Before the Founders drafted constitutions, they studied Scripture. And no passage shaped the American conscience more than Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. It wasn’t just a spiritual code, It was the soul of the moral law.
Let’s dive in. 🧵🇺🇸 #AmRev
The Founders believed liberty required virtue. And virtue required internal self-government. The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t about outward rituals, It was about inward character: humility, mercy, integrity, courage, forgiveness. A republic demands hearts like this.
“Blessed are the meek.” “Blessed are the merciful.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.” These weren’t calls for weakness. They were calls for strength through restraint. Washington, Witherspoon, and Adams embodied this moral courage.
Where tyrants rule by fear, Christ called for purity of heart. Where power corrupts, He said: “Do not even look at a woman with lust.” Where revenge reigns, He said: “Turn the other cheek.”
He gave the blueprint for inner mastery; a requirement for outer liberty.
The Founders didn’t want the State to impose religion, but they did believe religion was essential to civic virtue.
John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Jefferson cut up a Bible to get to the moral core. Washington prayed daily.
Franklin urged prayer at the Constitutional Convention. Even the most “enlightened” knew: without personal virtue, freedom fails. The Sermon was the moral compass.
When Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth,” He was talking to ordinary people. Preserving the world through goodness. “You are the light of the world.” He gave the citizen a holy calling: to live the kind of life that keeps a Republic alive.
The Sermon ends with a warning: build your house on rock, not sand. A Republic built only on laws and courts will fall. But one rooted in virtue, in men and women governed first by God, will weather every storm.
The Founders knew liberty starts not with revolutions, but with regeneration. The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t just a doctrine of private piety, it was a manual for self-government. It taught Americans how to be free and good. 🇺🇸 #AmRev
If the Sermon on the Mount moved you too, I’m building a whole series on how the Bible and the classics shaped the American mind.
📜 Dive deeper on my Substack:
Let’s reclaim the soul of the Republic. 🇺🇸amrevresurrected.substack.com
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.