Written by Andy Singleterry
The Sermon on the Mount—Jesus’s address in chapters 5 to 7 of Matthew’s gospel—has been called the core of Christian ethics because, more than anywhere else in scripture, it summarizes how Jesus calls us to live. But is it realistic? One longstanding tradition of interpretation considers the sermon a “counsel of perfection,” fit only for monks and nuns or others with a special, all-consuming religious call. These five books, on the other hand, present the sermon as an attainable guide for all faithful people.
1. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, by Dallas Willard
For me personally, The Divine Conspiracy was one of the main keys God turned to open me to the greater possibilities of life with him. Willard writes in depth about each section of the Sermon on the Mount in order, revealing how they apply to life today. His section on the pearls before swine passage is still the only interpretation that’s ever made sense to me.
2. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer’s famous distinction between cheap grace, a faith that asks for nothing from its adherents, and costly grace, which offers everything but assumes a worshipful response, comes from The Cost of Discipleship. He wrote the book during the rise of Naziism; costly grace meant staying in a dangerous homeland and standing up to a murderous regime. Like Willard, Bonhoeffer threads his account of the Christian life through the Sermon on the Mount.
3. Kingdom Ethics, 2nd Edition: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, by David Gushee and Glen Stassen
This is a different kind of book from the others, a textbook for Christian Ethics classes. Rather than forming itself in the mold of the Sermon, Kingdom Ethics identifies an ethical method in Jesus’s words and applies that method to major contemporary ethical issues. That three-step method is a brilliant insight into the Sermon. (Full disclosure—I studied the first edition for my seminary Ethics class, and I haven’t read this revision.)
4. Words to Walk By: A Discipleship Guide Through the Sermon on the Mount,by Chris Rattay
Here’s our own addition to the commentary on Jesus’s sermon, applying it to the urban context. Chris planted a church in Lincoln Heights, an East LA neighborhood. He is, for me and other SP staff, a model of committed, life-on-life discipleship, and Words to Walk By shows how he models his own work on Jesus’s example. If you want to bring the Sermon on the Mount into the barrio, Words to Walk By makes an excellent guide! (Also available as an audiobook, read by the author.)
5. The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis, and Life in the Kingdom, by Jamie Arpin-Ricci
Arpin-Ricci is also an entrepreneurial community-planter, though his community is a more monastic one in Winnipeg. The Cost of Community weaves together the sermon, the history of Francis of Assisi, and stories from his own group. As a Francis fan and wannabe monk, I found this mix a compelling brew.