50 Fun Facts About Sermon on the Mount

Which group does the Sermon on the Mount promise will inherit the earth, echoing a line from Psalm 37?

The meek meant the gentle or powerless in the Greek of the day, which made the promise startling in a culture built on honour and status.

Which everyday substance does the Sermon on the Mount say is fit only to be trampled once it loses its taste?

Salt in that era was impure, and the usual explanation is that damp could wash the real salt out and leave a tasteless white powder.

Which Old Testament law of retaliation does Jesus quote before telling listeners to turn the other cheek?

An eye for an eye began as a limit, capping revenge at the size of the injury, and Jesus asks his listeners to give up even that.

On what does the foolish man build his house in the parable that ends the Sermon on the Mount?

Sand gives way when the rain, floods and winds arrive, while the wise man's house on rock stands, which is Jesus's picture of hearing his words and acting on them.

In the Sermon on the Mount, false prophets come dressed as which animals while inwardly being ravenous wolves?

Sheep's clothing has been a common English expression for a hidden threat ever since, and Jesus's test for such teachers is the fruit their lives produce.

Which Old Testament king, in all his glory, does Jesus say was never dressed as finely as the lilies of the field?

Solomon is by far the wealthiest king of Israel in the Old Testament, yet the Hebrew Bible never actually describes what he wore.

Which future US president told Playboy he had committed adultery in his heart, a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount?

Jimmy Carter's remark, printed weeks before the 1976 election, came as he explained why he could not look down on others, and the uproar tightened his race with Gerald Ford.

Which famous maxim from the Sermon on the Mount tells listeners to treat others as they would want to be treated?

The Golden Rule got its name only in the early 1600s, when English churchmen began using the term, and Jesus adds that it sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Which phrase for doing more than is asked comes from the Sermon on the Mount's advice to anyone pressed into service?

Going the extra mile began with the Roman power to press locals into service as porters, the same practice that later forced Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross.

Which book alone contains the Sermon on the Mount, giving it three full chapters near the start of Jesus's ministry?

The Gospel of Matthew makes it the first of five great speeches by Jesus, while Luke scatters much of the same teaching and sets a shorter version on level ground.

Before which animals does the Sermon on the Mount warn against throwing pearls, since they may trample them underfoot?

Pigs were the quintessential unclean animal for Jesus's Jewish listeners, which sharpens the warning against offering what is precious to those who cannot value it.

In the King James Sermon on the Mount, no one can serve both God and which Aramaic word for wealth?

Mammon simply meant money or profit, but medieval writers turned it into a demon of greed and sometimes ranked it among the seven princes of Hell.

Jesus mocks the hypocrite who spots a speck in his brother's eye while missing which far larger object in his own?

A wooden beam is the King James picture, where newer Bibles say plank or log, and the hypocrite is told to remove his own before offering to help anyone else.

After ask and seek, which final action completes the Sermon on the Mount's famous trio of ways to approach God?

Knock comes with the promise that a door will be opened, and the Greek verbs describe continuing action, so the sense is to keep asking, seeking and knocking.

According to the Sermon on the Mount, what would no father hand to a son who asks him for bread?

A stone was no random choice, as the small round loaves of the time may well have looked like one, and Jesus follows it with a fish swapped for a snake.

In the Sermon on the Mount's picture of two roads, where does the wide gate and broad way lead?

Destruction is where the easy road ends, and many take it, while the way to life is entered by a small gate that only a few ever find.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote that the Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as a new version of which Old Testament figure?

Moses brought the commandments down from Mount Sinai, and Benedict XVI wrote that Jesus, seated on the mountain to teach, delivers a new Torah in the same way.

Which leader of Indian independence, a Hindu, counted himself a follower of the Sermon on the Mount's teaching?

Mahatma Gandhi first read it as a law student in London, wrote that it went straight to his heart, and compared it with the Bhagavad Gita.

Which body of water does the Mount of Beatitudes, the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount, overlook?

The Sea of Galilee spreads out below the hill, where pilgrims have marked the spot since at least the 4th century and a Byzantine church once stood.

What does Jesus tell listeners not to worry about in the Sermon on the Mount, since it will worry about itself?

Tomorrow closes the Sermon's long passage on worry, which ends with the dry remark that each day has enough trouble of its own.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to do what?

Fulfil them is the claim that frames everything after it, and Jesus adds that not the smallest letter or pen stroke will drop out of the Law.

Which city does Jesus forbid swearing by in the Sermon on the Mount, calling it the city of the great King?

Jerusalem is excluded along with heaven, earth and even one's own head, because Jesus wants a plain yes or no to be enough without any oath.

Which insect does the Sermon on the Mount name beside rust as a destroyer of treasures stored up on earth?

Moth damage mattered because clothing was a major investment in that era, and Jesus's answer is to store treasure in heaven, where no thief breaks in.

In the Beatitudes that open the Sermon on the Mount, what are the pure in heart promised they will do?

See God is the promise, a line generally believed to draw on Psalm 24, which asks who may stand in God's holy place and answers the pure of heart.

Which group, named with a word once used of Roman emperors, are called children of God in the Sermon on the Mount?

The peacemakers owe the wording children of God to Martin Luther and other early Protestant translators, who wanted nobody confused about the one Son of God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, what do hypocrites sound in synagogues and streets when they give to the needy?

A trumpet is widely read as a figure of speech, as there is no evidence anyone blew one while giving, and Jesus's advice is that the left hand should not know what the right is doing.

What does Jesus point out the birds of the air never gather food into, though their heavenly Father feeds them?

Barns round off a list of farm work, sowing and reaping, that birds never do, and Jesus's point is that people are worth far more to God than they are.

Which Russian novelist argued for total non-violence from the Sermon on the Mount in The Kingdom of God Is Within You?

Leo Tolstoy's book was banned in Russia and first appeared in Germany in 1894, and it reads the command to turn the other cheek as ruling out even self-defence.

The crowds were astonished that Jesus taught with authority in the Sermon on the Mount, unlike which group of teachers?

The scribes backed each teaching with scripture and earlier authorities, whereas Jesus had spent the Sermon saying 'but I tell you' on his own word.

In the Sermon on the Mount, what should a follower sued for his tunic or shirt hand over as well?

His cloak was the outer garment worn over the basic shirt, so on one reading a poor man who gave up both would shame the creditor taking him to court.

Which despised group does the Sermon on the Mount say even love those who love them, earning no special reward?

Tax collectors were Jews who gathered Rome's taxes and were seen as traitors, so Jesus's point is that loving only your friends sets the bar no higher than theirs.

In the Sermon on the Mount, what does Jesus tell his listeners to be, just as their heavenly Father is?

Perfect translates the Greek teleios, which also means complete or whole, and Luke's parallel line asks listeners to be merciful instead.

In the King James Sermon on the Mount, under what does nobody put a lit candle, setting it on a candlestick instead?

A bushel was a grain measure of about nine litres, which is why modern Bibles say bowl or basket, and Jesus at once tells his listeners to let their light shine.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks whether grapes grow on thornbushes or which other fruit on thistles?

Figs and grapes were common crops in the region and thistles a constant plague to farmers, so nobody listening needed the rhetorical question answered.

What does Jesus say he will tell those who cry 'Lord, Lord' and cite their miracles but practised lawlessness?

I never knew you is followed by an order to depart taken from Psalm 6, a formula of renunciation used against people expelled from the community.

Which Puritan leader borrowed the Sermon on the Mount's city on a hill to warn colonists bound for Massachusetts?

John Winthrop's lecture lay forgotten for almost two hundred years before it was first printed, and John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan later made its image famous.

Which 1930s dictator helped pay for the Church of the Beatitudes on the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount?

Benito Mussolini backed an Italian mission society's project, and its architect gave the church eight sides, one for each of the Beatitudes.

Which Greek letter, the smallest in its alphabet, lies behind the jot that Jesus says will never pass from the Law?

Iota gave English the phrase not one iota, though Jesus was probably thinking of yodh, the smallest letter of the Aramaic alphabet.

In the King James Sermon on the Mount, which ancient unit of length can nobody add to his stature by worrying?

A cubit was a forearm's length, about 46 centimetres, and because adding length to a lifespan is odd, most modern Bibles turn it into a moment of time.

Which untranslated Aramaic insult does the Sermon on the Mount say puts its speaker before the council?

Raca most likely comes from an Aramaic word meaning empty one, roughly empty-headed, and scholars disagree about how grave an insult it was.

What name is given to the Lord's Prayer's closing line of praise, a later addition found only in some manuscripts?

The doxology, the line about the kingdom, the power and the glory, is how Protestants usually end the prayer, and the Latin Vulgate never included it.

Which word for hell in the Sermon on the Mount names a valley where the Bible says kings of Judah burned children?

Gehenna is the Valley of Hinnom, which the prophet Jeremiah cursed for those sacrifices, and English Bibles usually just translate it as hell.

Which North African theologian's commentary De sermone Domini in monte gave the Sermon on the Mount its name?

Augustine of Hippo split the work into two volumes and held the Sermon up as the standard for the whole Christian life.

Which Book of Mormon book has the risen Jesus repeat much of the Sermon on the Mount to people in the Americas?

Third Nephi places the discourse after the Resurrection, and Latter-day Saint editions describe it as similar to the Sermon and point readers to the Gospel chapters.

The Book of Mormon sets Jesus's repeat of the Sermon on the Mount at a temple in which land?

Bountiful is where a great crowd had gathered around the temple, marvelling at how the land had changed, when the risen Christ appeared to them.

Which Danish painter, whose Bible scenes fill Latter-day Saint media, painted the Sermon on the Mount in 1877?

Carl Bloch painted twenty-three scenes from the life of Christ for the King's Chapel at Frederiksborg Castle, where the originals still hang.

What name do scholars give the Sermon on the Mount's six passages that begin with what listeners 'have heard'?

The Antitheses make up the longest section of the Sermon, taking in murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation and love of enemies in turn.

Which hill, where Saladin crushed the Crusaders in 1187, was long held to be the site of the Sermon on the Mount?

The Horns of Hattin tradition seems to go back no further than the Crusaders themselves, and Jerome, centuries earlier, had guessed at Mount Tabor.

Which rabbi, often quoted beside the Sermon on the Mount, summed up the Torah as not doing what is hateful to others?

Hillel gave the answer to a would-be convert who asked to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot, after his rival Shammai had sent the man away.

When fasting, the Sermon on the Mount tells followers to wash the face and do what to the head so nobody notices?

Anoint it with oil, that is, which most scholars think was simply part of daily grooming, so the fast stays invisible to everyone but God.