Some points on the Sermon on/off the Mount

 

Following the arrest of John the Baptist Jesus began teaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew wrote that “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom…”

The Sermon on the Mount is approximately four pages of normal font single space typed words. It is impossible to calculate the impact of the sermon over the two thousand years since it was written. It is likely that there have been more books written and sermons preached on that Sermon than any other segment of scripture.

The beatitudes begin with the word blessed which means “fortunate, in an enviable condition – not merely happy.” The Beatitudes fit naturally into the world of Second Temple Judaism. They aren’t Greek morals listed in a Jewish setting; they are a Jewish “blessed” sayings. The pattern of the beatitudes mirrors familiar Hebrew expressions “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.” (Ps 1:1, 2) Closer to the time of Jesus is the Qumran “Beatitudes” – text 4Q525 “[Blessed is he who speaks]¹⁶ with a pure heart, And has no slander upon his tongue.// Blessed are those who adhere to her (Wisdom’s) precepts, And do not adhere to the ways of iniquity.// Bles[sed] are t[hose] who rejoice in her ways.” Matthew’s beatitudes fit a Jewish teacher speaking in a Jewish genre, even though he wrote in Greek. Matthew positions Jesus as a Rabbi and/or an itinerant teacher, both of which were common Hebrew roles.

The beatitudes of Jesus were not unlike mainstream Jewish teaching and Pharisaic ideals. They are like Jewish virtues: pursuit of righteousness and justice, mercy, purity, peace, and endurance under persecution. The beatitudes were not “anti-Jewish” values; they were basic moral tradition. Jesus’ teaching clashed with common practices, his beatitudes shifted status away from wealth, lineage, and visible success, toward humility, mercy, integrity, and suffering for righteousness. Josephus and other sources portray Pharisees as influential among the people and serious about piety and the law. The beatitudes do not teach that the Torah was bad, but what defines a person as blessed is inner attitudes, mercy, peacemaking, integrity, versus merely external or socially rewarded markers. “Pharisee” wasn’t one personality type; there were real variations. But the desire for public recognition, rule compliance, measures of who was righteous, and disdain for people of low status was exactly the culture the beatitudes confronted.

The beatitudes were not anti-Jewish; they were a prophetic re-positioning of what led to being blessed. Humility verses public status – poor in spirit. Honesty over appearance – pure in heart. Compassion over rigid compliance – merciful. Mediation over sectarian victory – peacemakers. Right after the beatitudes Jesus said, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew used the beatitudes to define “exceeding righteousness.” They were the measure against which the later “woes” make sense. When Jesus attacked the Pharisees, the issue was not the Torah but improper priorities – external markers and public praise ignoring the weightier matters such as justice, mercy, and faithfulness. The Beatitudes were not the opposite of what Pharisaic piety valued. Jesus at the beginning of his challenge to the Pharisees said to the people “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach.”

The beatitudes are foundational qualities of the kingdom. Paul’s list of spiritual qualities builds on the teaching of Jesus: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. The beatitudes represent the exceeding righteousness Jesus said was required. The woes Matthew records result from replacing faithfulness with status, manipulation, and self-importance.

Beatitude (Matt 5)	“Woe / critique” (Matt 23)	Possible match
Poor in spirit (5:3)	23:5–7, 12 (religion “to be seen”; love honor; self-exalting) + 23:13 (shut the kingdom)	“Poor in spirit” = low-status before God; the target-pattern is status religion and acting as gatekeepers.
Those who mourn (5:4)	23:27–28 (appearance of righteousness, inner corruption) + 23:29–36 (“if we had lived then…” denial of complicity)	Mourning fits contrition and grief over evil; the target-pattern is lack of inward brokenness, replaced by image-management and moral distancing.
The meek (5:5)	23:4 (heavy burdens on others; won’t lift a finger)	Meekness = non-dominating, serving strength; the target-pattern is control and pressure without help.
Hunger & thirst for δικαιοσύνη (5:6)	23:23–24 (tithing minutiae, neglecting “weightier” matters: justice, mercy, faithfulness)	This is the clearest direct contrast: craving righteousness vs redefining righteousness as what is most countable.
The merciful (5:7)	23:23 (neglect mercy) + 23:4 (no practical compassion)	Mercy is named explicitly as “weightier”; the target-pattern is strictness without compassion.
Pure in heart (5:8)	23:25–26 (clean outside, inside greed/self-indulgence) + 23:27–28 (whitewashed tombs) + 23:16–22 (oath-casuistry)	“Pure in heart” is inward integrity; the target-pattern is external purity + inner motive distortion.
Peacemakers (5:9)	23:15 (making disciples into something worse) + the whole tone of 23:13–33 (condemnation, factional heat)	Peacemakers reconcile; the target-pattern is religious reproduction that hardens people, and adversarial posturing that fractures.
Persecuted for righteousness (5:10) + reviled (5:11–12)	23:29–36 + 23:34 (prophet-killing pattern continues: “I send… you will persecute…”)	Beatitudes assume faithful people will be opposed; Matthew 23 says that opposition often comes from religious systems protecting themselves.

The “woes” are essentially the beatitudes inverted:

Once you see the chain, Matthew 23 reads like the Beatitudes’ in reverse:

• 5:6 hunger for Justice – “you neglected justice/judgment”
• 5:7 merciful –  “you neglected(mercy)”
• 5:8 pure in heart –  outside clean, inside corrupt
• 5:9 peacemakers –  reproducing a hardened religious identity makes disciples worse,
• 5:10–12 persecuted/reviled –  persecuting the ones sent

The beatitudes are the standard that makes the woes reasonable. The beatitudes pronounce who is blessed by God’s evaluation – lowly, sincere, merciful, integrity-driven, peace-making, faithful under pressure. The woes expose a religion that is successful by human evaluation – honor, visibility, control, technicalities, appearance, gatekeeping, but is spiritually bankrupt.

 

Common word/phrase	Matthew 5–7	Matthew 23	Matthew’s use
πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι (“for the purpose of being seen”)	6:1	23:5	Same phrase: the Sermon’s warning becomes the Woes’ diagnosis.
ὑποκριτής (“actor/hypocrite”)	6:2; 7:5	23:13 (and repeated through the chapter)	Matthew brands the “seen righteousness” pattern with the same name.
φαν-/φαίν- (“appear/show”)	6:5 ὅπως φανῶσιν	23:28 ἔξωθεν… φαίνεσθε…	Visibility obsession in 6 becomes “outward appearing righteous” in 23.
δικαιοσύνη / δίκαιοι	5:6; 5:20	23:28 φαίνεσθε… δίκαιοι	“Righteousness” becomes a façade instead of an inner reality.
κρίσις + ἔλεος (justice + mercy)	Beatitudes: δικαιοσύνη (5:6) / ἐλεήμονες (5:7)	23:23 τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ ἔλεος…	The Beatitudes’ “weight” is named as the “weightier matters” they neglected.
ἔξωθεν / ἔσωθεν (outside/inside) ⇄ heart	5:8 “pure in heart”	23:25; 23:27–28	Matthew’s core contrast: inner purity vs outer polish / inner rot.
βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν	5:3; 5:20	23:13 κλείετε τὴν βασιλείαν…	Beatitudes announce, “theirs is the kingdom”; the woes accuse “you shut it.”

Beatitudes – Matthew and Luke:

What Matthew includes that Luke doesn’t (and vice-versa)

1) How many “blessings”

• Matthew 5:3–12 gives 8 beatitudes and then a direct 2nd-person expansion.
• Luke 6:20–23 gives 4 beatitudes; each aimed directly at the hearers – “you/yours” and then adds 4 matching woes (6:24–26).

2) “Kingdom of heaven(s)” vs “kingdom of God”

• Matthew: ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν
• Luke: ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ

3) Third-person descriptions vs second-person address

• Matthew mostly: Blessed are the … because theirs/they…

·         Luke repeatedly: Blessed are you… because yours… you will…

Beatitude-by-beatitude alignment (Mt 5:3-12, Lk 6:20-23)

Poor

• Matthew: the poor with respect to the spirit/in spirit.
• Luke: blessed are you poor, because yours is the kingdom.

Difference: Matthew adds “in spirit” Luke does not.

 

Hungry

• Matthew: hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
• Luke: those hungry now.

Difference: Matthew specifies righteousness; Luke specifies the time.

Mourning/weeping

• Matthew: those mourning.
• Luke: those weeping now.

Persecution

• Matthew has “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”
• Luke has direct “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.” 

·         Difference: Luke’s wording explicitly includes hate/exclusion/defamation; Matthew’s expansion explicitly includes “they lie.”

Beatitudes that are only in Matthew

• meek
• merciful
• pure in heart
• peacemakers

Luke’s opening set doesn’t include these terms at all.

The big Luke feature Matthew doesn’t place here: the 4 woes

Luke immediately balances the 4 blessings with 4 “woe” statements:

• rich
• filled now
• laughing now
• when all speak well of you

Matthew has “woes” elsewhere (not paired here).

Luke goes straight from blessings/woes into the “enemy-love/non-retaliation” commands, Matthew includes the closely parallel material later in the sermon.

A few direct overlaps in Greek:

• Love your enemies
• Luke: Love your enemies
• Matthew: Love your enemies

·         Turn the other cheek

• Luke: provide the other
• Matthew: turn the other

 

• Give to the asker
• Luke: Give to everyone who asks of you
• Matthew: Give to him who asks of you
• “Golden rule” placement
• Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.
• Treat people the same way you want them to treat you

Why the two versions feel so different (purely from the wording)

·         Matthew’s beatitudes lean toward qualities/states including interior qualifiers like to the spirit, to righteousness, to the heart. Luke’s beatitudes lean toward direct social conditions and “now” reversals, and he reinforces that with the matching woes.

How Matthew’s Beatitudes (Mt 5:3–12) line up with Luke’s “Blessings and Woes” plus immediate teaching (Lk 6:20–31), focusing on what the Greek itself is doing.

1) Side-by-side: what’s the same idea, and what’s different

“Poor”/Kingdom

• Matthew: flourishing/blessed: the poor in spirit… the kingdom of the heavens.
• Luke: the poor… yours is the kingdom of God.

Main Greek difference: Matthew qualifies poor with “in spirit”; Luke leaves it unqualified but makes it direct address with “yours”.

Hunger/Filled

• Matthew: hungering and thirsting for righteousness/justice… they will be filled.
• Luke: hungry now… you will be filled.

Main Greek difference: Matthew specifies the object “justice”; Luke specifies the time “now”.

Grief / Reversal

• Matthew: those mourning… they will be comforted/encouraged.
• Luke: those weeping now… you will laugh.

Matthew frames the reversal as comfort; Luke frames it as laughter.

Persecution / Prophets

• Matthew: “persecuted for righteousness… kingdom,” then shifts to direct address: you are blessed.
• Luke: direct address and social exclusion language: hate, excommunication, reproach, and expulsion.

Both attach persecution to the prophetic pattern, but Luke’s diction is especially social “exclude, cast out the name…”.

2) What Matthew has that Luke doesn’t (in this section)

Matthew includes several Beatitudes with no direct Luke match in 6:20–23:

• οἱ πραεῖς “the meek/gentle” inheriting the earth
• οἱ ἐλεήμονες “the merciful” receiving mercy
• οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ “pure in heart” seeing God
• οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί “peacemakers” called sons of God

Luke will talk about mercy and “sons” language later in the chapter, but not as Beatitudes.

3) What Luke has that Matthew doesn’t: the matching “woes”

Immediately after the blessings Luke adds four woes:

• woe to you, the rich
• woe… you who are full now…
• woe… you who are laughing now…
• woe when all speak well of you

That “paired” structure (blessing vs woe) is a major rhetorical difference between Luke’s sermon and Matthew’s.

4) Luke’s handling of Jesus’ teaching on behaviour and where it is in Matthew’s sermon

Luke flows straight into concrete ethics:

• love your enemies.
• what you want people to do to you… do to them.

Matthew has those same themes, but elsewhere in his sermon:

• Enemy-love appears explicitly at love your enemies.
• The Golden Rule is stated at ,”in everything…”

So: Luke clusters “blessings/woes, enemy-love, golden-rule” tightly; Matthew spreads these across a longer, more structured sermon.

The different narrative (Israel-focused Matthew vs. more universal Luke) contributes to the different beatitude wording, along with another factor: each evangelist is shaping shared Jesus-tradition for a particular rhetorical goal.

How the perspectives show up in the Beatitudes’ wording

1) “Kingdom of heaven” vs “kingdom of God”

Matthew’s preference for “kingdom of heaven(s)” is widely explained as a Jewish practice of avoiding direct “God” language, and as part of Matthew’s broader heaven/earth thematic framing. Luke simply uses “kingdom of God” in his beatitudes.

So even when the referent is the same reign/kingdom, Matthew’s Jewish-register phrasing nudges the beatitudes’ tone.

2) “Poor in spirit” vs “poor” (and “hungry for righteousness” vs “hungry now”)

This is where “perspective” most clearly affects diction:

• Matthew: “poor in spirit” and “hunger/thirst for righteousness— that’s a character/posture framing.
• Luke: “you poor… hungry now… weeping now” and then matching woes — that’s a social-condition + reversal framing.

Luke highlights the coming changes: current social conditions are not the final verdict; they will be inverted, while Matthew sharpens the same blessing-tradition with an added qualifier by spirit and with justice language.

3) Second-person immediacy in Luke vs third person “wisdom-form” in Matthew

Luke repeatedly addresses the hearers directly (“yours… you will…”). Matthew mostly uses the “Blessed are the …” form and then turns direct in 5:11–12.

This is a deliberate stylistic/theological choice: Luke’s 2nd-person possessive “yours” makes it more personal/immediate than Matthew’s 3rd-person “of them”.

That follows with Luke’s more public focused proclamation style and Matthew’s more Jewish instructional style.

4) Luke’s added “woes” fit a prophetic-social thrust

Luke balances four blessings with four woes aimed at rich/full now/laughing now/well-spoken-of.

That pairing feels very at home in a broader, prophetic critique of social reality and status—whereas Matthew places his big “woes” later (e.g., Matthew 23), not in the beatitudes block.

How the genealogies relate to differences between Matthew and Luke

• Matthew roots Jesus in Israel’s story “Abraham/David” as a way of presenting messianic legitimacy within Jewish categories.
• Luke traces to Adam “son of God” to stress universality.

Those starting frames make it unsurprising that:

• Luke’s lean toward public, social reversals and direct address.

A factor shaping shared tradition

After investigating many orderly accounts of the events of Jesus’ life Luke decided “to write an orderly account...” Luke doesn’t claim inspiration but investigation of extant writings. (It doesn’t mean Luke wasn’t guided by the Spirit.)

Perspective matters, concrete editorial choices what each writer highlights, qualifies, combines, and where they place the ethical teaching that follows.

o   Matthew’s Beatitudes lean toward Torah/wisdom-style interior posture, spirit/heart/righteousness, and

o   Luke’s lean toward public, social reversals and direct address.

Matthew shapes the beatitudes in a more scripture-echoing, Jewish “wisdom/piety” framework hence “by the spirit”, and “the kingdom of heaven”, and Luke is shaping it as a more direct, socially legible proclamation to the hearers “yours…”, paired with woes to the rich.

The Gospels tell real stories with broad timelines; John the Baptist, Jesus’ ministry, passion week, crucifixion, and resurrection, they are arranged by material, theme, geography, and teaching purpose, they are not chronological diaries. Luke said there were many accounts written about Jesus’ life. Four people with different objectives wrote four different, but often overlapping accounts. Each gospel is unique to its author. At the close of his gospel John wrote, “there are many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books…” We should not attempt to harmonize the gospels based on time. Events are reported form the authors personal memory or from information gathered or dictated. Only two of the gospels were written by apostles. John’s comment there was many more events that could have been included, but were not. Luke referred to the “many accounts” available for investigation. Events are recalled differently by authors; Jesus walked on the water… when he got into the boat: Matthew wrote “the wind ceased… when they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret…” Mark wrote “the wind ceased, when they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret…” John wrote “immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.” The sermon Luke recorded and what Matthew wrote are not the same event. You can’t go up the mountain and down the mountain at the same time. Just because Luke’s sermon follows events similar to those in Matthew’s narrative doesn’t mean they are the same. Luke placed the sermon he considered important in following the same events that preceded Matthew’s sermon, that doesn’t make them the same sermon. Inspiration is not dictation.

The most important purpose of the gospels is the fulfilment of God’s promise to reconcile humanity to himself through the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God. Jesus’ mission was to teach the proximity of the kingdom of God. The good news of God’s plan and heavenly kingdom is embraced in the sermons recorded by Matthew and Luke.