“…His Disciples Came to Him”
“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him” (Matt 5:1).
This verse begins the greatest sermon ever preached—the Sermon on the Mount, and it has become a habit—almost an oral tradition—among evangelical scholars to focus on the context that this verse gives to the sermon itself. Students of the Bible observe that Jesus’ words are directed toward his disciples. The words of the Sermon on the Mount cannot be turned into a generalized ethical statement for all people, as many liberal theologians would like to do. Jesus spoke to his disciples, not the crowd.
Nonetheless, it struck me today that these words contain more than the setting of the sermon. Matthew penned these words not only to give us the context of Jesus’ teaching but, more importantly, to give us the actions of a disciple, which we, the readers, are to imitate.
Jesus followed the cultural practice of his day—the teacher sat and the students stood—but through this cultural practice he demonstrated an unchanging principle: To be a follower or disciple of Jesus means to be under the authority of Jesus’ words. To receive Christ’s words we must place ourselves under their authority. We do not judge them. Instead, they judge us.
Of course, at this point, it is easy to point fingers at liberals and self-righteously think that they are in the wrong and we, evangelicals, are completely in the right. However, by doing so, we would miss Jesus’ words that come later in the sermon about first removing the log from our own eye. Now, some evangelicals make the mistake of affirming the inerrancy of Scripture all the while being ignorant of it. Others affirm the truthfulness of the Word of Christ but deny its sufficiency for all matters of faith and practice.
However, for myself at least, the danger is dispassionate interpretation. Interpretation is necessary and powerful, but like anything so powerful, it can also be extremely dangerous. It becomes dangerous when we make ourselves out to be dispassionate, unbiased onlookers rather than true disciples. Interpretation is dangerous when we stand outside the story rather than placing ourselves as participants in God’s story. “What did this text mean?” is not the ultimate end of the disciple. The question is a necessary step in the process, but the ultimate goal is to answer “how should I live?” Yet, arriving at the answer to the applicative questions is much harder than arriving at the original meaning of any biblical passage. It requires honesty and spiritual work. Indeed, it requires us to allow another person—the Holy Spirit—to work the Word into our lives—to open ourselves up to his personal and prying judgment.
I fear that for many years my teaching, preaching, and personal spiritual disciplines have failed at this point. I have only begun to awaken to the authoritative application of the Word that pervades every aspect of life. To submit to Jesus’ Words as a disciple means to be open to judgment—the judgment of every action, every word, every thought, and even every motive for the sake of conformity to Christ. So, I cannot profit from the Word until I open myself up to its judgment and surrender to its authority. Discipleship does not mean knowing biblical facts. Discipleship means submitting to biblical authority by a life of obedience, and it is my prayer that I truly live such a life.
