Word Pictures
—Matthew 7
This page begins to study Matthew chapter 7 and more of the Sermon on the Mount.
1 In the Mind’s Eye
Matthew chapter 7 is rich in images or "word pictures".
- The merchant measuring out the buyer’s purchase at the market place.
- Having a log in your eye while trying to remove a speck from someone else’s eye.
- Feeding dogs and pigs and being attacked by them.
- Knocking on a door and waiting for it to be opened with a welcome.
- A son asking his dad for food and being given good things.
- Two gates and two roads, one broad, the other narrow.
- Wolves disguising themselves in sheep skins.
- Fruit trees producing fruit. The bad trees being cut down and burned because they produce bad fruit.
- People on Judgment day pleading and clamouring for acceptance with the Lord.
- Two men, one wise and one foolish, who built homes whose foundations were tested by storm and flood.
2 Outline of Matthew 7
| Third part of the Sermon on the Mount | ||
| Theme | Matthew | Luke |
| Judging | 7:1-5 | 6:37-42 |
| Casting pearls to pigs | 7:6 | |
| Ask of God | 7:7-11 | 11:9-13 |
| The Golden Rule | 7:12 | 6:31 |
| The two gates | 7:13-14 | 13:24 |
| False prophets | 7:15-20 | 6:43-45 |
| Doing God’s will | 7:21-23 | |
| The two houses in the flood | 7:24-27 | 6:47-49 |
| The authority of Christ | 7:28-29 | |
3 Deep Thought
These questions are for you to think about and discuss. Other parts of this lesson may help you with the answers.
1. Matthew chapter seven is rich in imagery. It is a chapter that shows Jesus’s amazing ability to make ideas come to life in the mind’s eye. There are ten "word pictures" in the chapter. I have identified them for you, but can you tell me what idea or lesson each word picture is meant to convey?
2. A person’s reputation or usefulness can be ruined because of hasty or shallow judgments which someone makes and expresses about that person. Verses 5 and 20 give us principles upon which to make good judgments. What are these principles?