Notes

“Radical Honesty”: I first heard about this from an article in the July 2007 issue of Esquire.

if a Roman soldier asked a Jew to carry his luggage: In Matthew 27:32 we see an incidence of this when Simon is ordered by a Roman to carry the cross.

“[Jesus] chose the way of the cross”: David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), p. 137.

“more than enough people”: Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 109.

“A rich self looks toward the future with trust”: Ibid., p. 110.

Teleios refers to spiritual maturity: R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 228.

John Paul II and Mohammed Agca: Volf, Free of Charge, p. 171.

“Steven’s son Bobby was killed in the September 11 attacks”: Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), pp. 204-5.

The mothers of Boyle Heights: Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship, p. 126.

“We know that we will be taken care of”: Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), p. 181.

John Cassian on vainglory: John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes (London: Saint Austin Press, 1999), p. 163.

“There is no pride so dangerous”: Andrew Murray, Humility (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2001), p. 64.

“This disease strikes precisely where a man’s virtue lies”: Cassian, Monastic Institutes, pp. 163-65.

“When someone gave a significant gift”: R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) p. 236.

“[God] is himself invisible”: Ibid., p. 239.

Why “must we pray?”: John Chrysostom, “Homily 19 on St. Matthew: On the Lord’s Prayer,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 10, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. George Prevost and rev. M. B. Riddle (Buffalo, N.Y.: Christian Literature Publishing, 1888). Rev. and ed. for New Advent site by Kevin Knight <www.newadvent.org/fathers/200119.htm>.

“The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth”: Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2007), p. 31.

John Calvin on contemplating the face of God: John Calvin, quoted in C. J. Mahaney, Humility (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2005), p. 21.

“roughly ninety percent of our consumer buying”: Martin Lindstrom, Buyology (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 195

Suze Orman’s story about her father: Suze Orman, The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom (New York: Crown, 1997), p. 3.

“Just a little bit more”: I have heard this story many times through the years but am unable to find a reference, which means it may be apocryphal.

“We reveal what our treasures are by”: Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), pp. 203-4.

“belonging to and living by the priorities”: R. T. France, Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 259.

“unhealthy eye” referred to a stingy, envious, jealous person: Ibid., p. 262.

“no record of mammon being used in a negative way”: Ibid.

wealth pretends to offers what we want from God: Wesley K. Willmer, God and Your Stuff (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), p. 26.

brain scans of people of faith: Lindstrom, Buyology, p. 108.

powerful brands and religious experiences: Ibid., p. 124.

watching ads for six straight years: Ibid., p. 37.

fear-driven advertising: Ibid., p. 138.

simplicity is “an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle”: Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: HaperSanFrancisco, 1978), p. 69.

“The little freckle on your arm could be a time bomb”: Adapted from Scott Bader-Saye, Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007), p. 14.

“fear for profit” syndrome: Ibid., p. 16.

“Television news programs survive on scares”: Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. xxi.

“This novel twisting of an old motif”: Dale C. Allison and W. D. Davies, Commentary on Matthew VII-XVIII, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), p. 653.

“Anxiety is foolish and accomplishes nothing”: Ibid., p. 652.

condemnation engineering: “Condemnation Engineering” is a phrase I have heard often by Dallas Willard, so I must give him credit for this insightful term.

I may be wrong, but I ask that you open your mind: Dallas Willard has shaped my interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount (see The Divine Conspiracy). It took me many years to agree with Dallas’s teaching on the Sermon, but I have come to agree with his interpretation. Though Dallas is a philosopher and not a New Testament scholar, I believe he understands the Sermon on the Mount with greater clarity than any single scholar I have read.

“Despite their arguments, I fully disagree”: Dale C. Allison and W. D. Davies, as well as R. T. France hold that Jesus is here offering a corrective to his liberal teaching on not judging, namely, that there are cases where we would be wasting our time trying to help people who do not want our help. With all due respect, I disagree. The primary reason is that it goes against the grain of the Sermon. For example, Allison believes that Jesus is balancing his laxity toward judgment by warning people about offering the gospel to those who do not want to hear it—a moral symmetry. The kingdom of God is the pearl, he notes, and there are hardhearted people who are not worthy of it: “There has to be an economy of truth” (Dale C. Allison and W. D. Davies, Commentary on Matthew VII-XVIII, International Critical Commentary [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991], pp. 674-76).

“The whole business of judging persons”: T. W. Manson, quoted in Allison and Davies, Commentary on Matthew, p. 669.

“Do not unto another what you would not”: John Wesley, “Sermon XXX: Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” Sermons on Several Occasions, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Jackson and Thomas Osmond Summers (New York: Carlton & Phillips, 1855), p. 285.

“to abide means to rest and rely on Jesus”: James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), p. 159.

“Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace”: Dallas Willard, quoted in Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, Devotional Classics (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), p. 16.

false prophets are not “heretics”: John Chrysostom, “Homily 23.6, Matthew 7:16,” The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. Matthew, trans. George Prevost (Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1843), p. 356.

we ought not “look to the mask”: Quoted in Matthew 1—13, ed. Manlio Simonetti, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001), p. 152.

“A Mother’s Advice to Her Daughter”: This translation comes from an excerpt in John Wesley’s A Christian Library, and was modernized by James Bryan Smith and Danielle Howard.

“Covenant Prayer”: Quoted in Frank Whaling, ed., John and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns, Journal Notes, Sermons, Letters and Treatises, Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 59.

“If you’ve got troubles and just can’t sleep”: Irving Berlin, “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep,” 1954.