Sermon on the Mount

Distant Lighthouse
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

In this coming month in which Christians and many others celebrate the birth of Jesus, I thought I’d take a few days to post what is perhaps Jesus’ most well-known (and yet simultaneously unembraced?) sermons – the Sermon on the Mount. My more traditionalist blogging friend, Roger, actually made the suggestion in an email and I like this message so much, I thought I’d post it here.

A version of this appears in the books of both Luke and Matthew, I’ll use the version found in Matthew, chapters 5-7.

So as to provide a perhaps slightly different angle on the passage, I’ll be using the translation called, The Message, which attempts to put things in more modern language. It loses some of the poetry found in other versions, but it also sort of freshens things up for those who may have read this passage dozens or hundreds of times.

I will break it down into half-or-so a chapter at a time. I invite anyone to feel free to make comment along the way.

Happy Holidays, and Peace, Good Will to us all.

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UPDATE:

With two entire people complaining about my choice of versions (The Message), I'll switch over to some other translation. I'm nothing if not accomodating and I want to spend any discussion time talking about the content, not the translation.