The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

‘Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

. ‘Correct him,’ said Chrysostom, alluding to someone who has sinned, ‘but not as a foe, nor as an adversary exacting a penalty, but as a physician providing medicines,’8 yes, and—even more—as a loving brother anxious to rescue and to restore

But how can we possibly obey all this teaching unless we first evaluate the performance of others and then ensure that ours is different from and higher than theirs?

Sermon on the Mount is based on the assumption that we will (indeed should) use our critical powers

Partly also because much of Christ’s teaching in the

be understood as a command to suspend our critical faculties in relation to other people, to turn a blind eye to their faults (pretending not to notice them), to eschew all criticism and to refuse to discern between truth and error, goodness and evil.

but rather to the responsibility of individuals to one another

; our normal Christian duty is to be patient and persevere with others, as God has patiently persevered with us.

This teaching of Jesus is for exceptional situations only

f people have had plenty of opportunity to hear the truth but do not respond to it, if they stubbornly turn their backs on Christ, if (in other words) they cast themselves in the role of ‘dogs’ and ‘pigs’, we are not to go on and on with them, for then we cheapen God’s gospel by letting them trample it under foot.