In their book, A Few Buttons Missing (Philadelphia, Lippincott 1951),psychiatrist J. T. Fisher and co-author L. S. Hawley have this to say about the Sermon on the Mount:
If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene—if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage—if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years, the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here…rests the blueprints for successful human life with optimum mental health and contentment.
Here is a paraphrase of the above paragraph that appeared in Life & Work Directions: Bible Studies for Early Adulthood (Nashville: Baptist Sunday School Board, 1996), page 9 (minor adjustment made):
If all the best insights and information on mental health written by all of history’s greatest psychologists and psychiatrists were taken, condensed, and boiled down to include all meat and no fat; and if the world’s greatest authors and poets were to take those concise statements and express them eloquently, using the best of their skills; the result would be a written document that would summarize awkwardly and pitifully the Sermon on the Mount. The summation would be extremely inferior to the original and woefully lacking. For nearly two millennia, followers of Jesus Christ have possessed the answer to the longings of humankind, the secret of mental health, the solution to the fitful and restless discontent that characterizes so many. Here is a pattern for successful living that offers fulfillment and personal peace one, that affords genuine peace of mind and confidence to face the world squarely.