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Weekly Playlist  |  January 22-28
Sermon on the Mount-Introduction
Right Relationships to Others

Read and listen to the passage of Scripture below and then explore the related resources. As you reflect, consider this question: Why is the Golden Rule so important to Jesus?

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Read - Matthew 6:19-7:12
Consider While Reading

Ancient Israelites knew the commands to “love the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:5) and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) well. In this teaching, Jesus aims to “fill up” those commands.

Matthew 6:19-7:12

Righteousness and Relationships

5 min

Don't store up for yourselves stored-wealth on the land, where moth and nibbler can ruin, and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves stored-wealth in the sky, where neither moth nor nibbler can ruin, and where thieves can't break in or steal.
For where your stored-wealth is, there your heart will be also.
The lamp of the body is the eye; so then if your eye is genuine-and-generous, your whole body will be radiant.
But if your eye is bad-and-greedy, your whole body will be dark. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
No one is able to serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You are not able to serve God and wealth.
Because of this I say to you, do not worry about your life-being, what you will eat or what you will drink, not even about your body, what you will put on.
Isn't the living-self more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air, how they don't sow seed, and they don't harvest, and they don't gather into barns, and yet your Father in the skies feeds them.
Aren't you all much more valuable than they?
And who among you is able to add an hour to your life-span by worry?
And about clothing, why do you worry?
Pay attention to the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't labor and they don't weave cloth, but I say to you all that not even Solomon with all his honor clothed himself like one of these.
Now, if the grass of the field, which is there today and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace is clothed this way by God, won't he much more clothe you all, who have so little trust?
So then, don't worry saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear for clothing?"
For the nations, they constantly seek for all these things. And your Father in the skies knows that you need all that.
Rather, first of all seek for his kingdom and doing-what-is-right by him, and all these things will be added to you.
So then, don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow can worry about itself! Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
Because with the judgment that you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure that you measure, it will be measured to you.
Why do you see the speck in the eye of your brother, but you don't perceive the beam in your eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, "Allow me to take out the speck from your eye," and look, the beam is in your eye?! Hypocrite!
First take out the beam from your eye, and then you can see clearly the speck in the eye of your brother.
Do not give what is holy to dogs, and don't throw your pearls in front of pigs, so they don't trample them with their feet and turning around, they will tear you apart.
Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks will receive, and the one who seeks will find, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.
Or what person is among you who, when their son asks for bread, will give him a rock? Or when he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
So then, if you all are bad, but you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in the skies give good things to those who ask?
So then, everything you desire that people do to you, so also you do to them.
For this is the Torah and the Prophets.
Reflect

How does Jesus’ teaching in this passage “fill up” the commands to love God and neighbor?

About This Translation
This reading uses a new translation from the BibleProject Scholar Team, which aims to bring fresh language to familiar words while using consistent English terms for Greek words used throughout this part of Scripture.

We'll be adding more translations here in the future, but in the meantime, you can find more translations now on the BibleProject app.
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Watch - Visual Commentaries, Matthew 6:19-7:12: Right Relationships
Video player poster image
2:34
HIGHLIGHT

“Our relationship to our stuff can be one of the biggest obstacles to healthy relationships with God and others.”

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Listen - The Sermon on the Mount as Wisdom Literature

Chapter from Sermon on the Mount E2

The Sermon on the Mount as Wisdom Literature

3 min

HIGHLIGHT

“Jesus is putting himself not only in the place of the giver of the Torah, and not only is saying the one who's going to recreate new covenant, new heart people, but Jesus also presents himself as the revealer of divine wisdom. And to live by the fear of the Lord, as you do in the Proverbs … you want to know what that looks like now? It's the Sermon on the Mount.”

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