Perspective: Why Would a Pig Need Pearls?

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Why Would a Pig Need Pearls?

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:7 (NRSV)

He said, "Freely, freely, you have received

Freely, freely, give"

From "Freely, Freely" by Carol Owens

As I've noted previously, the Sermon on the Mount touches on many different aspects of life.  Toward the end of the sermon, Jesus says something rather strange:
Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.¹

To some extent, the meaning of these words is straightforward.  Pearls and holy things both have great value.  Pearls are valuable because they are rare, and things considered holy are valuable because they have been consecrated or set apart for God.  Animals such as dogs and pigs do not have the capacity to appreciate something's worth.  Basically, Jesus is warning us not to give something precious to someone who cannot - or will not - appreciate its intrinsic, sentimental, or sacred value.

But why does Jesus say that the so-called "pigs" will trample on the pearls and then maul the giver of the gift?

Several years ago, I listened to a sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount by Rob Bell and a number of other preachers.²  If I learned anything from Bell about the Sermon on the Mount, I learned how important it is to pay attention to the structure of the sermon.

Bell notes that, throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to live without anxiety.³  Jesus teaches us not to worry about the basic necessities of life, but to instead trust in the God who provides for the birds and the flowers.⁴  When Jesus teaches us how we should pray, He invites us to place our whole lives - our needs in the present, our regrets from the past, and our anxiety about the future - into God's hands.^{5 6}  When we entrust our lives to God, we are better able to follow Jesus' instructions to practice piety without regard to what others think of us, to focus on eternal matters as opposed to temporal matters, and to live generously.⁷

Bell suggests that, once we have entrusted ourselves to God, we must also entrust the other people in our lives to God; otherwise, we might feel the need to take matters into our own hands by trying to manipulate them into doing what we think they should do.  One might try to manipulate another person through negative means like shame and condemnation.⁸  On this matter, Jesus teaches us not to judge other people, but to tend to the proverbial logs in our own eyes before concerning ourselves with the specks in other people's eyes.⁹

One might also try to manipulate another person through positive means.  For example, a person might try to do something good for somebody, hoping that he or she will feel obligated to do something in return.  Bell suggests that this is one way a person might throw his or her pearls before swine, so to speak.  If you have ever tried to do something good for a person only to be met with hostility, he might have smelled a hidden agenda.¹⁰  People have a way of knowing when other people are being fake.  Furthermore, if you have ever felt resentful that another person has not done for you as much as you have done for her, you might have had ulterior motives.

It is important that we consider why we do what we do for others.  I think that we often give out of a sense of reciprocity: either we do undo others as others have done unto us, or we do unto others as we hope others will do unto us.  Jesus speaks out against reciprocity, arguing that we should do things not for the people who can pay us back, but for the people who cannot pay us back.  For example, in the Gospel of Luke, He says,
When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.¹¹

The truth is that a gift that is given with strings attached is not a gift at all.  When we give, we should give out of a sense of grace.  Grace is a gift that cannot be repaid and should not be repaid.  St. Paul, in in one of his letters, encourages his readers to contribute to a fund for people in need, saying, "Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

If someone does something good for you and you feel compelled to do something in response, consider paying it forward.  In other words, don't try to repay the person who did something for you, but rather do something for a third person, specifically someone in need who has not done anything for you.  This mode of giving respects the original gift as an act of grace, and it extends grace to someone else.

When you give to someone, do not give out of a sense of obligation.  Do not give in order to get something in return.  Give only because you genuinely want someone to experience a blessing.  May we learn to give for all the right reasons.


Notes:

1. Matthew 7:6 (NRSV)
2. https://marshill.org/shop/sermon-on-the-mount-series/
3. Rob Bell.  "Judging."  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 01/10/2010.
4. Matthew 6:25-34
5. Matthew 6:11-13
6. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 229
7. Matthew 6:1-24
8. Bell, "Judging"
9. Matthew 7:1-5
10. Bell, "Judging"
11. Luke 14:12-13 (NRSV)

The photograph featured in this perspective is of unknown origin.  It is assumed to be public domain.

Sermon: The Heart of the Matter

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on February 19, 2017

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Heart of the Matter

Audio Version

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.”  But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.  Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:33-48 (NRSV)

When I look into the face

Of my enemy

I see my brother

From “Brother” by The Brilliance

Arguably the most famous sermon in human history is what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.  This relatively short sermon could have been delivered in about sixteen minutes,¹ but, because it touches on so many different aspects of life, many series of sermons have been written about it.  Jesus begins this sermon with what we call the Beatitudes, a series of blessings for people the world would not usually consider blessed.  He goes on to teach His listeners that they are “the salt of the earth,” urging them not to lose their saltiness.  He then teaches them that they are “the light of the world,” challenging them to shine brightly in an often dark world.²

Jesus then makes a rather interesting statement.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets,” He says.  “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”³  When Jesus speaks of the Law, He is referring to the Jewish people's instructions for living, which we can read in the first five books of the Bible.  The prophets of whom Jesus speaks are the brave souls who, in times of great moral decay and injustice, challenged people to live as God had called them to live.

There are a number of interpretations regarding what Jesus actually meant when He said that He had come not to abolish but to fulfill the Law and the prophets.  Something that is typically lost on us as Christians is the fact that Jesus is using a couple of idioms commonly used by Jewish rabbis.  To “abolish the Law” is to undermine the Law through misinterpretation.  To “fulfill the law,” on the other hand, is to interpret the Law in such a way those who hear are better able to follow the Law.⁴  Simply put, Jesus did not come to dissuade us from following the instructions of the Law or the exhortations of the prophets: He came to properly interpret them for us.

Jesus goes on “fulfill the Law” in this sense through a series of what Doug Pagitt would call “Flips.”  A Flip, as described by Pagitt, is a sudden, radical change in perspective that has a profound effect on a person.⁵  Many of the Flips we hear in the Sermon on the Mount take the form of teachings that begin, “You have heard that it was said...” and continue, “But I say to you...”⁶  When we hear these teachings, we might be tempted at first to think that Jesus is simply adding to previously established rules, making them more difficult to follow.  Through these Flips, Jesus actually reveals to us the purpose of the rules and, at the same time, calls us to live according to a higher standard than mere rule followers.⁷  Rules regulate people's behavior, but, through Jesus' teachings, we will see that the heart of the matter is really a matter of the heart.

First, Jesus calls to mind two of the Ten Commandments, but He takes our focus off the actions they forbid and turns our attention to the root causes of these sins.  Referencing the sixth commandment, He says,
You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.”  But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.⁸
The sixth commandment requires us to keep our tempers under control enough not to kill the people who make us angry, but Jesus calls us to be people who do not allow anger to fester into hate and bitterness.  Referencing the seventh commandment, He says,
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.⁹
The seventh commandment requires us to honor our own marriage vows and to respect the marriage vows of others, but Jesus calls us to be people who look at one another as human beings and not as objects to meet our wants and needs.¹⁰

Jesus then starts to call to mind instructions from other parts of the Jewish Law.  He says, “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’”  In Jesus' day, people sometimes took this instruction a little too literally so that they could give themselves loopholes.  If a person invoked the name of God when making a promise, then she was intentional to do what she said she would do because she had effectively made God a party in the agreement.  On the other hand, swearing by Heaven, by the Earth, or by one's own head was not unlike a child's crossing his fingers behind his back in our day.¹¹  Jesus introduces another Flip, saying,
But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.  And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
According to William Barclay, Jesus is essentially telling us that we are accountable to God for anything that we say we will do.¹²

Nowadays, people typically use phrases like honest to God, I swear to God, and I swear on a stack of Bibles simply to emphasize that they are telling the truth.  A person doesn't typically make an actual solemn vow unless he or she happens to be taking the witness stand, swearing “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” or standing before a clergyperson vowing to love, honor, and cherish another person, until death do they part.  Still, we tend to be more intentional about doing what we say we'll do if we use the phrase I promise.  Jesus says, “Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.”¹³  In other words, He calls us to be people who can be trusted to do what we say we will do without having to make promises, vows, or oaths.  Furthermore, a person who feels the need to swear on a proverbial stack of Bibles to get people to believe him might have a questionable relationship with the truth.¹⁴

Jesus then goes on to say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”  Jesus is referring to the lex talionis, the law of retribution, which dictates that the punishment must fit the crime.  This law, which sets the standard for retributive justice, is nearly as old as human civilization itself, and it serves as the foundation of the ancient Code of Hammurabi, one of the world's oldest legal codes.¹⁵  It is also echoed throughout the Jewish Law.  For example, in the Book of Leviticus we read, “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.”¹⁶  The lex talionis places a limit on retribution.  If someone broke your arm, you would be out of line to kill him in response.  The most you could do is to break his arm.

Addressing our retributive notions of justice, Jesus introduces yet another Flip, saying,
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
The lex talionis served its purpose by keeping people's desire for revenge in check, but Jesus calls us beyond retributive forms of justice to something more redemptive.¹⁷

Jesus instructs us not to seek retribution for a wrongdoing but rather to bring it into the light in a way that calls the wrongdoer to repent or rethink his actions.  Imagine for a moment that you lived in Jesus' day and time.  If someone struck you on your right cheek, then, provided he was using his right hand, he would have backhanded you, meaning that he considers you to be inferior to him.  To offer him your left cheek is to invite him to hit you once again – as an equal.  If someone sued you and took your coat, giving him your shirt as a bonus would leave you in a state of “impoverished nakedness.”  Your exposed body would expose his greed.  If a Roman soldier ordered you to carry his equipment for a mile, he would only be exercising his legal rights as a soldier.  Insisting on carrying his stuff for a second mile would put him in a rather awkward situation, for it would be illegal for him to make you go any further than one mile.¹⁸  When we're wronged, the world says, “Don't get mad; get even”; however, Jesus tells us to get creative.

Jesus then says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”  In the Book of Leviticus, we read, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”¹⁹ but conventional wisdom is what tells us that not everyone is our neighbor and that a person is either friend or foe.  In response to our conventional wisdom, Jesus says,
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous...  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Though our modern ears tend to associate sunshine with happiness and rain with sadness, Jesus' original audience would have considered both sunshine and rain to be blessings from God since their crops needed both to thrive.  In the same way that both rain and sunshine fall upon people without discerning who is worthy or unworthy, Jesus calls us to bless people with our love and our prayers without discrimination.  An enemy is not typically someone we love, so perhaps He is encouraging us not to even think of people as our enemies.

To live as children of our Father in heaven is to love all of our Father's children, without exception.  To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is to love perfectly.  I think that, with this last Flip, we have reached the heart of the matter in regards to all religious instructions.

At the very beginning of the Bible, we read a poem that describes a God who speaks into existence the world and all life that lives therein.  Having created the lifeforms that inhabit the land, the sea, and the sky, God created a special kind of creature who would serve as the caretakers of everything God had already created.²⁰  The ancient poem tells us,

So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.²¹

As human beings, we were created in the Image of a God who is, according to one early Christian theologian, love itself.²²  No doubt you've heard the immortal words of St. Paul, that “love is patient,” that “love is kind,” that “love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude,” that love “does not insist on its own way,” that love “is not irritable or resentful,” that love “does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth,” and that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things.”²³  I would add that love does not merely exercise self-control around others with gritted teeth, for love desires and even seeks the good of others.

We were not created to follow rules: we were created to bear the Image of the God who created us, in the same way that children look like their parents.  We were given rules to follow because so often we don't look very much like a God of love.  Rules do not generally come out of thin air.  There would be no commandment forbidding theft if people weren't already stealing from each other.  There would be no commandment forbidding murder if people weren't already settling their disputes through violence.  There would be no commandments forbidding the worship of idols and false gods if people weren't already doing horrible things a God of love would never want them to do.  We weren't created to follow rules, but we were given rules to follow because far too often we fail to love as we were created to love.

Jesus, toward the end of His earthly ministry, enters Jerusalem and creates what one might call a holy ruckus.  At one point, His detractors start asking Him loaded questions in an attempt to trap Him with His own words.  One expert in the Jewish Law, approaches Jesus and asks Him which commandment in the Law is the most important.  Jesus replies, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Jesus then goes on to say, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”²⁴  In other words, every instruction in the Law and every exhortation of the prophets is meant to teach us what it looks like to love God and to love one another.

In the end, it all comes down to love, for love fulfills the requirements of the Law.  If we had loved as we were created to love, we never would have needed the Law and the prophets in the first place.

Jesus was not interested in regulating anyone's behavior, for He had come to transform hearts.  Humans were created to bear the Image of God, and Jesus Christ, who is called “the Image of the Invisible God,”²⁵ came to show us what it means to be truly human.  He came to fulfill the Law, through His teaching and through His life.  He showed us what it means to love one another: He befriended the friendless, showed mercy to those who were suffering, spoke the truth to those who thought they already knew everything, and gave His life for us on the cross.  “This is my commandment,” He said, “that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”²⁶

The Jewish rabbis counted 613 instructions in the Law.  Jesus teaches us that all of these instructions are rooted in the commandments to love God and to love one another.  These two simple commandments are easier to remember than the 613, but they are, by no means, easy to follow.  Christ has provided us an example, and He invites us to abide in Him so that He may abide in us.²⁷  We can love, knowing that Christ loves us.

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. Jonathan Tompkins.  “Flipping the Script: Blessed Are the _____.”  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church podcast, 02/06/2017.
2. Matthew 5:3-16
3. Matthew 5:17 (NRSV)
4. Lois Tverberg.  “What Does It Mean to 'Fulfill the law'?”  En-Gedi Resource Center.
5. Doug Pagitt.  Flipped: The Provocative Truth That Changes Everything We Know About God.   2015, Convergent Books.  p. 7
6. Pagitt, pp. 18-19
7. Matthew 5:20
8. Matthew 5:21-22 (NRSV)
9. Matthew 5:27 (NRSV)
10. My synopses of these two teachings of Jesus are based, in part, on the previous week's sermon at Bethel UMC, which was delivered by Pastor Syliva Watson.
11. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 183-184
12. ibid
13. Matthew 5:37 (CEB)
14. Rob Bell.  “The Weasel Factor.”  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 08/01/2010.
15. Wikipedia: Eye for an eye
16. Leviticus 24:19-20 (NRSV)
17. N.T Wright.  Matthew for Everyone, Part 1.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 51
18. Wright, pp. 51-52
19. Leviticus 19:18 (NRSV)
20. Genesis 1:26
21. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)
22. 1 John 4:8
23. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NRSV)
24. Matthew 22:34-40 (NRSV)
25. Colossians 1:15
26. John 15:12-13 (NRSV)
27. John 15:4

The Sermon on the Mount was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1877.

Perspective: Stay Hungry and Thirsty, My Friends

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Stay Hungry and Thirsty, My Friends

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3-6, 10 (NRSV)

---

But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now,

for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now,

for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Luke 6:24-26 (NRSV)

You call me out upon the waters

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep my faith will stand

From "Oceans" by Hillsong United

For some of us who study the Bible, there are certain passages that have become so painfully familiar to us that we'll read them or listen to them without actually taking them in.  Reading such familiar passages from an unfamiliar translation of the Bible can help us to experience them afresh and glean new insights from them.  Last week, at the church I attend, the congregation heard one rather familiar passage - a certain discourse on love¹ - read from The Message, Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible, which serves at times as both translation and commentary.

After church, my own personal Bible study brought me back to another familiar passage, the Beatitudes.  I decided to apply the same Bible study hack that was used during the service, and I read the Beatitudes from The Message.

The Beatitudes, which are found in the Gospel of Matthew at the beginning of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, are a series of announcements of blessing upon people whom the world would not normally consider blessed.  Jesus blesses "the poor in spirit," "those who mourn," "the meek," "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," "those who are persecuted," and others.

In The Message, Peterson shows how the circumstances of the people Jesus calls blessed are tied to the blessing they will receive.  Consider the following:

You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you.  Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less.  That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God.  He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution.  The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.²

Frederick Dale Bruner describes the Beatitudes as "Jesus' surprisingly countercultural God-bless-yous to people in god-awful situations."³  Eugene Peterson seems to suggest that these "god-awful situations" are exactly what puts people in contact with God's blessings.  When we've reached the end of ourselves, we are forced to turn to something beyond ourselves.  When we rely on God, we experience God's blessing upon us.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus delivers a very similar message which is sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain, and He begins this sermon with a series of blessings similar to the Beatitudes.  Interestingly, He goes on to announce woe upon people who would generally consider themselves #blessed: the rich, the well fed, the laughing, and the highly praised.

When Jesus enters the scene, everything seems to work differently than it would otherwise.  One evening, Jesus sat down for dinner with a number of tax collectors.  The Pharisees - the good salt-of-the-earth religious folk of the day - wondered why Jesus would associate with such scumbags.  Jesus told them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."⁴  Later on, when Jesus encountered a rich man who wanted a place in the Kingdom of God but had no desire to let go of his wealth, He told His disciples that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."⁵

I live in a society in which self-sufficiency is lauded as a virtue, a society in which the rich man who approached Jesus would be considered a success.  Even those of us who claim that we've put our trust in God like to think that we have it all together, like the Pharisees who criticized Jesus.  I wonder if our "virtues" of self-reliance and self-assuredness actually get in the way of our experiencing everything God has in store for us.  If our relationship with God is somehow connected to our dependence on God, then maybe self-sufficiency actually robs us of God's blessings.  Perhaps a step toward God is actually a step away from ease, comfort, and self-sufficiency.  Jesus came for the people who actually needed Him, not the self-reliant, the self-assured, and the self-righteous.

It is not the filled who need to be fed.

It is not the comfortable who need comfort.

It is not the healthy who need to be healed.

It is not the sheltered who need shelter.

It is not the safe and sound who need to be saved.

For the last year and a half, I've complained that I feel like I'm in a rut and that my life has become stagnant in some way.  I wonder if, at this time, I might be a little too comfortable with my circumstances - or at least "comfortably numb."  Looking back on my journey of faith, I see that it is a sense of need that draws me closer to God.  The time I spent working in the gambling industry was the most miserable season of my life, yet, ironically, I think it might have been the time I was actually the closest to God.  Every morning before work, I turned to God in prayer, begging God to get me out of my "god-awful situation."  I did not need God's help at that time - I was desperate for it.

If we're dissatisfied with our spiritual lives, then perhaps what we need the most is to experience our need for God.  The challenge then for some of us is to venture out from the spaces where we are comfortable and where we feel that we're in control, toward the spaces where we actually have to rely on God.  Though contentedness is generally considered a good thing, there are some aspects of our lives with which we should never be content.  When it comes to our relationship with God, we would do well to stay hungry and thirsty.


Notes:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7
2. Matthew 5:3-6, 10 (The Message)
3. Frederick Dale Bruner.  Matthew, a Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12.  2004, Eerdmans Publishing Company.  p. 165
4. Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 19:16-30 (NRSV)

The Sermon on the Mount was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1877.