The World, the Church, and the Priesthood of Believers

The consensus among both Christians and non-Christians is that the declarations made in the Sermon on the Mount are greater and stricter than the Ten Commandments, with regard to morals.

This mountain is said to be between Gennesaret and Capernaum on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is today called Nhum, which means “Nahum’s village” in Hebrew. It was a fishing village established during the time of the Hasmoneans and had a population of about 1,500. Gennesaret was an important Bronze and Iron Age city that was mentioned in the Old Testament and New Testament and in the Epic of Aqhat, a myth from Ugarit (an ancient city in the area that is now Syria).

Matthew 7:26–27 gives a refreshing look at this saying, the conclusion, and its response from the disciples:

But everyone who hears these sayings of mine
and does not do them will be like a foolish
man who built his house on the sand and rains
descended, the flood came and the winds blew
and beat on that house and fell. And great was
its fall.

And so it was that when Jesus finished these sayings, the people were astonished at his teachings, for he taught them as one who had authority and not like the scribes.

If all believers, including you and me, would live according to Jesus’s teachings, how beautiful our lives would be.

I believe these things are used as symbols, as we all know what salt can do in a home and what light brings to human life.

As the Resurrection of Christ Jesus brings hope to the world, so must his spirit coming into our lives bring a transformation to every home and every situation to represent the work of salt and light.