11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

5:11–12 Jesus’s words show that persecution is typically either verbal or violent. Verbal forms include insult and slander. The word persecute includes acts of physical violence like the slap of Mt 5:39. Jesus promised that the cost of discipleship will be offset by the enormity of the reward the disciple enjoys in heaven. Jewish leaders rejected and vehemently persecuted the OT prophets, and Jesus repeatedly denounced this persecution (21:34–36; 23:29–37). By treating Jesus’s followers in the same way they had treated the prophets, Jewish persecutors unwittingly bestowed on them a prophet’s honor.

5:21–22 Matthew 5:21 begins a section of the Sermon on the Mount generally known as the “six antitheses.” The title may seem to imply that Jesus opposed the OT in some way, but in reality he always upheld its authority. Rather than contradicting or overturning OT teachings, Jesus opposed the misguided interpretations of the scribes and Pharisees. These men were concerned only with superficial matters, but Jesus went deeper. He argued that the law prohibits not just actual murder but murderous attitudes as well. Similarly, violent temperaments are condemned just as surely as violent deeds.

5:38–39 Jesus explained that eye for an eye (Ex 21:24; Lv 24:20; Dt 19:21) was given not as a mandate for personal vengeance but as a principle to guide courts in determining appropriate punishments. The slap on your right cheek was a back-handed slap that was both insulting and injurious. For this act Jewish law imposed a fine that was double the one for an open-palmed blow on the left cheek. Thus we see that Jesus urged his disciples not to seek vengeance even against the most offensive kind of blow. The words don’t resist an evildoer do not indicate, however, that we should not seek justice or defend ourselves when threatened with serious bodily harm.

In these six antitheses Jesus illustrates the greater righteousness he demands of his disciples. With each example he contrasts what was said in the Torah and in its traditional interpretations with his more stringent requirements. In the process, however, he contravenes the letter of several of the Old Testament laws, not because he is abolishing them but because he is establishing a new covenant in which God’s law is internalized in a way that prevents it from being fully encapsulated in a list of rules and that precludes perfect obedience (cf. Heb 8:7–13)

5:41 Jesus likely had in mind the much-resented practice of compulsion, in which Roman officials could force their subjects to perform menial tasks such as hauling a load on their backs (27:32). It is often said that soldiers could legally compel a subject to carry a load for only one mile before letting him go, but no surviving text establishes this as law. Most likely compulsion was usually limited to a mile simply out of common sense: people are tired after hauling a load for a mile, and soldiers who pressed for more than this risked fostering dangerous resentment among subjugated peoples. In contrast to this, Jesus said his disciples should carry their oppressor’s pack out of obligation for the first mile, but then exceed all expectations by going a second mile as an act of love and service.

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. 2 So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 3 But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.,

6:1 Jesus did not prohibit public acts of righteousness (see note at 5:14–16), but he warned that the motivation for such acts is more important than the bare fact of performing them. All such deeds must be done for God’s glory, not human reputation. Those who seek human acclaim when performing good works will receive no heavenly reward. In Mt 6:2–18, Jesus supplies general principles for performing righteous acts.

7:15–20 False prophets don sheep’s clothing to disguise the fact that they are ravaging wolves masquerading as true disciples. However, a prophet’s character and behavior (his fruit) indicates whether he is true or false. Other NT texts insist that a teacher’s doctrine must also be examined (1Jn 4:2–3). True disciples bear the fruit of good works, and this confirms their identity as Jesus’s disciples (Mt 7:21–23). The image of cutting down and burning a bad tree portrays the judgment and eternal punishment of false disciples. The test Jesus gives is not quick and easy but one that proves itself over time.

7:21–23 By referring to himself as Lord and depicting himself as the ultimate judge of humanity, Jesus implied his deity. True disciples affirm Jesus’s lordship, submit to his authority, and obey his commands. Jesus insisted that a person is confirmed as a true disciple not by prophecy, exorcism, or working miracles but by living a transformed life made possible by God. The disobedient lifestyles of lawbreakers are inconsistent with genuine discipleship. Jesus’s words, I never knew you, show that these were never truly disciples.