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In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ discussed the nature of His kingdom. He also contested wrong ideas about the Messiah’s kingdom that had been instilled in the minds of the people by the Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 3:2; 4:17). The Sermon on the Mount teaches in clear contrast the nature of Christianity and that of Judaism at Christ’s time.
Mathew’s report on the Sermon of the Mound is different than Luke’s in that Matthew’s report is practically three times as long as that of Luke. This is because Matthew was focusing on the teachings of Jesus whereas Luke focused on the historical story of Jesus.
Being longer, Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount contains more material than what Luke mentions, although Luke reports some things that Matthew omits. Also, the opening statement to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew starts with the phrase Jesus “opened his mouth” (Matthew 5:2), whereas Luke notices that Jesus “lifted up his eyes” (Luke 6:20) as He began to teach.
It should be noted that numerous other sections of the Sermon on the Mount as given in Matthew appear in different places throughout the Gospel of Luke as Christ must have repeated these same teachings on different occasions during His ministry.
In spite of certain differences in the reports of the sermon by Matthew and Luke, it is very clear that the similarities in the two accounts surpass the differences. The reports are not exclusive, but complementary to each other as the writers were moved by the Holy Spirit to give the readers of the Bible a more complete picture of what Jesus was teaching “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
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