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?
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
How does Jesus’ teaching in this passage “fill up” the commands to love God and neighbor?
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“Our relationship to our stuff can be one of the biggest obstacles to healthy relationships with God and others.”
Chapter from Sermon on the Mount E2
The Sermon on the Mount as Wisdom Literature
“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.”
Jesus says, “Do to others what you want them to do to you.” This is known as the Golden Rule, and it summarizes the main body of the Sermon, which is about how to have right relationships with God and others. Jesus goes on to say that the Golden Rule is what the Torah and Prophets are all about, a reference back to how Jesus said he came to “fulfill the Torah and Prophets.”