The Sermon on the Mount: the greatest speech of all time? Dr. Hans Dieter Betz, a renowned professor and religious scholar at the University of Chicago Divinity School, once said of the Sermon on the Mount. the Mount: “The influences exerted by the Sermon on the Mount generally far transcend the boundaries of Judaism and Christianity, or Western culture. He also noted that this sermon has "a particularly universalist appeal." - [Betz, HD, & Collins, AY (1995). The Sermon on the Mount: A commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3-7:27 and Luke 6:20-49). pp. 3, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.] James T. Fisher, a psychiatrist, also noted: "If you were to take the sum total of all the authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene - if you were to combine them, refine them and eliminate the excess verb - if you were to take all the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to concisely express these pure pieces of pure scientific knowledge by the ablest of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summary of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer greatly by comparison. – (Fisher, JT and Hawley, LS (1951). A Few Buttons Missing: A Psychiatrist's Casebook. pp. 273 Philadelphia: Lippincott.) This is the view of a renowned religious scholar and psychiatrist on the quality of speech. and the rhetoric conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount. Even more than 2,000 years after this speech, this sermon continues to touch and influence the lives of millions of people and approximately one billion people worldwide know it at least in part. What was the setting...... middle of paper...... attention to our listeners. Audience research can help us discern what influences their hearts. Like Jesus in his speech, we can help our audience analyze and refine their motivations so that they can take action and make changes if necessary (Matthew 5:21-24, 27-32). There is no doubt that the Sermon on the Mount has impacted the lives of billions of people over the past 2,000 years. What’s surprising is that the advice given in this sermon is as relevant today as it was then. Isn't it true that even the advice of today's best advisors often becomes outdated, revised and replaced? Compare people's common view of Dr. Benjamin Spock's advice on raising children in the past to what they are today, for example. Unlike many counselors today, Jesus' sermon has stood the test of time and is just as memorable today as it was then..