A Words of Plainness Study Pathway by Brother Aaron — April 2026
Accompanies Chapter 12: The Beatitudes and Chapter 13: The Sermon on the Mount
Why This Pathway Exists
The discipleship cards in Chapters 12 and 13 assume a working familiarity with what Christ taught on the mount. The cards are not designed to teach you the Sermon. They are designed to help you do something with it. But if the Sermon on the Mount is unfamiliar territory for you—or if you have read it many times but never sat with it slowly—this study pathway will walk you through it at your own pace.
What follows is not a commentary in the academic sense. I am not a biblical scholar, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. What I can offer is the perspective of a disciple who has lived with these words for decades and been changed by them—sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once. I will walk through the Sermon passage by passage, noting what I believe Christ is teaching and why it matters for the life you are living right now. Where the Restoration adds light, I will say so. Where the passage speaks for itself, I will try to get out of the way.
Read this at whatever pace feels right. You may want to read the scriptural passages first on your own before reading my notes. It is always a good idea to pray for the Spirit of God to be with you before you begin. I would recommend it. The Sermon on the Mount was delivered by the Son of God to people He loved. It deserves the same reverence in your study that it carried in His voice.
The Sermon on the Mount appears in two places in scripture: Matthew 5–7 (delivered during Christ’s mortal ministry in Galilee) and 3 Nephi 12–14 (delivered by the resurrected Christ to the Nephites in the Western Hemisphere). The two accounts are nearly identical, with a few significant additions in the Nephite version. I will note these where they appear.
Origin of the Word Beatitudes: A Portrait of Flourishing (Matthew 5:3–12)
The Sermon opens with the Beatitudes—eight declarations that describe the kind of life Jesus Christ calls “blessed.” Chapter 12 of our discipleship cards treats these in depth, so I will be brief here. But a few things are worth noting for the reader encountering them for the first time.
It may seem overly academic, but the origin of the word Beatitude is relevant. This word is not related to the word attitude, though many confuse the two by accident, or do so purposefully to provide an interesting play on words.
Jesus would have been able to teach His sermon in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek.
The Greek word translated as “blessed” is makarioi, and it does not mean “morally approved.” It means flourishing—genuinely, deeply living well.
The Aramaic word for “blessed” is tubwayhon, which means ripe, mature, suited to purpose. When Christ says “blessed are the poor in spirit,” He is not saying “congratulations on being miserable.” He is saying that the person who is honest about their need before God is positioned for the genuinely good life. The kingdom of heaven belongs to that person—not someday, but now.
While the New Testament was written in Greek, the word ashrei (אַשְׁרֵי) is the corresponding Hebrew term, often used in Psalms to mean “happy,” “fortunate,” or “flourishing,” representing a deep state of divine favor rather than merely a temporary emotion.
The English word beatitude originates with the Latin term beātus, which means “blessed, happy, or fortunate”—related to the word beatific which means “blissful.” This is the word that evolved into the English word beatitude.
So, the Beatitudes are Christ’s declarations of what a flourishing, deeply happy, fully-developed life is to the God who created it for us.
The Beatitudes move in a progression: from honest seeing (poor in spirit, mourning) to responding (meekness, hunger for righteousness) to being transformed (mercy, purity of heart) to being sent out as peacemakers and bearing the cost of faithfulness. They describe both the entrance to discipleship and the character of its maturity. You never graduate from the Beatitudes. You deepen into them.
The Sermon ends where the Beatitudes begin: “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” is the promise of both the first and the eighth Beatitude. The circle closes. The person who starts with honest seeing and endures through persecution receives the same inheritance. The kingdom belongs to the one who begins and to the one who endures.
Salt and Light: Identity Before Instruction (Matthew 5:13–16)
Before Christ gives a single command, He establishes identity. “Ye are the salt of the earth”—“Ye are the light of the world.” Not “you should try to be the salt of the Earth.” Not “if you work hard enough, you might become a light.” You are. This is a declaration, and it comes before any instruction about prayer, fasting, or the law.
Salt in the ancient world preserved food from decay. It was essential, not decorative. A disciple’s life does the same for the community around it—it holds back corruption not through argument but through presence. It also adds a savory social flavor to a community.
Light reveals what is there. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, and a lamp is not lit to be placed under a basket. Christ’s point is plain: the life shaped by the Beatitudes will be unmistakably different from the surrounding culture, and that difference is the purpose. You cannot hide goodness from the world. To try to do so is a kind of reverse-hypocrisy.
But Christ also issues a warning. Salt that has lost its savor is “good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Identity without influence is empty. Discipleship that hides itself has failed its reason for existence. If your faith changes nothing visible in your life, something has gone wrong—not with the faith, but with how you are holding it.
The Higher Law: From the Act to the Heart (Matthew 5:17–48)
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” With these words Christ raised the entire moral standard from outward compliance to inward transformation. What follows are six teachings—scholars call them the antitheses—each using the same pattern: “Ye have heard that it was said… but I say unto you.” In every case, Christ moves the standard from the act to the heart behind the act.
Anger and Reconciliation (5:21–26)
The old law said, “Thou shalt not kill.” Christ says that anger itself—the root from which violence grows—offends God. If you are at the altar and remember that a brother has something against you, leave your offering and go make it right first. The worship that matters is the worship offered by a reconciled heart. God is not interested in your sacrifice if your relationships are broken and you are not doing anything about it.
Lust and Purity (5:27–32)
The old law said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Christ says that the heart that entertains lust has already turned. External compliance with the letter of the law while nurturing desire in the heart is not faithfulness. It is self-deception. Christ does not say this to condemn the person who struggles with temptation. He says it to name the truth: the battle for purity is fought in the mind and the heart, not merely in the body. And that battle is one He fights alongside you, not one He watches from a distance.
Oaths and Integrity (5:33–37)
The old law permitted oaths—swearing by heaven, by earth, by the temple—as a way of guaranteeing truthfulness. Christ cuts through the entire system: “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” A person whose word requires an oath to be believed has a credibility problem. The disciple’s yes should mean yes. The disciple’s no should mean no. Integrity is not a performance for special occasions. It is the baseline expectation of decent living.
Retaliation and Absorption (5:38–42)
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This is not passivity. It is the refusal to participate in the cycle of retaliation. It is the deliberate choice to absorb a wrong rather than perpetuate it. Turning the other cheek, going the second mile, giving the cloak as well as the coat—each of these is an act of sovereign freedom, not weakness. The person who retaliates is controlled by the one who wronged them. The person who absorbs the blow and chooses a different response is free.
Love of Enemies (5:43–48)
This is the summit of the Higher Law. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” The reason Christ gives is breathtaking: “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” God’s love is not reserved for those who deserve it. Neither is ours to be. If we only love those who love us back, we have done nothing remarkable. Even people with no claim to discipleship do that.
The section closes with the command that haunts every earnest disciple: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” The Greek word translated “perfect” is teleios—and as we discuss in Chapter 12, it does not mean morally flawless. It means brought to completion, having reached the purpose for which you were created. In 3 Nephi 12:48, the resurrected Christ adds Himself to the standard: “even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” He includes Himself as proof that teleios is achievable—not by human effort alone, but by grace working in a willing heart.
And here is the thing about the Higher Law that I have come to believe after years of trying to live it: it is impossible under self-powered obedience. No one can stop anger by willpower alone, love an enemy through sheer determination, or purify the heart by clenching it tighter. We all fall short of the glory of God. The Higher Law is what God’s grace looks like when it has access to the heart. The old law could restrain behavior. Only grace can transform desire. Christ did not raise the standard to crush us. He raised it to show us how much we need Him—and what He can do with a heart that lets Him in.
Treasures and Trust: Freedom from Anxiety (Matthew 6:19–34)
The second half of Matthew 6 extends the principle of sincerity into the material world. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” The teaching is not that material things are evil. It is that they are temporary—and the heart that depends on temporary things lives in perpetual anxiety.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The word mammon is Aramaic for wealth or material security. Christ does not say you should not have money. He says you cannot serve it and serve God at the same time. The question is not, “How much do you own?” The holy question is, “What owns your heart?”
Then comes the passage about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air—one of the most beautiful stretches of prose in all of scripture. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” The argument is simple and devastating: if God clothes the grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, will He not also take care of you? “O ye of little faith.”
The section closes with one of the most practical instructions in the Sermon: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” Interior sincerity and exterior freedom from anxiety are two sides of the same coin. The person whose devotion is genuine—whose giving, praying, and fasting are between them and God—is also the person who can release the anxious grip on material security. Trust is what remains when performance falls away.
Judgment and Discernment: The Beam and the Mote (Matthew 7:1–6)
“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” This is perhaps the most frequently quoted—and most frequently misunderstood—verse in the Sermon. Christ is not prohibiting discernment. He is prohibiting the kind of judgment that condemns others while ignoring its own blindness. “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
The instruction is not “never help someone see their faults.” The instruction is “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Self-examination must precede any correction of others. The disciple who has faced the Higher Law honestly, who has practiced hidden devotion, who has released the grip on material security—that person has earned the moral clarity to help someone else. But only after dealing with what is inside.
Christ then adds a counterbalancing instruction: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.” The sacred has boundaries. Discernment is not judgmentalism—it is wisdom about when to share and when to hold back, when a person is ready to receive and when offering the sacred would only invite its desecration. Both instructions belong together: do not condemn your brother’s speck while ignoring your plank, and do not throw sacred things at those who will only trample them.
Ask, Seek, Knock: The Promise That Holds It All Together (Matthew 7:7–12)
After laying down a standard that no one can meet by their own strength, Christ gives the lifeline: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
This is not a vague encouragement. It is the mechanism by which the entire Sermon becomes livable. The Higher Law is impossible without grace. Hidden devotion is unsustainable without the Spirit. Freedom from anxiety is unreachable without trust in a God who actually provides. Ask, seek, knock is Christ’s way of saying: I know this standard is beyond you. That is the point. Come to Me. Let Me help you.
Christ then compares God to a human father: “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” If imperfect earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The argument is from lesser to greater. God is not stingy. God is not indifferent. God is a Parent who wants to give, and the thing that activates His generosity is asking.
The Golden Rule follows immediately: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” The word therefore connects it directly to the promise of asking. Because God gives generously to those who ask, you should give generously to those around you. The Golden Rule is not a standalone ethic. It is the natural overflow of a life that has experienced the generosity of God. Another important realization about the Golden Rule as taught by Christ is that it was delivered in the positive action state. He did not say “Don’t do things to others that you wouldn’t want them to do to you.” Doing no harm is commendable, but it is passive. Christ is asking for actions that lead to the flourishing life.
The Narrow Way: Warnings and the Final Test (Matthew 7:13–27)
The Sermon closes with a series of warnings, each one sharper than the last, and a final parable that divides all hearers into two groups.
The Strait Gate (7:13–14)
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The way of discipleship is not popular. It is not easy. Christ does not apologize for this. He simply states it. The narrow way is not narrow because God is restrictive. It is narrow because transformation is costly and most people prefer comfort to the active labor of character development.
False Prophets and the Fruit Test (7:15–20)
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
This would have been a powerful way for Jesus to teach this principle of His day. They were all very familiar with the Oleander plant, which was widespread in the regions surrounding the Sea of Galilee and along the Jordan River valley during the first century. During the spring and summer, they produce prolific clusters of vibrant pink or white blossoms. While it is exceptionally beautiful, every part of the tree—including the flowers, leaves, and the long, bean-like seed pods (the fruit)—is highly toxic.
The test is simple and devastating: look what results from their teachings and actions, not just the words. A good tree produces good fruit. A corrupt tree produces corrupt fruit.
This is not a test for other people only. It is a test you must apply to yourself. What fruit is your life producing? Not what you intend. Not what you profess. What is actually growing?
Lord, Lord (7:21–23)
This is the most sobering passage in the entire Sermon. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” There will be people who prophesied in His name, cast out devils in His name, did many wonderful works in His name—and Christ will say to them, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
The Greek word for “knew” in the phrase “I never knew you” is ginōskō. This word denotes a trusting and familiar relationship, rather than mere intellectual awareness. Like between a husband and wife or a Shepherd and his sheep.
This context terrifies me in a healthy way, and I think it should terrify you too. It means that spiritual activity is not the same as spiritual relationship. It is possible to be busy doing things in Christ’s name and never actually know Him.
“I never knew you” does not mean that Christ did not recognize them. He is saying there was no actual relationship between them. They used His name. They never knew His person. This passage alone should send every disciple to their knees asking: “Lord, do You know me? Not my resume—me?”
The Wise and Foolish Builders (7:24–27)
The Sermon closes with a parable so simple a child can understand it, and so devastating that a lifetime of discipleship cannot exhaust it. Two men build houses. One builds on rock. The other builds on sand. The rain descends, the floods come, the winds blow. The house on rock stands. The house on sand collapses “and great was the fall of it.”
The difference between the two builders is not knowledge. Both heard the Sermon. Both received the same teaching. The difference is doing. “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man.” Doing His will is building in the right place. Every obedient act lays another stone upon a firm foundation. Every choice to live the Sermon rather than merely admire it strengthens the foundation for the storm that is coming—because the storm always comes.
The question that governs our discipleship cards is: “What manner of persons ought ye to be?” (2 Peter 3:11). Christ’s final answer? You ought to be someone who does what they know. Not just knows what to do. Character is not what you believe. Character is what you do when the storm tests what you have built.
When You Are Ready
If you have read through this pathway and the scriptures it points to, you have encountered the full Sermon on the Mount. You have heard what Christ taught about identity, about the heart, about sincerity, about trust, about judgment, about asking, and about doing. You have the foundation you need.
The discipleship cards in Chapter 12 and Chapter 13 are waiting for you. They will not teach you the Sermon again. They will ask you what you are going to do with it. They will invite you to make specific, actionable commitments to live what Christ taught—at whatever level of readiness fits where you are right now.
Take your time. There is no rush. The Sermon on the Mount has been shaping disciples for two thousand years. It will be here when you are ready to respond.
A word of encouragement before you go: the Sermon on the Mount is not a test you can fail. It is a standard you can grow into. There is no gatekeeper here. Once you choose to enter upon the straight and narrow path, you have only begun your journey, not reached the final state of development as a disciple. Start small, one practice at a time. Mastery takes a lifetime of effort.
The same Christ who delivered these words on the mount is the One who offers you grace to help you begin to live them. He does not stand at the top of the mountain with folded arms, watching you struggle up the slope. He walks beside you. He has walked this road Himself. And He has promised that everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door is opened.
I believe Him. I hope you will too.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.