Matthew 5:2 - Homilies By R. Tuck

The new Preacher.

"He opened his mouth, and taught them." Our Lord was both a Teacher and a Preacher. The teacher aims at instruction; he seeks to arouse the activity of his scholars' minds. The preacher aims at persuasion, and seeks to arouse into activity the moral nature. The teacher will prefer the interlocutory method; the preacher will prefer the lengthened and systematic address. The so-called sermon on the mount is the full outline, giving the chief points of a continuous address, whose subject is—"A new idea of righteousness." No doubt our Lord had previously spoken in the synagogues, and to small audiences in the houses, but then he would adopt the conversational style. Matthew leads us to think that the pressure of the people led our Lord to adopt the open-air preaching, which became a characteristic feature of his ministry. At once he was recognized as a new preacher, with a new theme , a new style , and a new power.

I. THE NEW THEME . There is the virtually new' and the actually new. That which has long been covered over and lost seems new when it is restored to its place again. The spiritual truths of Mosaism had long been hidden under a mass of rabbinical opinions and ceremonies. Christ brought those spiritual truths and claims into power and prominence again. He took up the much-debated question, "What is righteousness? and how is it to be obtained?" The ruling theme of this first discourse is righteousness; and our Lord makes it a new thing, by sweeping away the rabbinical idea that righteousness is a routine. He shows that it is

II. THE NEW STYLE . The prevailing style was a series of petty quibbles and minute discussions, over which men were ever ready to quarrel, but which never touched the heart of truth. Christ's style was plain, searching, spiritual; it made appeal to the best and deepest in men, and woke into power the best and deepest by the appeal. Christ dealt with men as spiritual beings.

III. THE NEW POWER . We respond at once to a speaker of power, who has full command of his subject and of himself. We approve of the "accent of conviction," and that our Lord had. There is self-assertion, but it is the self-assertion of the commissioned Prophet of God.—R.T.