“Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.”  — The Bible Matthew Chapter 5:1-2, New International Version, accessed via Bible Gateway.com.

Beginning today we will be considering that great teaching session of Jesus usually referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount.”  This sermon takes up three chapters of the book of Matthew (5, 6 and 7) and includes lots of good stuff.  This is where Jesus talks about being salt and light in the world, murder, oaths, “an eye for an eye,” giving to the needy, prayer, laying up treasures in heaven, judging others, ask, seek, knock, true and false prophets and disciples and much, much, more.

But this lengthy teaching begins with what we call The Beatitudes, that series of statements beginning with the words “blessed are.”  We will be going through these verse by verse, one per day.

Dig a Little Deeper:  As we read about these think about the people Jesus calls blessed — is it shocking?  How does it go against conventional wisdom or popular culture?