Talk on the Hill, part 3. Matthew 7.

Read Matthew 7 online here.

When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching, because he taught them like one who had authority, not like their experts in the law. (Matt. 7:28,29)

Yes. That's it. Amazement at authority. No referring to what others taught, except to say here is a fuller understanding of what you've heard. No, "Rabbi so and so has talked about love like this." Instead, Jesus just said, "So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (v.5:48)

I'm glad that as a church community we're stepping through Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5-7 in small chunks, in addition to our chapter a day personal reading in December. We'll have time to contemplate further "these things" spoken with authority.

And since Jesus said these things with authority that I certainly don't have, I want to get out of the way of today's chapter and let you ponder, and react. (You can do that in the comments, so others can share and react with you.)

But I will share one reaction of my own, perhaps as a discussion starter. In verse 7:12 Jesus says, "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets." (NASB) We label this saying the Golden Rule.

The general idea in the Golden Rule is not unique to Jesus or to Christianity. For example, Confucious said it this way: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." And really, we shouldn't be surprised that this truth of God's is known around the world and in other major religions. God's truth is God's truth. Paul said in his letter to the Romans that creation speaks to God's very nature. We were created in God's likeness, and though corrupted by sin, we still can recognize truth. (The sin affects our response to truth).

What's interesting, however, is that, as far as I can tell, Jesus' expression of the Golden Rule, stated in the positive, not the negative, is unique to Yahweh and to Jesus. And therefore, uniquely forceful. Yahweh said it through Moses, "You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself." (Lev. 19:18) And as we read earlier, Jesus enlarged the teaching of Moses to include loving our enemies. Or put another way, he taught that our "enemies" were our "neighbors" too.

What's even more interesting to me is that Jesus says this is the law and the prophets. All 39 books, all 929 chapters, all 23,145+ verses are summed up in this simple truth.* Equivalency. Picture a scale, with 23,145 verses in one dish, and 1 verse in the other, in perfect balance.

After reading these three chapters, after hearing Jesus' talk on the hill, this equivalency makes sense. Because living in the kingdom, as we've just read -- the living out of this one summing statement is both simple and profoundly complex. And it's endlessly challenging.

This chapter was chock full of stuff. (There's that technical term again, "stuff".) You can share what resonated with you in the comments.

*Just to be clear, technically the chapters and verses are an add-on to the original manuscripts. They're there to help us more easily refer to the text.