Fascinating Insight into the teachings of Jesus

Some things are classic and deserve a second look.  Two books by D.A. Carson were originally published separately in 1978 and 1987. Now The Gospel Coalition, in 2018, has decided to repackage the two books, and the result is Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World: A Study of Matthew 5-10. Two Books in One. (Baker Books 2018)

            If you’ve spent much time in church, you’ve heard about the Sermon on the Mount, and probably heard more than one sermon based on one of the many shorter passages found within this larger one. It’s here that Matthew relates Jesus’s teachings on a wide variety of subjects including marriage, divorce, hypocrisy, Christian disciplines such as prayer and fasting, and how to treat others. But either the sermon is one that covers chapters 5, 6, and 7; or it’s a series so long that by the time you get to the end of chapter 7 you’ve forgotten everything you heard about chapters 5 and 6, as well as most of the beginning of chapter 7.  That’s what makes this book such a valuable resource. It’s neatly packaged and available for the reader to go back and refresh his memory about all the Kingdom attributes of which Jesus was speaking.

            

            And then comes the confrontation with the world. Two thousand years ago ‘religious people’ didn’t like being confronted with their sin. Today not many of us like it all that much either. Jesus’s teachings made him at once very popular with a certain group, but also very unpopular with another group of people. And this second group tended to be the powerful and influential folks in that society.

            

           It’s in the Confrontation that we are expected to recognize Jesus’s authority, and his authenticity. Carson talks about Jesus’s mission before going on to expound on how trustworthy and compassionate Jesus is, and then recaps how the very things that draw people to Jesus are also the things that tend to divide people.

           

              What was it the disciples said? “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (John 6:60, NIV)

            

            Carson, theologian that he is, may go a little deeper than the average reader is willing to dig, but the book is well worth the read for those that have the patience and willingness to be confronted with what Jesus has said about the Kingdom of Heaven

          I received a copy of this book from the publisher as a part of their bloggers program. There was no expectation that I would post only a positive review.