Quotes from Scot McKnight

we need to think about that future more often. I confess I don't. My mind is tied too much to the here and now and not enough to God's future kingdom.

are challenged in this passage to discern who it is whom we treat as enemies—those we claim to love but don't, those who never sit at table with us, those we label and libel—and to convert enemies into neighbors by simply extending love to them. Love is to treat others as we treat ourselves, and it is the rugged commitment to be with someone as someone who is for them in order to foster Christlikeness.

As John Howard Yoder has said, "If in society we believe in the rights of employees, then the church should be the first employer to deal with workers fairly. If in the wider society we call for the overcoming of racism or sexism or materialism, then the church should be the place where that possibility first becomes real.

It is important to know the blessings and to rely on God's promises. Please don't misunderstand my point. But the blessings and promises of God in the Bible emerge from a real life's story that also knows that we live in a broken world and some days are tough. The stories of real lives in the Bible know that we are surrounded by hurting people for whom Psalm 22:1 echoes their normal day.

Another suggestion has come from Mark Allan Powell, who believes the first four beatitudes promise reversal for those who are unfortunate (vv. 3–6) while the second four promise eschatological rewards to the virtuous (vv. 7–10), with verses 11–12 functioning as a concluding comment. He believes the second four blessings are addressing those who show mercy to the unfortunate ones in the first four.19

There are no options here: Jesus calls his followers to be people of reconciliation. In fact, he warns his followers of final destruction if they walk away from that path.

Some people read the Bible as if its passages were Rorschach inkblots. They see what is in their head. In more sophisticated language, they project onto the Bible what they want to see.

we must learn to distinguish moral discernment from personal condemnation.2 This distinction—the ability to know what is good from what is bad and to be able to discern the difference versus the posture of condemning another person—enables us to see what Jesus prohibits in this passage.

the consistency of the Old Testament warnings for the covenant community formed a natural bridge to the New Testament warnings.

Jesus is the gospel-shaped King. There is no other messianic story like the one Jesus told and lived.

I'd like to suggest that the Golden Rule is perhaps the most potent political weapon we Christians have today. And I don't say this because I'm Anabaptist but because empathy is at the bottom of the Golden Rule. If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world.

The gospel is capable and designed to strike home in every culture, in every age, and in every language.

Perhaps it is easiest to define "meek" by saying Jesus was meek: "for I am gentle [same word as our beatitude] and humble31 in heart" (11:29). Moreover, in entering Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus fulfilled an Old Testament expectation of the meek king (21:5).

John Wesley said this well: "The judging that Jesus condemns here is thinking about another person in a way that is contrary to love."3

Knowing God's love, knowing God's goodness, and learning to embrace those attributes of God prompt us to pray.

Yahweh is the sort who sticks with what he is stuck with.

If we as Christians with a faithful witness would set the example, not by way of reaction but by way of reasoned empathy, we might set the tone for more shalom in our world.

From nature one can learn the lessons of divine providence, and some of us need to be reminded of this because we can look and not see a world alive with God's presence.

Any serious pondering of all of life through the Golden Rule is dangerous for our moral health because it will summon us — I know I feel this way just writing the above paragraphs — to live under the King and as one of his kingdom citizens.

It is a fact that many statements about what the Bible says are derived from contextless exegeses of a former generation

The Psalter is responsible for creating the prayers in the church. It remains the core of all Christian prayers. Whenever we pray with psalms, we are joining the universal Church in prayer.

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me; it is the parts I do understand." Whoever said that may well have been thinking about Matthew 5 or even our specific passage.

Calvin saw in the words "Do not judge" a tendency to become overly curious about the sins of others (including those closest to us) that needed to be checked and handed over to God—who alone is the Judge.

In Acts 10–11, in the encounter of the Torah-observant Peter with the God-fearing Gentile Cornelius, we see what "fulfill" looks like for the apostles: it means some radical revisioning without abolishing. Paul's words about accommodating himself to Gentile ways in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 also illustrate how the apostles "applied" this claim by Jesus. Second lesson in Bible reading: looking to Jesus means following him and through him the Torah.