Matthew 5:1-18
The following notes were prepared for a student in the Philippines taking a religion class as part of a secular degree. The teacher had asked the student to discuss the first two parts of the Sermon On The Mount under these seven headings.
The world is at "peace" under the rule of Rome. There is a stable government. The Jewish nation does not like the Roman government. They have been hoping for over 1000 years that their special ruler from God would come and reign over. They called Him "Messiah." A person named Jesus was born into Israel. He meet all the requirements to be the "Messiah" but he was reject and ultimately killed by the Jewish leader. They rejected Jesus because they feared that Rome then come an do away with them.
The author was a disciple, or close follower of Jesus from the beginning of His ministry, that is His claim to be Messiah. The author was a well educated business man who served in the tax office before he became a disciple.
You can find out a lot more about the life at the time of Jesus by looking in the reference books in the school library.
This would be the same as the author. But the readers were either not living at the time these events to place or aware of the details surround the rejection of Jesus. Matthew wrote to explain to them two things. 1) that Jesus really was the Messiah, and 2) why He was rejected. [See chapter 27 verses 22 and 37.] {My web site has purpose statement for all the New Testament books. http://www.edifymin.org/BibleRes/NT/purposec.htm }
This oration is called the "Sermon on the Mount." It was given very early in Jesus' ministry. The entire oration covers chapters 5 through 7 of Matthew.
What follows is quick review of the ministry up to the giving of this oration.
A group of people had listen to a man name John the Baptist (3:1-12). He was preaching a message repentence and baptizing those lives showed repentence. He would not baptize the Jewish leaders because he saw them a unrepentant. Those who repented of evil under John's preaching formed a group who would be prepared to hear Messiah. John's ministry had been prophesied in the Old Testament (Isa. 40:3)
Jesus insisted on being baptized by John. (3:13-17) This was to "fulfill all righteousness." This symbolic act also identified Him with those who had repented under John's preaching. However when Jesus was baptized God spoke from heaven, confirming that Jesus who his Son. That is to say God's representative on earth, or in other words the Messiah.
Here is quote
from a commentary I often use.
"Pinpointing
the writing of the First Gospel to a specific year is impossible.
Various dates for the book have been suggested by conservative scholars. C.I. Scofield in the original Scofield
Reference Bible gave a.d. 37
as a possible date. Few scholars give a date after a.d. 70, since Matthew made no reference to the destruction
of Jerusalem. Furthermore, Matthew’s references to Jerusalem as the “Holy City”
(Matt. 4:5; 27:53) imply that it was still in existence.
"But some
time seems to have elapsed after the events of the Crucifixion and the
Resurrection. Matthew 27:7-8 refers to a certain custom continuing “to this
day,” and 28:15 refers to a story being circulated “to this very day.” These
phrases imply the passing of time, and yet not so much time that the Jewish
customs had ceased. Since church tradition has strongly advocated that the
Gospel of Matthew was the first Gospel account written, perhaps a date
somewhere around a.d. 50 would
satisfy all the demands mentioned."
Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., Eds., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985.
You can call it a oration. Some would list it as a didactic or a teaching passage. It is not a narrative, that is the telling of a story. Many scholar would simply say that it is "non-narrative." It is a quotation of part a oration. The section being studied