The Sermon on the Mount
By J.K.
If you wanted to argue that the Sermon on the Mount is the most influential public speech of all time, the least compelling version of that argument would be to point out that Christianity is still around in [current year].
After all, it's not hard to imagine a counterfactual world in which Matthew, one of the four gospels telling the tale of Jesus's ministry, was lost to history: I think Christians and non-Christians alike would agree that Jesus's message was not so fragile that having only Mark, Luke, and John in the Christian canon would have prevented his teachings from spreading far and wide.
However, there is one unmistakeable way in which the Sermon on the Mount specifically has left its fingerprints all over modern culture.
The biggest influences on culture aren't the ones that we debate, but the ones that have reached such a deep layer of root access that you don't even realize their presence. The most powerful influences are often invisible, and on that metric, the Sermon on the Mount is unbeatable.
Consider how many times you've heard people use the following idioms and aphorisms without consciously realizing that they're quoting Jesus:
- Turn the other cheek
- Go the extra mile
- Salt of the earth (describing a person who is humble, dependable, and honest)
- Judge not, lest ye be judged
- (Don't throw your) pearls before swine
- (Beware of) wolves in sheep's clothing
And that’s without even touching the obviously-Christian material: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” “You are the light of the world.” “You cannot serve both God and money.” And, of course, the Our Father In Heaven…, which has been recited aloud by millions every day for nearly two millennia: “Give us this day our daily bread.” “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” “Lead us not into temptation.”
Like fish who don't know what water is, we swim in culture that is downstream of Jesus of Nazareth.
But idioms have half-lives. A phrase that once carried sharp moral force becomes trite through repetition. Over time, their edges get worn off, and their meanings are softened or lost – and in some cases, when we lose the original context, an idiom's meaning can be completely reversed
For an example, there's an old aphorism, "blood is thicker than water," that most read as a cliche about family loyalty: you should care for your own blood above all else. But some Christians present a different interpretation of the phrase, stating that the original aphorism can be more fully stated as "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" – that is to say, your brothers and sisters in Christ (who Jesus bled and died for) are closer to being your "true family" than your biological siblings. According to this Christian reading, "blood is thicker than water" isn't a statement about the importance of favoring your genetic kin over outsiders; it's literally the opposite!
(Ironically, this story about the changing mean of "blood vs water" is apparently a modern invention, with the Christian "covenant" version regarded by many scholars as a later interpretive backformation. So, perhaps the object-level lesson is, "beware of creative interpretations that seem a little too galaxy-brained." But I think this actually makes this example even more effective as an object lesson in how the meaning of idioms can be twisted by changing context because it makes this point on both a content level and a meta level.)
So, in the same spirit, let's re-examine the idioms of Jesus's sermon and try to understand them in the context that his first-century Judean contemporaries would have, starting with one of the most famous:
Turn the other cheek
"Turn the other cheek" doesn't feel like a novel insight in 2025, but considered in the historical context of 1st century Judea under Roman occupation, his teaching was actually quite transgressive.
Scott Alexander, in Early Christian Strategy, describes the early Church as deploying what he calls “COOPERATE-BOT,” a maximally-altruistic prisoner's dilemma strategy that somehow emerged victorious even in a world of defectors. In game theory terms, this is supposed to be a losing strategy. But somehow, it won.
At first glance, “turn the other cheek” sounds exactly like the kind of advice you’d give a COOPERATE-BOT: don’t retaliate, don’t resist, just keep absorbing blows. Jesus even sets it up as a contrast with an earlier ethic that is closer to a TIT-FOR-TAT-BOT:
You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
The most surface-level interpretation of this verse is that Christians should not only allow themselves to get slapped without retaliation, but participate in their own abuse by presenting the other cheek to get slapped, handing over two garments when they've been sued for a single garment, and going two miles when they've been forced to walk one mile.
But this reductive game theory analysis reduces the choice to a binary: either you resist evil with violence, or you submit to it in silence. Jesus proposes a third thing.
And, as Christian writers like Walter Wink, Glen Stassen, and R.C. Sproul point out, Jesus is very precise about the mechanics. He doesn’t just say “if someone hits you, turn the other cheek.” He specifies:
If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Why is it relevant that Jesus specifically mentions the right cheek?
In the cultural context of Roman-occupied Judea, this is significant because people used their right hand for nearly everything. (In an era before toilet paper and bathroom sinks, left-handed gestures were associated with uncleanness.) So if you’re facing someone and they strike your right cheek with their right hand, the only way for them to do it is with a backhanded slap.
This is the kind of slap that Jesus was describing: backhanded slaps weren't meant to injure so much as they were meant to insult. They were the domain of masters disciplining slaves, soldiers humiliating civilians, parents rebuking children, and husbands asserting dominance over women. The backhanded slap was not an attack between two people of equal social standing; it was a gesture of status and social dominance; to strike a person with the back of the hand was to assert that they were "lesser."
Now, let us imagine that in the aftermath of such a slap, the victim turns the other cheek – their left cheek. If the striker wished to hit the left cheek, he would instead have to use an open palm, or a fist: this was not the sort that a master would deliver to a slave, but the sort of blow that would be exchanged between equals. A punch was an act of violence: a master would not insult a slave by punching him.
So, Walter Wink argues, to "turn the other cheek" (specifically, the left cheek) was not an act of submission, but of defiance: "you may strike me, but I will not let you treat me as beneath you. If you wish to hit me again, go ahead and hit me as you would hit an equal." To "turn the other cheek" as Jesus instructed is to confront an oppressor and demand equal dignity and standing, challenging earthly hierarchy.
Note that Jesus here is still advocating non-violence. He doesn't advise responding to a slap with a counter-punch. But neither is it an act of submission. To "turn the other cheek" is neither fight nor flight, but a secret third thing, a cheeky form of resistance that challenges injustice without repaying violence with violence.
Jesus expands on this in the next breath by giving other specific instructions that, if we study them, seem to send the same message:
Going the extra mile
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
To our modern ear, "go the extra mile" sounds like pure metaphor: "go above and beyond." Exceed expectations. It doesn't read as literal advice, because most of us don't live in a world where anyone would ever "force" us to "go with them" any distance, let alone a mile.
But in first-century societies living under Roman occupation, this was not a vague hypothetical: it was a matter of Roman legal policy.
Roman soldiers and officials had "angareia," the legal right to compel civilians to perform short-term labor, such as carrying supplies or equipment. Civilians (and their animals and carts) could be temporarily conscripted on a short-term, ad-hoc basis. ("You there! Walk with me and carry my pack!")
Low-ranking Roman soldiers didn't have carte blanche to turn civilians into chattel slaves for the duration of an entire military campaign, however; the civilian would be expected, at most, to transport a soldier's gear or supplies for one mile before being allowed to leave. (Roman lawmakers understood that you can only oppress a civilian population so much before it provokes violent rebellion, so they had a hard cap on this specific type of oppression.)
Roman soldiers found themselves walking the roads of the Roman empire quite frequently – in fact, one of the main purposes of the roads was to serve as a transportation network for Roman soldiers (and their supplies), which is why according to popular aphorism, "all roads lead to Rome." In an era predating GPS and printed paper maps, travelers on the road could measure the distance they had traveled based on the presence of stone road markers, known as milestones. There was a very clear line (in both the legal and literal sense) demarking how far a Roman soldier could force a civilian to walk.
Let's return to Jesus's words: "If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."
Once again, our modern perspective might quickly lead us to the conclusion that this is an instruction for his followers to participate in their own abuse. Roman soldiers could only compel civilians to go with them for one mile, so why go with them two miles?
Well, consider what it means for there to be a "one mile limit" for this type of Roman privilege. The "one mile limit" is not a rule if it isn't enforced, so to ensure that low-level Roman footsoldiers never abused this privilege, the higher ranking officers in the military would have needed to punish footsoldiers who broke the rule and abused their privilege over civilians.
Let us now imagine how this might play out in practice: a 1st century Christian, following the teachings of Jesus, is voluntarily carrying the pack of a Roman soldier a second mile. (At this point, the've been walking for close to half an hour, which is quite awhile to walk in silence, so perhaps the Christian has been taking the opportunity to prosthelytize and share the good news of Jesus Christ, a hot new up-and-comer in the religious scene of 1st century Judea.) They encounter a centurion:
Centurion: You there, soldier! How long has this civilian been carrying your gear?
Soldier: Two miles, sir.
Centurion: You forced him to walk more than one mile under the hot Middle Eastern sun? You know the rules!
Soldier: It wasn't my idea! He volunteered!
Centurion: A likely story.
Christian: It's true. As implausible as it might sound, I voluntarily chose to carry his pack an extra mile. I'm part of a new religious movement that advocates doing this sort of thing.
At this point, regardless of what the Centurion actually believes from their account, it's hard to envision an outcome that doesn't end up with the footsoldier getting punished – and punishments for misbehaving Roman soldiers were not gentle.
Thus, let us consider what Jesus might have actually been getting at with this clever bit of advice to go the extra mile: Yes, the laws of the Roman Empire permit soldiers to oppress us. But here, we have the opportunity to perform a clever bit of judo: those same Roman laws can result in the soldier being the one who is punished by the full force of the law for engaging in this sort of involuntary civilian conscription.
Again, this is a non-violent approach: Jesus doesn’t say “resist the soldier.” He doesn’t say “attack him” or “flee from him” or “demand new laws.” He says: obey more than you’re asked, and let the system’s own rules choke on your compliance.
It also highlights the arbitrary nature of the rules: If forcing someone to walk two miles is unjust, why is one mile acceptable? What moral principle distinguishes the first mile from the second?
Finally, let us return to the last of Jesus's three instructions in the genre of "turning the other cheek" and "going the extra mile." While this line isn't as famously aphoristic, the rule of these demands that we address it as well:
"If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well."
Death and tax collectors
As a child, I never fully understood why tax collectors were regarded as such a despised class in Jesus's time. In Matthew 9, the Pharisees are scandalized to find Jesus dining with “tax collectors and sinners.”See also Matthew 21, where Jesus condemns the religious elites saying: "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."
But much like the back-handed slap, and the military practice of short-term civilian conscription (angareia), debt was a tool of Roman oppression.
Rome demanded tribute from its provinces, but didn’t collect taxes directly. Instead, it subcontracted the job to local elites, like Herodian aristocrats, temple priests, and "tax farmers" who bid for the right to collect taxes in a given region on behalf of the empire. (The government would set a target amount of revenue for a province, private individuals and syndicates would pre-pay this for the right to collect taxes from the local population, and their profit is whatever they managed to keep beyond the required quota, a sort of "kleptocracy by design.")
In practice, Roman taxation functioned as a regressive wealth transfer mechanism. Small landowners often fell into debt. When they couldn’t pay, they were forced to sell their land – frequently to the same Roman-aligned elites who controlled tax collection. These estates were then rented back to the former owners, now reduced to tenant farmers, day laborers, or, in some cases, slaves.
As such, a 1st century Judean would only sell their land until they had been squeezed for literally everything else they had, including the clothes on their back: In ancient Judea, clothing was often used as a form of collateral in financial transactions.
In fact, this was such a common practice that we explicitly see it addressed in the book of Exodus, which is best known for giving us the Ten Commandments, but also includes more esoteric financial legal doctrine as it pertains to clothing as a form of collateral:
Exodus 22:26-27
If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I [God] will hear, for I am compassionate.
Similarly, Deuteronomy 24:13 exhorts creditors to "Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it."
The cloak (Greek: himation) in question was an outer garment that was often used as a blanket at night, hence the need to return it by sunset. However, no such provision existed for the inner garment of the tunic (Greek: chiton)
Let's return to Jesus's words:
"If anyone would sue you and take your tunic [Greek: chiton, inner garment], let him have your cloak [Greek: himation] as well."
Once again, there is a shallow reading, which is that this is exhorting his followers to participate in their own abuse: if you are sued for one garment, give up two instead!
However, consider what would happen in the courtroom when a person gave up both their inner garment and outer garment: they would be fully naked. It would make a mockery of the whole affair: as you might imagine, nakedness was quite taboo at the time.
However, in this cultural context, the shame of nakedness fell less on the naked person and more on person viewing their nakedness, and in this case the person who caused the nakedness. (See for example the story of Noah in Genesis 9, when one of his looked upon his naked sleeping father and was cursed, in contrast to his two other sons who covered their father's nakedness, going to great pains to walk backward when they carried the garment to ensure they wouldn't see his naked sleeping form.)
So, once again, Jesus has offered his followers a mechanism by which they can "flip the script" and challenge or shame their oppressors by "going the extra mile" to expose the injustice of the whole affair. As Walter Wink puts it, "The creditor is revealed to be not a legitimate moneylender, but a party to the reduction of an entire social class to landlessness and destitution."
Blessed are the meek
The Sermon on the Mount has an entire section devoted to "the beatitudes," of the form "blessed are the X, for they shall Y."
Among the most famous of these is "blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth."
A shallow reading could take this as an endorsement of passivity. To modern ears, “meek” doesn’t sound like someone poised to inherit much of anything. "Meek," in modern parlance, is synonymous with "submissive" and "easily imposed upon." "Meek" has an unfortunate phonetic similarity to “weak,” and the semantic gap isn’t much wider.
However, the word that is here translated as "meek" is the Greek "praus." Elsewhere, Jesus uses the same word to describe himself: Matthew 11:29: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle [praus] and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
So, earlier in his teachings, Jesus is exhorting his followers to be "praus" just like him. What does it mean to be praus?
Outside biblical teaching, "praus" was used to describe a warhorse that had been trained: strong enough to ride and charge into battle, but obedient enough to respond to a pull of the reins.
In the 4th century BC, Aristotle described a "praus" person as one who possesses the virtue of steady courage that is neither too reckless nor too cowardly. (He contrasts this with Orgilotes, which was excessive in anger, and Aorgesia, having a deficiency of anger:)
…the middle disposition is praiseworthy, which leads us to be angry with the right people for the right things in the right manner
(Nicomachean Ethics IV)
In other words, Jesus's exhortation to be "meek" ("for [the meek] shall inherit the earth") is actually one that commands us to be "appropriately angry," and ready to courageously ride into battle if the situation calls for it. This contrasts with our common understanding of the word "meek," but it makes sense that these sorts of people would inherit the earth: be strong, but more importantly, be a person who knows when it is appropriate to use that strength.
This theme is repeated in another of the beatitudes:
Blessed are the peacemakers
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
"Peacemaker" is, once again, a term that could (incorrectly) be read as a call to passivity. But to "make" peace is not passive. To "make" anything in the world, peace included, is to act. In the Greek, hoi eirēnopoioi were "peace builders" – not pacifists, but those who acted to create peace in the world.
I find myself thinking of a particular historical figure who called for "peace in our time," Neville Chamberlain. Obviously, his non-interventionist approach toward Nazi Germany in World War II did not have the desired result of making peace. The version of Britain that (aided by the other Allies) succeeded in bringing peace to Europe was the one that built bombers and deployed soldiers.
The "peacemakers" that Jesus tell us are "blessed" and "shall become sons of God" are not the appeasers; he is instead referring to the "peacemakers" as the ones who have the strength to fight, and the judgment to understand when it's time to fight. (They are also the ones who, after the fighting is over, can enjoy the peace that they've created, because they don't fighting for its own sake.)
Peacemakers are not people-pleasers; they don't shy away from conflict and they don't try to avoid awkward or difficult conversation. They often understand that true reconciliation and "peace" often lie on the other side of encounters that look a lot like "fighting," and that getting to healing often requires having the courage to confront conflict rather than avoiding it, even if it's more painful to face it in the short term.
Does this mean that Jesus was calling on his followers to do as Winston Churchill did, and confront violent oppressors with violent war? Probably not – if Jesus had wanted to make a call to violence, there are lots of other terms he could have used, like Hoi phylakes (guards/defenders), Hoi polemistes (combatants/fighters), or Hoi niketai (conquerers/victors).
Instead, he blessed the hoi eirēnopoioi. What did he mean by this? In keeping with the common theme of the Sermon on the Mount, it seems to be a call to find the secret third path – not shirking away from conflict, nor charging into conflict violently, but achieving your goals through a morally courageous non-violent method.
The Lord's Prayer
At the center of the Sermon on the Mount is a short model prayer in prayer that we are all familiar with:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one
(That's where Jesus's version ends. There's a popular liturgical version that ends with "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen," as seen in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer compiled by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.)
You might be familiar with a version that replaces "forgive us our debts" with "forgive us our trespasses," shifting the focus from financial stakes to more abstract moral stakes. However, the original Greek clearly and explicitly refers to "opheilēmata," a financial economic obligation. Jesus was speaking into a context where debt (and debt peonage) was a tangible reality.
But among the most subversive lines in the prayer is one that might feel innocuous to modern ears:
"Your kingdom come."
To those living in first-century Roman-occupied Judea, the significance wouldn't have been missed; it's pretty easy to read this as a call for regime change. The word translated here as "Kingdom" is Basileia, as in Basileia Romaion (Roman Empire). The kingdom of God (basileia tou theou) would have stood in clear contrast to Caesar's Kingdom.
Jesus knew that he was speaking to a Judean audience that was familiar with the prophecies where God's might serves as a threat to (and replacement for) worldly power structures: like in Daniel 2:44: “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.
However, Jesus doesn't call for revolution in the usual sense. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he has advocated for a non-violent approach.
The Secret Third Thing
In Early Christian Strategy, Scott wonders how early Christians played COOPERATE-BOT in a world of defectors and won. Why didn't they get wiped out like all the other saints and idealists and Quakers and utopians?
Maybe the answer is that they weren't playing COOPERATE-BOT, at least not in the way we model it in game theory tournaments.
The Sermon on the Mount isn't advocating for a position where you let people slap you, sue you, conscript you, crush you, and respond with unconditional love. Understood in its original context, Jesus's sermon doesn't encourage submission to oppressors. When someone slaps you on the right cheek, you don't cower; you force them to strike you as an equal.
It is nonviolent, to be sure. But it's also subversive and cleverly destabilizing, engaging in a form of rebellion that doesn't trigger immediate suppression. The meek will inherit the earth – but the meek, as it turns out, are warhorses under control. The peacemakers will be called sons of God – but they are makers of peace, not appeasers of injustice.
There have been many revolutions throughout history. What makes Jesus's approach interesting is that he not only was challenging the existing power structure; he was also offering something better, which is arguably the harder task.
Meet the new boss, not the same as the old boss
Across the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus consistently threads the needle between passive acquiescence and violent revolt. He doesn’t tell his followers to submit to oppression, but neither does he endorse seizing the levers of power and flipping them back in the other direction. He instead suggests a means by which they can change the world without becoming what they're fighting against.
Why the need for this subtle and subversive approach? Admittedly, armed rebellion against Rome probably would have been suicidal. But the nonviolent approach has another virtue: it allows you to install a new status quo that isn't contingent on violence. The Roman government ruled because "right makes right." If you overthrow them with violence, you leave the operating logic of "might makes right" in place: the leadership changes, but the ethos doesn't. Jesus here is not just suggesting a rejection of Roman leadership, but of the Roman way of doing things.
For most of human history up to that point, political life had been a game of musical thrones: different factions take turns seizing power, but the underlying rules don’t change from one century to the next. The strong dominate the weak, and the only question is which team gets to wear the boot.
Jesus isn’t interested in picking a better foot to wear the boot. He wants to burn the boot.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you… For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not the tax collectors also do the same? … Therefore you be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Like so many lines from the Sermon on the Mount, "Love your enemies and pray for them" has been repeated to the point of cliche, but it really is a subversive idea.
If your goal is to replace domination with dignity, you can’t rely on domination to get you there. Wearing the boot won't get you a new world; it leaves you trapped in the old world, with only a (temporary) change in stewardship. The badness of the boot is not contingent on who is wearing it.
In his posts about the early Christian church (Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity and The Early Christian Strategy), Scott gestures at the early Christian movement being the birth of liberalism, centuries before John Locke. What Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount may not have all of the characteristics of what we now recognize as liberalism, but it can be seen as a sort of "proto-liberalism" that challenged existing illiberal norms.
Honor vs dignity, shame vs guilt
Social scientists offer us two helpful concept handles: "honor culture" and "dignity culture."
In honor cultures – like first-century Judea under Roman rule – your moral worth is largely reputational. Your "honor" depends on whether others see you as courageous, loyal, chaste, and so on. Honor is a kind of moral currency, and the ledger is held by the community. Your honor can be lost, and so you may be called upon to "defend your honor" by responding to insults with violent retribution.
Dignity culture, by contrast, is built on the premise that every person possesses intrinsic moral worth, regardless of their social standing. This, like many of the teachings of Jesus, practically feels like cliche: like fish unable to define "water," we often forget that we are swimming in dignity culture.
It is easiest to understand "dignity" by contrast, or defining dignity in terms of what it isn't: Dignity is not conferred by your tribe or forfeited by scandal or a failure to respond to insult. Your dignity cannot be stripped by public disgrace. Dignity is not earned; it is assumed.
This vision, more familiar to liberal democracies than ancient empires, is close to what Jesus offers in the Sermon on the Mount. It's what Jesus advocates in the "turn the other cheek" example, wherein a slave might defy their master with a gesture saying, "hit me as you would an equal."
Dignity stands in tension with honor because it detaches moral standing from community approval. You can possess "honor" for things you didn't choose, like being born into the right family: in certain cultures, you might have an "honorable surname." You can also be disgraced for things that you didn't do, or things that are done to you. For example, under "honor culture," you risk losing standing if you allow someone to insult you without retaliation. For an uglier example of how honor can be lost for things that are done to you, consider the fact that in the ancient world – and in some communities today – a woman who is raped may be seen as a source of dishonor to her family. In the worst cases, this type of honor culture leads to so-called "honor killings," where the victim is punished to restore the family name.
"Honor" is at the mercy of the community, but your dignity is God-given. It's personal and alienable, bestowed upon you by the creator through the act of creation: you're human. You have dignity.
This distinction maps neatly onto a related one: shame vs. guilt. Shame is imposed by the community, while guilt is felt internally. If you sin privately, there's no way for others to shame you (since they don't know about it), but God still sees your sin, and you experience guilt.
Sometimes, these can even be directly in tension with each other, as "shame" may be conferred for things that are "bad" in some non-moral sense: for example, in certain cultures, a student who gets a poor score on his college entrance exams and fails to get into a good school might bring shame onto his family. That same student, if he cheated on the exam to get a good score and get into a good university, would avoid the shame of being judged by the community, but even if no one caught him, he would feel the guilt of having broken the rules.
This is an idea that we tend to take for granted in many WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) societies: you should endeavor to do the right thing. And this isn't a decision you should make as part of a cost-benefit analysis where you weigh the costs of getting caught: you should do the right thing, even if no one will know.
This moral intuition, which we now often take for granted, is why (unsuccessful) attempted murder is seen as a worse offense than accidental manslaughter, even though the latter produces a worse outcome by actually taking a human life.
However, Jesus was challenging the moral intuitions of his audience when he taught that the condition of your heart is what matters, which is why he presented this argument in the form of several statements that are sometimes described as "the antitheses," of the format, "you have heard it said that…but I say to you…"
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment." …
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
These verses could be seen as an advocation of "guilt culture" over "shame culture." Sin is a matter between you and God: even sin that goes unseen by the community is still sin.
Likewise, the honor you have in the eyes of your community matters less than the inherent human dignity you have in the eyes of God.
Jesus was notably willing to spend time with the "dishonorable" members of society, like prostitutes and tax collectors, and in fact considered these dishonorable classes to be more esteemable than the religious authorities who most would regard as moral authorities, because the prostitutes and tax collectors were willing to repent of their sins and "get right with God" while the religious leaders weren't.
The Lord looks upon the heart
In describing how to treat the poor, Jesus's Sermon on the Mount offers the following instruction:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
The final point generalizes: your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. The message is clear: your shame and honor, which are arbitrated by the community, do not matter. What matters is what God sees. Good press and good standing do not matter as much as doing the right thing.
The Sermon on the Mount proposes a new kind of moral logic. In replacing shame with guilt, and replacing honor with dignity, it takes morality out of the hands of worldly rulers, mobs, and status hierarchies, and places it where no earthly regime can reach.
This is either a profound comfort or a terrifying burden. If you're reviled by the crowd but right with God, you have nothing to fear. If you're celebrated by the crowd but corrupt in your soul, the applause means nothing.
Once you've truly internalized that your worth is not up for social negotiation, you become strangely difficult to manipulate. When you answer only to God, you can’t be extorted by threats to your honor or fear of shame. In a quiet and radical way, you become ungovernable by any worldly power. And might be the beginning of freedom.