MT 7:24-29: A firm foundation
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https://newziondays.blogspot.com/2020/01/content-of-commentary-on-sermon-on-mount.html
Please see Notes to Readers here:
https://zioncallingyou.blogspot.com/2019/12/on-writing-of-sermon-draft-3-include.html
MT 7:24-27
We may here consider this OT passage:24 So anyone who hears what I have said, and does it, I will call a wise man who has built his house on a rock.
25 When the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and pounded that house, it did not fall -- because it was founded on a rock.
26 But everyone who hears what I have said and does not do it, I will call a fool who has built his house on sand.
27 When the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and pounded that house, it fell, and it was a big collapse.
28 When Jesus finished his discourse, the listeners were astonished at his doctrine,
29 for he taught them like one having authority, and not like the scribes.
PRV 10:25
When I was newly born again, I began reading the New Testament, beginning with MT. I was astounded. It was as if Jesus were looking up right at me from the page and uttering those mind-blowing bombshells. In my unregenerate phase, those sayings did not resonate. Now they resonated like loud gongs, as I realized that I had been heeding few if any of these admonitions.25 As the hurricane passes, the wicked vanishes, but the righteous is a permanent presence [or everlasting foundation].
And even today, decades later, the Spirit in me discloses their acuity and power. I still hear the Master's voice in those sayings. No matter what MTp was trying or not trying to do, the character and authority of Jesus jumps right out of the page. There never was anyone like him. Yet it is our desire and goal to become like him to the point that we become him. A Spirit-imbued person will want to conform more and more to Jesus, which does mean seeking to imitate the law of love and compassion, a "law" which results in behavior like that outlined in the Sermon.
In this passage Jesus seems to be insisting that he is laying down a moral code that, if one doesn't live up to it, will bring personal tragedy. I think we should see this passage in the context of the Matthean goal of establishing a new law that supersedes -- or fulfills -- the old law. Yet everyone knows how very difficult it is, if not impossible, to adhere strictly to this set of sayings. Each of these sayings is taken from the collection known as Q. We don't have any copy of Q, and so we don't know the precise wording that would have been found there and neither do we know their order. Given that to many scholars it is apparent that MTp tweaked much of MK in order to meet certain theological/ideological goals, we can expect that he probably tweaked -- which does not mean overtly falsified -- sayings in Q.
Hence, when Jesus made the comment given in verse 24, to which sayings was he referring? Was MTp enough of a mind-reader to know that they must have been the ones he put into the Sermon?
Or was Jesus talking in a somewhat different vein?
Whoever hears my message [of salvation] and follows through is like a man who builds his house on rock. When a storm came in all its fury, that house remained standing because it was properly secured to rock.
But the one who hears my [salvation] message, yet does nothing about it, is like a man who builds a house on sand. When the gale-force winds strike that house, it collapses, and there is a huge disaster.
In this interpretation, Jesus is restating an appeal he makes, often implicitly, all through the Sermon: Turn your heart and your mind over to God, and do it under the authority of Jesus. Otherwise, you are heading for a very bad end.
Consider Billy Graham's conversion in 1934.1 Mordecai Ham, a Kentucky-born Baptist revivalist, came to Charlotte, N.C., and preached a powerful sermon. The revival stretched over weeks, and for the first week or so, the Grahams did not attend. Billy was persuaded to go and hear Ham by one of his father's employees. There, in response to Ham's message about sin, Billy surrendered himself to Christ. Later Billy told his mother, "Oh, Mother, I've been saved tonight."
In 1976, Billy's sister Catherine recalled some of the outward signs of his interior change: He no longer wanted to go to the movies, and he was nicer to his siblings.
This personal contact with Jesus came about after long exposure to the Presbyterianism of his parents. Both of Graham's parents were raised in the Presbyterian church. As children, the Graham family was at church every time the doors opened, and prayer was part of their daily life.
Yet, despite all that, Billy still needed to make contact with Jesus on a personal basis.
So I reiterate that the wonderful truth in the Sermon comes through when Jesus makes contact with the wandering soul. He is not a petty martinet requiring the impossible of you. He is showing you your options. You can't go anywhere but down without him because who can walk perfectly before Jehovah God without divine assistance? Nobody. So we're all dead. But wait! Jesus really does save and grant eternal life to those who put their trust in him rather than in their own understanding.
Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling you -- through the sayings that were compiled by his servants. Those of us who like to play professional logician may find that our logic works, but quenches the Spirit so that we do not truly hear the Master. The word of the Lord, as recorded and implied by all four gospelists, is aiming at transforming your earthly spirit (=water) into divine Spirit (=delicious new wine). The son of man (=son of God) came to join heaven with earth within you, where the kingdom of heaven resides.
1. Information on Graham's conversion comes from Christianity Today
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Draft 5
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