Sermon on the Mount in the context of "Matthew 5"

The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ), Jesus, his resurrection, and his mission to the world. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.

Matthew wishes to emphasize that the Jewish tradition should not be lost in a church that was increasingly becoming gentile. The gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between Jewish Christians and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes, chief priests and Pharisees, presenting the view that the Kingdom of Heaven has been taken away from them and given instead to the church. It emphasizes Jesus’s role as the Son of David, Son of Man, and Son of God, and frames his teachings, miracles, and parables to reflect both Jewish law and the emerging Christian church. Structured around alternating narratives and discourses—including the Sermon on the Mount, parables, and instructions for discipleship—it culminates in the Passion, Resurrection, and the Great Commission.

A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. Elements of the sermon often include exposition, exhortation, and practical application. The act of delivering a sermon is called preaching. In secular usage, the word sermon may refer, often disparagingly, to a lecture on morals.

In Christian practice, a sermon is usually preached to a congregation in a place of worship, either from an elevated architectural feature, known as a pulpit or an ambo, or from behind a lectern. The word sermon comes from a Middle English word which was derived from Old French, which in turn originates from the Latin word sermō meaning 'discourse.' A sermonette is a short sermon (usually associated with television broadcasting, as stations would present a sermonette before signing off for the night). The Christian Bible contains many speeches without interlocution, which some take to be sermons: Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 (though the gospel writers do not specifically call it a sermon; the popular descriptor for Jesus' speech there came much later); and Peter after Pentecost in Acts 2:14–40 (though this speech was delivered to non-Christians and as such is not quite parallel to the popular definition of a sermon).

Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system. It is a virtue ethic, which focuses on building moral character, and a deontological ethic which emphasizes duty according to the Christian perspective. It also incorporates natural law ethics, which is built on the belief that it is the very nature of humans – created in the image of God and capable of morality, cooperation, rationality, discernment and so on – that informs how life should be lived, and that awareness of sin does not require special revelation. Other aspects of Christian ethics, represented by movements such as the social Gospel and liberation theology, may be combined into a fourth area sometimes called prophetic ethics.

Christian ethics derives its metaphysical core from the Bible, seeing God as the ultimate source of all power. Evidential, Reformed and volitional epistemology are the three most common forms of Christian epistemology. The variety of ethical perspectives in the Bible has led to repeated disagreement over defining the basic Christian ethical principles, with at least seven major principles undergoing perennial debate and reinterpretation. Christian ethicists use reason, philosophy, natural law, the social sciences, and the Bible to formulate modern interpretations of those principles; Christian ethics applies to all areas of personal and societal ethics.

Matthew 8 is the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and continues the narrative about Jesus's ministry in Galilee previously described in Matthew 4:23–25. It follows on from the Sermon on the Mount, noting in its opening verse that Jesus had come down from the mountain where he had been teaching. There is a renewed focus in this chapter on Jesus's ministry of healing.

This article lists Christian religious predictions that failed to come about in the specified time frame, listed by religious group.

The Tolstoyan movement (Russian: Толсто́вство, romanized: Tolstovstvo) is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mount.

Tolstoy expressed "great joy" that groups of people "have been springing up, not only in Russia but in various parts of Europe, who are in complete agreement with our views." However, the author also thought it was a mistake to create a specific movement or doctrine after him, urging individuals to listen to their own conscience rather than blindly follow his. In regard to a letter he received from an adherent, he wrote:

The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (Greek: Πάτερ ἡμῶν, Latin: Pater Noster), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God's holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manuscripts and Christian traditions.

Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke when "one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'" Scholars generally agree that the differences between the Matthaean and Lucan versions of the Lord's Prayer reflect independent developments from a common source. The first-century text Didache (at chapter VIII) reports a version closely resembling that of Matthew and the modern prayer. It ends with the Minor Doxology.