NOTES for Mat 7:24-25

The striving for firmness, for the reliable ordering of life, is characteristic of nearly every person. To a great extent it explains many of our opinions and actions. Concluding the account of the Sermon on the Mount, the evangelist Matthew includes today's parable about the houses built on sand and on rock, in which the Lord speaks precisely about this firmness of life.

This parable sounds like a kind of conclusion to the whole Sermon on the Mount. Some Protestants like to call the Bible an instruction manual for human life, and we see that this view is not entirely without foundation. The whole Sermon on the Mount speaks about what is needed in order to be alive in the true sense of the word. And the concluding parable emphasizes that it is speaking of real life, life that no calamities can bring down. This does not mean that there will be no calamities, but the person who lives by Christ's word and fulfills that word is stronger than all calamities. Moreover, because of Christ's victory, together with Him we become stronger than death itself. Even difficulties become, for the person who fulfills Christ's word, not depressing and oppressive accidents, but the way of the Cross by which we can follow God.