The Sermon on the Mount is an awesome part of the Bible. Jesus comes down to the human level and spells out how he and his Father expect men to act if they are to counted as righteous. He dispels popular legalistic ideas and shatters the idea of righteousness by works. He breaks stereotypes and says some politically incorrect things (for his day). The only rub is that it's a Sermon, it's stuffy, reads something like a theological dissertation, and is translated from the Greek into formal language, complete/replete with ten-dollar words and the usual phrases. We can memorize the whole thing, as I once tried, and still be missing what it really has to say about our lives. I found one way around that in this: translating the English (no matter your translation) into the way that we/I as teens speak. Our generation isn't very big about large addresses to huge amounts of people, we like personal one-on-one dialogues. So I took the ending of Matthew 6 and turned it into not only understandable, but personal, conversational, English. This means "therefore" has partly disappeared and become "the point is" and stuff like that, not changing the message, changing the medium of expression. [And for the HW post I put my username at the beginning. I don't often refer to myself by that name. Yet.]

 What I'm telling you, Reiyen, is that you shouldn't be worrying about your life: what you'll eat, how to make a grade or what they think of you, or about your body, how you'll take care of yourself. Isn't life more than doing all those little things? Look at silly little birds, for instance. They don't plot and plan where they'll get their next worm or seed, but God still takes care of them. Don't think for a minute that he won't do the same for you. Any way about it, all your plotting and planning really comes to nothing. So why do you spend so much time trying to figure out how to be happy on your own? Think about the flowers, who grow beautiful without any effort of their own, yet not even the people you wish you were are as well off as those. So if God takes so much are of the grass that burns and dies, won't he also array you as well, you doubter? Therefore don't scheme over how to win what you want or what silly scheme will make you happy. That's what he godless do (because they have no God to help them) and God understands you need all those things to live.
 But, even though you need those thing and want them desperately, set your sights on building God's kingdom and conducting yourself rightly, and then God will give you all that stuff you've been dying to have, beyond your wildest dreams.
 Therefore, don't try to figure out what happens when you go to college, graduate, meet new people, and all that earth-kingdom stuff. God can tackle all that when you get there. You've got enough on your hands for just today, stick to that.

That was very inspirational, Reiyen. Thank you for sharing.

('Twas going to read and reply to this yesterday, but completely forgot until I saw Airi's new post. Forgetfulness strikes the Bethy.)

That was very well-written, Rei. I really like the idea of converting certain passages from the Bible to "modern English" so to speak. When my mom reads the Bible for church, she does just that. It really helps to put things into perspective of modern days and sometimes you'll even discover something you didn't realize was there before.

Thank you for posting. I enjoyed it.

Bethany Faith

Once again you encourage me, Reiy. Thank you for sharing this with us, it is just what I needed to hear.