How does the chapter distinguish hearing, claiming and doing?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The sermon moves from reciprocal judgment and asking to fruit-based discernment and the paired builders who hear but differ in acting.

Chapter breakdown

In the sermon’s third part Jesus says not to judge so as not to be judged: the judgment and measure used will be returned. He compares seeing a brother’s mote while missing one’s own beam, and offering to remove the mote while retaining that beam. The hypocrite must remove the beam first to see the mote’s removal. The text supplies the corrective order, without adding a specified tone of gentle correction. Holy things are not to be given to dogs or pearls to swine, lest trampling and an attack follow; identifying these images with a particular population is not supplied.

Jesus calls his hearers to ask, seek and knock, promising receiving, finding and an opened door. He asks which man would give a son a stone for bread or a serpent for fish. If those he calls evil know good gifts for children, how much more will the heavenly Father give good things to askers. They should do to others whatever they would have others do to them: this is law and prophets. He commands entrance at the narrow gate, contrasting a broad way with many travelers leading to destruction and a narrow, strait way with few finders leading to life. The analogy does not specify the broad path’s effortlessness or supplied travel conditions.

False prophets wear sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves. They are known by fruit: grapes are not gathered from thorns nor figs from thistles. Good trees produce good fruit, evil trees evil fruit; the good cannot produce evil nor the evil good. Trees without good fruit are cut down and cast into fire. That repeated fruit criterion is retained without adding the adjective unquenchable from another chapter.

Not all saying Lord, Lord enter heaven’s kingdom; those doing the heavenly Father’s will enter. Many in that day will claim prophecy, casting out devils and miracles in his name. He will say he never knew them and dismiss workers of iniquity. These are reported claims in the teaching, not a separate authenticated account of their works. One hearing and doing Jesus’s words is likened to a wise builder on rock: rain, floods and winds strike but the house does not fall because of its foundation. The hearer who does not act resembles a foolish builder on sand: under the same conditions the house falls greatly. The paired comparisons are not a guarantee of immunity from all material hardship.

When Jesus completes the words, the people admire his doctrine because he teaches as one having power, unlike scribes and Pharisees. The conclusion states that contrast without inventing the other teachers’ method, pedantry or reliance on ancestral precedents.

The story inside

Self-correction precedes correction of another. The good-gift and gate images accompany the fruit test. Claims of deeds in Jesus’s name are contrasted with doing the Father’s will; the builder comparisons conclude the instruction before the audience’s admiration.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Claims of miracles remain claims in the discourse.
2
Trees are cast into fire; unquenchable is not supplied here.
3
The stated teaching contrast does not describe scribes’ methods.

Test your recall

What distinguishes the two builders beyond their different foundations?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 111020–111065
Matthew Chapter 7 The third part of the sermon on the mount. 7:1. Judge not, that you may not be judged. 7:2. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. 7:3. And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? 7:4. Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye? 7:5. Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. 7:6. Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you. 7:7. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. 7:8. For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. 7:9. Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? 7:10. Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent? 7:11. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? 7:12. All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. 7:13. Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. 7:14. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!
Lines 111067–111112
7:15. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 7:16. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 7:17. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 7:18. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. 7:19. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. 7:20. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. 7:21. Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. 7:22. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? 7:23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity. 7:24. Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, 7:25. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock. 7:26. And every one that heareth these my words and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, 7:27. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof. 7:28. And it came to pass when Jesus had fully ended these words, the people were in admiration at his doctrine. 7:29. For he was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes and Pharisees.