Luke 6:17
- After wrestling with the Pharisees and selecting his apostles, Jesus now stops on a plain to preach to the people. This sermon is very similar in content to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) and one might ask if it is exactly the same sermon described in two slightly different ways? In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that Jesus preached this message more than both once and twice and that it is therefore very possible that Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain are two different sermons but with the same message.
- But since the place where Jesus is believed to have preached the Sermon on the Mount looks like a mountain seen from Lake Gennesaret, but looks like a plain once you stand on the spot, the mountain and the plain may very well have been the same place.
- It is also quite possible that Matthew calls the plain a mountain in order to make a symbolic connection to Mount Sinai where Moses proclaimed how Israel was to live in the Old Covenant. On this “mountain” Jesus proclaims how to live in the New Covenant.
- The message of this sermon is not primarily about how to be saved or have your sins forgiven, but about how you are expected to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God.
- Many people, including pagans from far away places, crowded around Jesus to listen to his teaching and be healed.
- Jesus was careful to both teach God’s word and pray for the sick because without the other, one risks being unhealthy. For the kingdom of God does not consist in teaching alone or in miracles alone, but in a healthy combination.
Luke 6:18
- Luke, who was a physician (Col 4:14), is careful to distinguish between sickness and being possessed by an evil spirit.