Jesus sat on the mountain and explained how the law restricted more than behavior; God’s plan was for us to be changed externally and internally. We are to become new creatures. But to become such new creatures, we need to understand the full extent of the law, and thus, the full extent of our sinful nature. This is what Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount does, it reveals how sinful we actually are.

So, one might wonder, with Jesus explaining this greater burden to his students, why were people drawn toward this teaching that exceeded the burdens imposed by the religious leaders? Why was the crowd astonished? Why did they continue to follow him?

I suspect the answer to these questions lies in the nature of the teacher, not the content. When we get to Matthew 23 we will see that the Scribes and Pharisees seemed to enjoy imposing rules upon the people. They also seemed to enjoy the power and privilege their position granted them. But I tell you — and you probably already know this from your own experience — students can sniff out bad teachers. Some teachers just punch the clock waiting for retirement. Some teach, whether consciously or not, because of the power it affords them over others. Some teach because of summer vacation. And students can always tell who those teachers are. But there are other teachers — you were lucky to find them — who taught because they loved the students and they loved the material; they would have even taught for free if they could have afforded it. Students know who these teachers are and they gravitate toward them. These teachers are revered by their students because of their love for the student and because of the authority they bring to their subjects. And, even if the course work is difficult, students still flock to these teachers because they want to be part of what is going on in their classroom; they know that it’s always exciting to be around a benevolent authority. And Jesus was such a teacher. Furthermore, at this point in Jesus’s ministry, they didn’t know he was the Son of God, but because they knew he loved people and they knew he was an authority on his subject matter; they wanted to be part of what was going on around him.

Before we dive into any of the details of Jesus’s teaching on the kingdom, let’s step back and think about this. When Jesus taught the kingdom of heaven, the people were astonished, they were drawn to him, and they didn’t run away and curse him; only the religious leaders did that. But take note, while we are told the sorts of healings he performed (Matthew 4:24), we are not told the content of his teachings. It is probably a good assumption that his teaching during those days was consistent with the teaching in Matthew 5-7, but we really don’t know for sure. But, if I may jump to John’s Gospel, we know something that his teaching wasn’t. John writes that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but he came into the world that it might be saved (John 3:17; 8:11-15; 12:47). John also provides a story, only found in John’s Gospel, that might be one of the most telling moments of Jesus’s ministry; a woman caught in the act of adultery was about to be stoned to death. After dismissing the stone-carrying crowd that had already condemned the woman to death, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11). Jesus had every right — more than any human — to condemn this woman to death, but he didn’t. The message of the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus preached it, taught it, and lived it, was a message of inclusion, not exclusion; love not judgment; forgiveness, not condemnation.

Those flocking to Jesus knew he was a man unlike any other they had seen before. Jesus’s authority came from the fact that his actions matched his teaching, and his teaching made sense. I don’t mean to say the people filtered Jesus’s words through a logic sieve (although what he says does make logical sense), but the people knew that Jesus’s message was real and true; it wasn’t full of lies and hypocrisy like the message they heard from the Pharisees.

This is such a basic message that I’m tempted to delete it and start over again; after all, aren’t messages from scripture supposed to be new, unique, and profound? Well, sometimes we need to be reminded of the most basic of things. So much of our time is focused on what we think are the really big-ticket items; church budgets, church attendance, not cheating on our taxes, not killing our neighbor. Our prayers are focused on the immediately important things or those things yet to come, and perhaps those things should be the focus of our prayers. But then again, I wonder if such a view might be missing a key element.

The kingdom for which we pray is all of those things — church growth, personal needs, personal purity — but it is also important that we are a consistent herald of the kingdom. Perhaps, our prayer “Your kingdom come,” should be a prayer to become like Jesus in how we preach and teach the kingdom. Certainly, we hope those employed by a church would be Christlike as they preach and teach, but we must not forget that each of us is part of Jesus’s church; we are his mothers and brothers (Matt. 12:48-50), and all of us have only one teacher, the Messiah (Matt. 23:10). The person filling the pulpit and the person filling the lectern are equally subject to the teachings of the Messiah as those sitting in the pews and those at the desks. We pew and desk dwellers are not excluded from the prayer “Your kingdom come.” Jesus included, forgave, and loved when he taught the kingdom of heaven, so each of us also must include, not exclude; we must forgive, not condemn; we must love, not judge. It is in this way that Jesus’s unveiling of the more restrictive message of the kingdom of heaven was received with open arms and amazement. But if the kingdom has not come into our lives, then regardless of whatever message it is that we are preaching, we are merely modern incarnations of the Pharisees: teachers without authority.

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