Sermon On The Mount and Parables

"And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came to him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, ..." And so begins the most important sermon ever taught. If you have never read the Bible; if you have no intention of ever reading the Bible; I believe you should at least read Matthew 5 through Matthew 7. It will not take long, twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. But in that half hour you will learn most, maybe all, of what you need to know about what Jesus was born to teach you. In addition to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount He taught many lessons using parables. A parable is a short story that teaches a moral or faith based lesson. A parable is generally fictitious, meaning it is not a true story but is told as if it is true. If you read the Sermon on the Mount and find that you want to learn more of Jesus' teachings, the parables He told are a good resource. I believe it is important to have trained teachers tell us what the "official" interpretation of biblical text is. And I believe the official interpretation is important. But I also believe it is important to have a private, personal interpretation of biblical text. What I am doing here is outlining my personal interpretation. In many, probably most cases, my interpretation is exactly the same as the official Christian doctrinal interpretation. In some cases it may be different. When that difference occurs, you may agree with the official interpretation or my personal interpretation, or you may have a different interpretation altogether.