The Two Houses

Context

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Mt 7:24–27). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Reflection

From the visual commentary Tim calls out a few things:

1. the rock is supposed to first call us back to earlier in the sermon when Jesus calls his people "the light of the world" and says "a city on a hill [mountain] cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:14). The hill [ὄρος | oros] means "mountain" and is a hyperlink to OT teaching of God's people living in the ideal Jerusalem on Mt. Zion. Lots of Hebrew imagery here.

2. The rain and floods are a callback to the Chaos Waters of the OT (and general ANE thinking). It's a reference to the destructive nature that we humans have unleashed on the world - but the wise man who listens to Jesus lives a life with some amount of protection from those hardships - and ultimate protection from God handing us over to Chaos (destruction).