826. Things Seldom Heard in Church: "Mount Sermon" Not a New Christian Teaching

If you are under the assumption that most of what Jesus spoke was meant to be applied directly for you as a believer in Christ, you’ll end up with all sorts of inconsistencies and potential confusion in your belief system. Within those red letters found in the Bible, the majority of what Jesus spoke was aimed at Jewish people who were under a hopeless position, living under the law within what is now an obsolete covenant.

But if you’ve been taught by church ideology that when Jesus was speaking to His disciples … that He was also talking to you … then you’ll jump to some inaccurate conclusions when it comes to the gospel of grace.

Are we dismissing, ignoring or running from the words of Jesus? Absolutely not. Understanding the ministry of Jesus as a man walking the earth—and what He spoke at that time—needs to be considered in the proper context in order to come to a greater knowledge of the truth.

Five years ago we did a foundational 20-podcast series called "Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants" that will help in understanding all of this.  The first episode of that series can be found here, and you can listen to the subsequent parts from there, or you can listen via the YouTube playlist here.

   
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687. Confusing the Teachings of Jesus With New Covenant Christianity

When you mix peanut butter with chocolate, you might end up with a delicious peanut butter cup. If you take (portions) of the Mosaic law from the Old Covenant God made with Israel and mingle it with the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, you’ll end up with confusion and uncertainty. One of the primary ingredients that has led to this problem within the Christian religion is making the false assumption that the New Covenant began with the birth of Jesus. It pulls people into a misleading belief system that Jesus was usually communicating a new Christian teaching meant to be applied to our lives today. Certainly there were moments when He did look forward to the New Covenant, but His primary purpose while walking the earth as a man was to minister to Israel - those who were under the curse of the law - and to ultimately redeem them from it. Don’t fall into the trap of concluding that much of what Jesus taught was always meant for you personally. If that were true, we’d discover inconsistency with some of the writings from the apostles after the cross… not because they contradicted Jesus, but because two different covenants need to be kept in the proper context.



   
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