Sermon on the Mount
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50 free Sermon on the Mount trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Sermon on the Mount is the most quoted speech in the Bible. In three short chapters Jesus blesses the people nobody envied, tells his listeners to love their enemies, teaches a prayer still said every day around the world, and ends with a story about two builders. Phrases from it turn up in everyday English so often that most people quote it without knowing. This quiz starts with the sayings almost everyone has met and works up to hard questions for people who know the text well. It covers the Beatitudes, the teaching on anger, oaths, revenge, giving, prayer, fasting, money and worry, and the warnings and parables of the last chapter. Later questions look at where tradition places the Sermon, the Book of Mormon account that parallels it, and the writers, painters and political leaders who took it to heart. It suits Sunday school classes, seminary and institute groups, youth quiz teams, Bible study leaders and anyone who wants to test how much of the Sermon has stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which group does the Sermon on the Mount promise will inherit the earth, echoing a line from Psalm 37?
The meek
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.
Q 02Which everyday substance does the Sermon on the Mount say is fit only to be trampled once it loses its taste?
Salt
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.
Q 03Which Old Testament law of retaliation does Jesus quote before telling listeners to turn the other cheek?
An eye for an eye
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.
Q 04On what does the foolish man build his house in the parable that ends the Sermon on the Mount?
Sand
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.
Q 05In the Sermon on the Mount, false prophets come dressed as which animals while inwardly being ravenous wolves?
Sheep
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.
Q 06Which Old Testament king, in all his glory, does Jesus say was never dressed as finely as the lilies of the field?
Solomon
Solomon is by far the wealthiest king of Israel in the Old Testament, yet the Hebrew Bible never actually describes what he wore.
Q 07Which future US president told Playboy he had committed adultery in his heart, a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount?
Jimmy Carter
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.
Q 08Which famous maxim from the Sermon on the Mount tells listeners to treat others as they would want to be treated?
The Golden Rule
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.
Q 09Which 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
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.
Q 10Which book alone contains the Sermon on the Mount, giving it three full chapters near the start of Jesus's ministry?
Gospel of Matthew
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.
Q 11Before which animals does the Sermon on the Mount warn against throwing pearls, since they may trample them underfoot?
Pigs
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.
Q 12In the King James Sermon on the Mount, no one can serve both God and which Aramaic word for wealth?
Mammon
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.
Q 13Jesus mocks the hypocrite who spots a speck in his brother's eye while missing which far larger object in his own?
A wooden beam
Q 21In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to do what?
Fulfil them
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.
Q 22Which city does Jesus forbid swearing by in the Sermon on the Mount, calling it the city of the great King?
Jerusalem
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.
Q 23Which insect does the Sermon on the Mount name beside rust as a destroyer of treasures stored up on earth?
Moth
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.
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.
Q 14After ask and seek, which final action completes the Sermon on the Mount's famous trio of ways to approach God?
Knock
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.
Q 15According to the Sermon on the Mount, what would no father hand to a son who asks him for bread?
A stone
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.
Q 16In the Sermon on the Mount's picture of two roads, where does the wide gate and broad way lead?
Destruction
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.
Q 17Pope Benedict XVI wrote that the Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as a new version of which Old Testament figure?
Moses
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.
Q 18Which leader of Indian independence, a Hindu, counted himself a follower of the Sermon on the Mount's teaching?
Mahatma Gandhi
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.
Q 19Which body of water does the Mount of Beatitudes, the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount, overlook?
The Sea of Galilee
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.
Q 20What does Jesus tell listeners not to worry about in the Sermon on the Mount, since it will worry about itself?
Tomorrow
Tomorrow closes the Sermon's long passage on worry, which ends with the dry remark that each day has enough trouble of its own.
Q 24In the Beatitudes that open the Sermon on the Mount, what are the pure in heart promised they will do?
See God
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.
Q 25Which group, named with a word once used of Roman emperors, are called children of God in the Sermon on the Mount?
The peacemakers
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.
Q 26In the Sermon on the Mount, what do hypocrites sound in synagogues and streets when they give to the needy?
A trumpet
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.
Q 27What does Jesus point out the birds of the air never gather food into, though their heavenly Father feeds them?
Barns
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.
Q 28Which Russian novelist argued for total non-violence from the Sermon on the Mount in The Kingdom of God Is Within You?
Leo Tolstoy
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.
Q 29The crowds were astonished that Jesus taught with authority in the Sermon on the Mount, unlike which group of teachers?
The scribes
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.
Q 30In the Sermon on the Mount, what should a follower sued for his tunic or shirt hand over as well?
His cloak
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.