Sermon On The Mount Order Printed Copy

Author: Oswald Chambers
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About the Book

"Sermon on the Mount" by Oswald Chambers is a collection of profound and insightful reflections on Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on topics such as humility, righteousness, and the Kingdom of God. Chambers offers practical and thought-provoking insights into how Christians can live out Jesus' teachings in their daily lives.

St. Patrick

St. Patrick, (flourished 5th century, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17), patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians. Patrick was born in Britain of a Romanized family. At age 16 he was torn by Irish raiders from the villa of his father, Calpurnius, a deacon and minor local official, and carried into slavery in Ireland. He spent six bleak years there as a herdsman, during which he turned with fervour to his faith. Upon dreaming that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. Thereafter, he may have paid a short visit to the Continent. The best known passage in the Confessio tells of a dream, after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus delivered him a letter headed “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. “Deeply moved,” he says, “I could read no more.” Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education, he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. Even on the eve of reembarkation for Ireland he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a kinglet here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from any. On at least one occasion, he was cast into chains. On another, he addressed with lyrical pathos a last farewell to his converts who had been slain or kidnapped by the soldiers of Coroticus. Careful to deal fairly with the non-Christian Irish, he nevertheless lived in constant danger of martyrdom. The evocation of such incidents of what he called his “laborious episcopate” was his reply to a charge, to his great grief endorsed by his ecclesiastical superiors in Britain, that he had originally sought office for the sake of office. In point of fact, he was a most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped “idols and unclean things” had become “the people of God.” The phenomenal success of Patrick’s mission is not, however, the full measure of his personality. Since his writings have come to be better understood, it is increasingly recognized that, despite their occasional incoherence, they mirror a truth and a simplicity of the rarest quality. Not since St. Augustine of Hippo had any religious diarist bared his inmost soul as Patrick did in his writings. As D.A. Binchy, the most austerely critical of Patrician (i.e., of Patrick) scholars, put it, “The moral and spiritual greatness of the man shines through every stumbling sentence of his ‘rustic’ Latin.” It is not possible to say with any assurance when Patrick was born. There are, however, a number of pointers to his missionary career having lain within the second half of the 5th century. In the Coroticus letter, his mention of the Franks as still “heathen” indicates that the letter must have been written between 451, the date generally accepted as that of the Franks’ irruption into Gaul as far as the Somme River, and 496, when they were baptized en masse. Patrick, who speaks of himself as having evangelized heathen Ireland, is not to be confused with Palladius, sent by Pope Celestine I in 431 as “first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ.” Toward the end of his life, he retired to Saul, where he may have written his Confessio. It is said that an angel conveyed to him that he was to die at Saul, the site of his first church, despite his wishes to die within the ecclesiastical metropolis of Ireland. His last rites were administered by St. Tussach (also spelled Tassach or Tassac). Legends Before the end of the 7th century, Patrick had become a legendary figure, and the legends have continued to grow. One of these would have it that he drove the snakes of Ireland into the sea to their destruction. Patrick himself wrote that he raised people from the dead, and a 12th-century hagiography places this number at 33 men, some of whom are said to have been deceased for many years. He also reportedly prayed for the provision of food for hungry sailors traveling by land through a desolate area, and a herd of swine miraculously appeared. Another legend, probably the most popular, is that of the shamrock, which has him explain the concept of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God, to an unbeliever by showing him the three-leaved plant with one stalk. Traditionally, Irishmen have worn shamrocks, the national flower of Ireland, in their lapels on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

five ways to build stronger relationships

“That used to be nice.” That was the first response when I recently asked a group of men what comes to mind when they think about friendship. Once they entered their upper twenties and thirties, many of them no longer had close friendships. We mostly laughed when joking about Jesus’s “miracle” of having twelve close friends in his thirties. Many factors combine to make friendship difficult for men. Personally, time for friends seems unrealistic in light of work or family responsibilities. Culturally, we don’t have a shared understanding of what friendships among men should look like. We also find ourselves connecting more digitally than deeply. We’ve lost a vision for strong, warm, face-to-face and side-by-side male friendship. But God made us for more. He made us in his own image, the image of a triune God who exists in communal love. Therefore, friendship is not a luxury; it’s a relational necessity. We glorify God by enjoying him and reflecting his relational love with one another. If you are a man who has struggled to go deeper with other men, here are five concrete steps to cultivate deeper friendships. 1. Establish rhythms for your relationships. Without rhythms in our lives, the important priorities don’t get done. If we value communing with God through his word and prayer, we form a habit. If we want to exercise consistently, we create a pattern. Here’s a proposal for cultivating friendship: Build it into your schedule. Establish a regular rhythm for coffee together. Devote a meal each week — say, Monday breakfasts or Wednesday dinners — to share with others. Plan to meet up to take walks together. Reserve an extended weekend each year to get away and enjoy God’s creation together. 2. Drop each conversation one notch deeper. Conversations about sports and daily activities are worthwhile. But if that’s all we talk about, it’s like snorkeling on the surface while missing the deeper wonders of the ocean. But how do we take our conversations deeper? First, ask thoughtful questions. When you’re driving to meet your friend, think about what you want to learn about him. Think about the main aspects of his life right now — his relationship with the Lord, his family, his work — and ask him about how things are going. When he shares about a challenge, ask how his internal life (his heart, his disposition toward God) is doing in the midst of this. From there, stay curious and ask more questions. Second, talk about what you’re each reading. Ask how God’s word has convicted or encouraged him recently. Ask what book he’s recently read that helped him know God or live more faithfully as a disciple. Consider reading through Scripture or a Scripture-saturated book together and meeting to talk about it. 3. Overcome our cultural aversion to expressing affection. “Love one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 12:10). We don’t usually put those last two words next to one another — brotherly feels masculine; affection feels feminine. But there they are together, inviting us to cultivate genuine, non-weird, affectionate brotherhood. We see this affectionate bond with Jonathan and David: “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1). We see it with Paul and the Ephesian elders: “And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him” (Acts 20:37). Expressing affection feels uncomfortable to men today because our culture has slowly shifted its understanding of masculinity. Rather than combining strength and tenderness, we view manhood as muscular and aggressive. Our culture has also sexualized love, interpreting affection between men as something other than friendship. But we can build a better way. 4. Oxygenate your friendships with affirmation. What happens without oxygen? We become sluggish and lethargic. This is what relationships feel like without affirmation. This may be why some of your relationships feel withered, thin, or tired. Affirmation is relational oxygen. One of the most powerful tools for cultivating true friendship is Romans 12:10: “Outdo one another in showing honor.” Men find it hard to give and receive honor and affirmation. It feels uncomfortable at first to tell someone why you thank God for him or why you respect him. But only at first. I’ve seen many men work through their initial hesitations and start cultivating a culture of sincere encouragement around them. And I’ve seen the other men flourish because of it. 5. Invite friends into what you’re already doing. Our schedules are full and we rush from one thing to the next. We don’t see how we can find time for friends. But what if you don’t need to open up your schedule? What if you can include friends into the activities you already do? Here are a few suggestions I’ve seen work: When you plan to watch a sports game or weekly show, find out who else would want to watch it and invite them to join you. If you exercise a few times each week, do it with a friend. Invite friends or family members to join you for dinner or dessert. If you have young kids, let your guests participate in the bedtime routine and then stay around afterward. If you have young kids, invite someone to join your family at the park. Put a few friends on speed dial and call them on your daily commute home. If you have a home project to complete, invite someone to help you and offer to help him with his. Hope and Help for Forging Friendship Jesus is our greatest model of male friendship. He initiated relationships and he invited men to be with him (Mark 3:14). He continually asked thought-provoking questions. He loved his disciples with brotherly affection (John 13:1). He calls us his friends (John 15:13–15). He also gives us the great privilege of reflecting and enjoying this kind of true friendship to other men. Maybe as you consider taking these steps, you look ahead with both hope and hesitancy. Maybe you think back to when you experienced deeper community and think you won’t find that again. Or maybe you still feel pain from failed attempts at connecting with others. You wonder if forging friendship is harder, even impossible, for you. Before you give up, remember two truths: First, Jesus isn’t just the model for true friendship; he is himself our truest friend. He initiates friendship with us, and we receive it on terms of grace. Now “no one need ever say I have no ‘friend’ to turn to, so long as Christ is in heaven” (J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts , 3:114). And second, he delights for us to ask for true community in his name. God alone is able to create, renew, and strengthen the deepest human relationships. So, pray. Ask God to make your efforts at friendship fruitful. Then trust him, stay patient, and keep taking steps toward others in the strength he provides.