Ministry in Galilee and the Sermon on the Mount
Also called: Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes, Galilean ministry
A story told in religious scripture.
A story told in the Gospels of the New Testament: by the Sea of Galilee Jesus called the fisherman Peter and others as disciples, went from village to village healing the sick and teaching in parables, and on a mountain gave the sermon that begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.
Carl Bloch · Public domain · Source
This is the story told in the four Gospels of the New Testament. After his baptism Jesus made Capernaum, on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, his base. To the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, casting their nets by the lake, and to the brothers James and John he said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” and he gathered twelve disciples. He taught in the synagogues and healed the sick and the possessed; he is said to have calmed a storm, walked on water and fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.
The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 is the best-known summary of his teaching. It holds the Beatitudes, beginning “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, the command to love one’s enemies, the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” Luke 6 gives similar sayings as a sermon on a plain. In parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son Jesus taught about the kingdom of God and love of neighbour.
Historians broadly agree that Jesus was a Jewish preacher who travelled around Galilee proclaiming the kingdom of God, had disciples and was known as a healer. The miracle stories, however, lie in the realm of faith, beyond what history can verify. Many also see the Sermon on the Mount less as a single speech than as a collection of Jesus’ sayings arranged by Matthew. A 1st-century fishing boat found in the mud of the lakeshore in 1986, and the villages and synagogues of the period excavated at Capernaum and Magdala, show the Galilee of the Gospels.
