First Episodes
Episode 1: Inauguration
The Sermon on the Mount, found in chapters 5 through 7 of the gospel of Matthew, contains some of the best-known and most challenging teaching of Jesus. In it, he teac...
Episode 2: The kingdom is at hand
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ sermon about the kingdom of heaven doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Matthew tells the story of Jesus in such a way that the kingdom is the th...
Episode 3: Bookends… and everything between
The Sermon on the Mount contains multiple references to the kingdom of heaven. From that alone, one might see that the kingdom is the central theme. But there’s anothe...
Episode 4: You call that “blessed”?
The sermon opens with a set of “beatitudes” or statements about blessing. But what Jesus says about people who can be counted as “blessed” may seem odd—he describes th...
Episode 5: The haves and the have-nots
To understand the so-called “Beatitudes,” it’s helpful to read them alongside the similar statements of both blessing and woe that we find in Luke 6. Old Testament sch...