The Sermon on the Mount: A Review (by John Frye)

What? Am I going to review Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? No, I am not worthy. I shall write a number of posts reviewing Scot McKnight’s The Story of God Bible Commentary: The Sermon on the Mount. With this task, I feel a little more worthy.

Having been in pastoral ministry since 1975 and having read oodles of commentaries and books about Matthew 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount = SoM), I opened Scot’s latest contribution to understanding the SoM with a bit of an “is there anything new under the sun” attitude.

Bam! From the get-go I was drawn into the SoM’s bigger story. This is the genius of the The Story of God Bible Commentary series. Each author in the series is committed to tying his or her segment of the Story (i.e., the particular Bible book they are commenting on) to the grand Story unfolded from Genesis to Revelation. “We want to explain each passage of the Bible in light of the Bible’s grand Story,” writes Scot McKnight, the general editor New Testament (xiii). What I find fascinating is that God’s grand Story features the key role of Israel in the world and culminates in the Person and Work of Jesus the Messiah, the true Israel. In view of this fact, the books of the Bible have a fiercely Christocentric message just as Jesus revealed to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:27, 32).

This reminds me of what Peter Enns wrote in his Introduction to the NIV Application Commentary on Exodus, “A Christian should interpret the Old Testament from the point of view of Christ as the final word in the story of redemption. …This commentary attempts to explain Exodus in light of Christ’s coming” (19, 32). The Story of God Commentary series intends to inflame our hearts with the presence of Christ in the Word just as Jesus set the hearts of the two disciples on fire. “Did not our hearts burn within us…?” To have a diverse set of both Old and New Testament scholars, male and female, intentionally making the connection from their “wiki-stories” (to use a Scot McKnightism) to the overriding grand Story is a gift indeed to pastors, students and disciples of Jesus who are eager to grow.

Each section of Scripture in the SGBC series is based on a simple format: Listen to the Story, Explain the Story, and Live the Story. In Listen to the Story, the reader is led to see a particular text in light of the Bible’s big Story. In Explain the Story, the authors work to give precise and pertinent detail—biblical backgrounds, historical context, cultural codes and theological interpretations—“to build a sound and living reading of the text in light of the Story of God in the Bible” (xiv). In Live the Story, the aim is not so much to give specific “application” from the text as it is to compel us “to live in our world so that our own story lines up with the Bible’s Story” (xiv). Imagine now working through the ultimate sermon of all sermons with that simple format in mind. This is what Scot McKnight invites us into with his SGBC on the Sermon on the Mount. Fasten your seat belts, the flight begins in earnest in the next post.