Sermon

A sermon in Scripture is the public, sustained address in which God's word is opened to a gathered hearing. Scripture's framework for the activity is older than the form: Yahweh himself is the first teacher, raising up prophets, scribes, and finally his Son to instruct the people, and after the resurrection placing teachers as a settled gift in the church. The term is indexed here by pointing to three named sermons of Jesus — the discourse on the mount, the discourse on the plain, and the lake-side parables — and then by cross-reference to PREACHING and MINISTERS, the office and disposition that carry sermons forward.

Yahweh as the First Teacher

Long before any prophet stands up to address Israel, the act of teaching is claimed by God himself. At the burning bush he tells Moses, "you will speak to him, and put the words in his mouth: and [my Speech] will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you⁺ what you⁺ will do" (Ex 4:15). The Sinai event is described in the same vocabulary: "Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, that he might instruct you" (Deut 4:36). The Psalter generalizes the claim into a personal promise — "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you will go: I will counsel you with my eye on you" (Ps 32:8) — and roots it in the fear of Yahweh: "What man is he who fears Yahweh? He will instruct him in the way that he will choose" (Ps 25:12). The aged worshipper looks back: "O God, you have taught me from my youth; And until now I have declared your wondrous works" (Ps 71:17). The reach is universal: "He who chastises the nations, will not he correct, [Even] he who teaches man knowledge?" (Ps 94:10).

Even agriculture is a curriculum: "For his God instructs him aright, [and] teaches him" (Isa 28:26). Through the prophets the divine self-disclosure becomes explicit: "I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go" (Isa 48:17). And the eschatological promise spans both Isaiah and Micah: "many peoples will go and say, Come⁺, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways" (Isa 2:3; cf. Mic 4:2), with the result that "all your sons will be taught of Yahweh; and great will be the peace of your sons" (Isa 54:13). The sermon, in its biblical depth, is the extension of this divine teaching into human voice.

Israel's Refusal to Hear

The same prophets who announce divine instruction also record its rejection. Through Jeremiah Yahweh complains of his own people, "though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they haven't listened to receive instruction" (Jer 32:33). The student of Sirach gives the opposite response — gratitude — and so models how a sermon ought to be received: "her yoke was a glory to me; And to my teacher I offer thanks" (Sir 51:17). Between the two stands the perennial question of every preached word, whether it will land in obedient ears.

Christ as the Teacher Sent from God

The Gospels carry the divine-teacher motif into Jesus' public ministry. Nicodemus opens the conversation with the recognition, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, except God be with him" (John 3:2). Jesus owns the role and relocates its source: "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me" (John 7:16). The activity is constant. In Galilee "he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all" (Luke 4:15). At the lakeside, "he entered into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes out of the boat" (Luke 5:3). When he sees a leaderless crowd, "he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34). At the feast in Jerusalem, "when the feast was already halfway through, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught" (John 7:14). Long after the Gospels close, the apostolic test for fellowship is still framed in those terms: "Whoever goes onward and doesn't stay in the teaching of Christ, doesn't have God: he who stays in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 1:9).

The Sermon on the Mount

Matthew's record of the longest discourse, traditionally called the Sermon on the Mount, stands at Matthew 5-7. It is indexed by chapter only and the body of that sermon falls outside the present scope, so the canonical location is noted here without further quotation.

The Sermon on the Plain

Luke preserves a parallel discourse, set on level ground after a night of prayer and the choosing of the Twelve. The narrator first frames the audience: "he came down with them, and stood on a level place, and a great multitude of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases" (Luke 6:17-18). The sermon opens with beatitudes addressed directly to the disciples — "Blessed [are] you⁺ poor: For yours⁺ is the kingdom of God. Blessed [are] you⁺ who hunger now: For you⁺ will be filled. Blessed [are] you⁺ who weep now: For you⁺ will laugh" (Luke 6:20-21) — and matches them with parallel woes against the self-satisfied: "woe to you⁺ who are rich! For you⁺ have received your⁺ consolation" (Luke 6:24).

The body of the sermon is a single ethic of mercy. "Love your⁺ enemies, do good to those who hate you⁺, bless those who curse you⁺, pray for those who despitefully use you⁺" (Luke 6:27-28). The Golden Rule is stated plainly: "as you⁺ would that men should do to you⁺, do⁺ to them likewise" (Luke 6:31). The motive is the imitation of God: "Be⁺ merciful, even as your⁺ Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). Self-judgment must precede the correction of others — "cast out first the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to cast out the mote that is in your brother's eye" (Luke 6:42) — and the discipleship goal is conformity to the master: "The disciple is not above his teacher: but everyone when he is fully trained will be as his teacher" (Luke 6:40).

The sermon closes with two diagnostic tests. First, the tree and its fruit: "each tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:44), because "out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Second, the two builders: "Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and does them, I will show you⁺ to whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock" (Luke 6:47-48), in contrast to the man who built without a foundation, "and the ruin of that house was great" (Luke 6:49). The sermon thereby ends where Jeremiah's complaint also ended — with the question whether the hearer will receive the instruction.

The Sermon by the Lake

Mark records a third extended discourse, taught from the boat to the crowd on the shore. Its texture is parabolic: "And he taught them many things in parables, and said to them in his teaching" (Mark 4:2), and "with many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it" (Mark 4:33). The sermon has a double audience. To the crowd it comes as images — sower, lamp, growing seed, mustard. To the inner circle the images are unpacked: "without a parable he did not speak to them: but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things" (Mark 4:34). The key Jesus himself supplies for the whole sermon is the seed-word equation: "The seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11). What looks like agricultural storytelling is preaching in disguise.

Teachers in the Apostolic Church

After the resurrection the work of teaching is not retired but distributed. Paul lists it among the foundational gifts: "God has set some in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, [diverse] kinds of tongues" (1 Cor 12:28). Ephesians groups the same office with shepherding: "he gave some [to be] apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11). Ben Sira anticipated the same duty as a function of love for the Creator: "With all your might, love him who made you. And do not forsake his ministers" (Sir 7:30).

The mark of a faithful minister is fidelity to apostolic teaching itself: "If you put the brothers in mind of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed [until now]" (1 Tim 4:6). Paul knows the contrast personally — there are also those "[that] proclaim Christ insincerely from faction, think to raise up affliction for me in my bonds" (Phil 1:17) — which is to say, that an external sermon does not by itself prove an internal minister.

Ministerial Affection

The genuine sermon, in the apostolic pattern, is inseparable from affection for the hearer. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "being affectionately desirous of you⁺, we were well pleased to impart to you⁺, not the good news of God only, but also our own souls, because you⁺ became very dear to us" (1 Thess 2:8). To the Corinthians: "you⁺ are in our hearts to die together and live together" (2 Cor 7:3). To the Philippians: "my brothers beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved" (Phil 4:1). And John, near the end of the canon, ties affection back to the content of the teaching: "I rejoice greatly that I have found [certain] of your children walking in truth, even as we received commandment from the Father" (2 John 1:4). Where the teacher loves the taught, the sermon takes the shape of the Father whose mercy it announces.