Preachrblog

Epiphany 6 Matthew 5:21-37 “But I say to you...” Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks with an authority of his own.  Ancient teachers would often appeal to the authority of those who have gone before them.  Even today, we pastors are taught that there really is nothing new when it comes to theology, but to lean heavily on the wisdom of those who have gone before.  We appeal to Walther, to Luther, to the early Church Fathers.  But Jesus Christ needed no such wisdom and guidance, for he was and is the very Word of God made flesh.  He precedes all of these other authorities, who really devolve their authority from him. And so, in this section of his Sermon on the Mount, he begins to draw contrasts between the corrupt and insufficient human commentary on the law that had been handed down to the people of his day – and his own pure, divine, unadulterated expression of what adherence to the law of God actually looks like.  Again and again he repeats this construc...