Start with the whole hillside.

01

Look at the beginning and the ending

The Sermon on the Mount spans Matthew 5, Matthew 6, and Matthew 7. Begin by noticing the opening scene and the response at the end. These chapters belong to one extended movement of teaching in Matthew’s narrative.

You do not need to read all three chapters in one sitting. You can divide them into passages while remembering the larger setting. A brief note about what came before will help each new reading remain connected.

02

Let the Beatitudes open the conversation

The opening blessings name people in a range of circumstances and dispositions. Read them slowly, one after another, before deciding which line speaks most immediately to you. Notice both what is named and the hope attached to it.

Keep the later teaching in view as you continue. Images of salt and light, attention to the law, and instruction about relationships follow. The beginning invites a kind of attention that the rest of the teaching develops in concrete situations.

03

Notice the ordinary places where teaching lands

The chapters address anger, speech, retaliation, love, giving, prayer, fasting, possessions, worry, judgement, and action. Read these as connected parts of a way of living rather than a collection of unrelated quotations.

Choose one passage and name the everyday setting it addresses. Then examine the reasoning and images around it. A reading about worry, for example, includes birds, lilies, provision, and the question of what to seek. Let those details shape your reflection.

04

Finish with the question of practice

Toward the end, the image of building connects hearing with doing. Read the final comparison carefully. Ask what place action has in the teaching you have just followed, and what you might need to understand more fully before choosing your response.

A small, specific action is more useful than a sweeping promise to change everything. You might revisit a conversation, examine an assumption, or make time to pray. Keep the action tied to the passage and leave room to learn from a future reading.

05

Follow one theme across the chapters

After a first reading of Matthew 5–7, choose one theme: prayer, generosity, judgment, or hearing and doing. Find its immediate paragraph and read the paragraph on either side. Record the words and examples the passage actually uses.

Then notice how the ending returns to response. The images of hearing and building make action part of the sermon’s conclusion. Keep that movement in view without assuming that every teaching can be reduced to the same easy instruction.

06

Make the response specific enough to review

A response such as become a better person is too broad to examine. A smaller response might be to reconsider one judgment you have made, make time for private prayer, or review how you practise generosity.

Write why that response follows from the passage. Return to it after a few days and ask what happened, what was difficult, and whether you read the teaching accurately. This is a way to keep reading and living in conversation, rather than using a brief reading to settle every question.

Questions along the way