How It Applies

Why is the Sermon on the Mount relevant today? And, if it is relevant, how do we apply its principles to our lives?

This message discusses different approaches to interpreting & applying Christ's sermon. Some are pessimists: they see these ideas of Christ as unrealisitic in this world. Others are optimists: they believe society can realistically operate on these principles and would be better off if it did.

Some see these principles of the Sermon on the Mount as applicable to society at large. Others see these principles as relevant only to regenerated people who personally know Christ; as citizens of the kingdom, these are their principles, not society's principles. Others see the Sermon on the Mount as relevant only to the Jews to whom Christ came offering the kingdom; they would say that the Sermon on the Mount is not relevant to the Church at all.

The sermon illustrates how these different interpretational approaches make a huge difference in how one understands the call to be "salt and light" in this world, or the call not to resist evil, but rather to "turn the other cheek." Is our society to turn the other cheek when attacked by a foreign nation? Are individual believers in the Body of Christ to turn the other cheek? To whom does the command apply, and how does it apply?

The question is: who is right and why?