But God gave the Israelites the law on Mt Sinai before the 40 years in the desert, not after. The corresponding event after Jesus’ tempting is not Sinai, but Moses’ re-giving of the law to the people just before they were to enter the promised land in Deuteronomy. This correspondence makes the case for a parallel between the Sermon on the Mount and Exodus much weaker, however, because here it was Moses repeating the law to the people, not God giving it Himself, and the Bible has the location not on a mountain or hill but a desert, plain or wilderness.

Mansel Rogerson

Yes, your final remarks in the above reply may have to suffice! But you are right – the state has been ordained to guarantee the order and justice that God desires to see in all creation. And of course, we need to achieve a synthetic, integrative treatment of the entirety of Scripture. Thanks again for indulging my thoughts.

Scott Buchanan

Yes, I did not mean to imply in those brief remarks that a passage such as Matt. 5-7 is only about individual ethics, with no corporate or communal application or relevance. Much of NT ethics has to do with the Body of Christ as a whole, not just individuals. This is certainly true of Paul as well – he tends to write more in terms of the collective (the church) while we tend to read Paul more in individualistic terms.

So yes in that sense I fully agree with you, and what I wrote appears to be misleading in this respect. And yes Hays, and Tom Wright and many others are right to see the story of Israel recapitulated in the ministry of Jesus, especially as presented in Matthew’s gospel.

But we still must be aware that God has also ordained the institution of the state. Thus a passage like Matthew 5-7 must not be read in isolation, but in relation to the rest of biblical revelation. And of course how we read and understand the Sermon on the Mount is far from settled, with a wealth of differing interpretations. But most careful commentators and scholars do acknowledge that what Jesus says there must be read with passages like Romans 13 in mind. So a rough distinction between a social ethic (what God does in and through the state) and a personal ethic (what God does in and through the individual believer) can still be maintained.

And yes I too like Hays, but I do not agree with all that he says. We can all profit greatly from his 1996 work, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. I think he is very good on sexual ethics, but I find him less than convincing on issues of violence and war and peace. Thus he and I – and perhaps you and I – may have to agree to disagree on some of these points. But thanks for sharing.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

I agree that sloganeering and theological shallowness are not the answers. To simply say that “war is not the answer” sounds awfully sophomoric and reduces a very complex issue to a series of simplistic platitudes. Thankyou for pointing out this particular mistake that leftist Christians regularly make – and I say this as one who often leans towards the “left” side of politics (despite the inadequacy of the terms “left” and “right”).

However, I must respectfully disagree with your interpretation of Matthew 5-7, and the distinction between that passage and Romans 12. Of course, in a short essay such as yours, it is impossible to cover all the nuances and complexities of a particular portion of Scripture. Nevertheless, I don’t know that the Sermon on the Mount simply constitutes a personal ethic, without any communitarian, political or institutional implications. If you’ll indulge me, I would like to draw your attention to the passages that precede Matt. 5-7 (a caveat: at this point, I take my cue from Richard Hays). You’ll notice that in those passages, Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, before being led into the desert to be tested by the Satan for 40 days. Here, Matthew is intentionally presenting Jesus as Israel’s Messiah – the representative of God’s people – who recapitulates Israel’s experiences during their liberation from Egypt and sojourn through the wilderness. Note the parallels: Jesus passaes through the waters when he is baptzied; Israel passes through the waters when it escapes Egyptian bondage. Jesus is tested in the wilderness for 40 days; Israel is tested for 40 years.

Now for the punch line. Moses gave Israel the law from Mount Sinai; in Matt. 5, Jesus teaches from a mountainside. The parallel is unmistakable. Moses was giving the nation of Israel a covenant document, by which they would live in order to be a light to the world. In a similar fashion, the Sermon on the Mount constitutes a new covenant document for the people of God who are to be led by their Messiah out of captivity and into freedom.

What are the implications? Well, the Sermon on the Mount is not simply a personal ethic; it is meant for the entire community. More than that, when we as the redeemed community live out the ethical ideals of Matt. 5-7, we do so not only as individual disciples, but as members of God’s new family who embody and anticipate his new world – a world that lies beyond violence, war and brutality. It is a world we should strive for now, embodying it together as God’s people.

Does that mean we should be pacifists? It’s hard to say. How the ideals of the Sermon on the Mount are to be applied to real-life situations and issues is difficult. At this point in time, I would struggle countenance complete pacifism. However, I think we need to grapple with texts such as Matt. 5-7, and engage with their implications (whether they are confined to the individual or not), and take note of their radical demands.

Scott Buchanan

Ewan McDonald.

And now we have McLaren’s prayer for the Copenhagen Summit: blog.sojo.net/2009/10/27/a-prayer-for-the-earth/

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

Yes you raise a good point about all the double standards here. Imagine if some religious conservative wrote an open letter to the President. The Left would be going ballistic about Christians trying to take over America, about theocracy just around the corner, etc. As I have said before, the secular left in fact does not mind religious influence on politics, as long as it is the leftist variety that they approve of.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch