The Sermon on the Mount, part two: the Father who sees, the Lord's Prayer and the two builders

Chapters 6 and 7 complete the Sermon on the Mount, begun in chapter 5 and placed by Matthew in the early Galilean ministry. The setting is explained in the class on chapter 5. Chapter 6 opens with three works of piety that Jewish teachers prized above others: giving to the poor, prayer and fasting. Luke 18:12 shows a Pharisee fasting twice a week. The Didache, an early Christian manual, mentions hypocrites fasting on Mondays and Thursdays. These practices were good and were publicly visible, which is exactly why Jesus warns about them.

Jewish households prayed set prayers at set times, and the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and the prayers that later became the Eighteen Benedictions were part of that pattern. The Lord's Prayer sits in that world. Luke 11:2-4 gives a shorter form in answer to a disciple's request, and Matthew places the longer form within the Sermon. Many scholars see in this difference two occasions on which Jesus taught the prayer, or two versions of a prayer used by the churches. The first hearers were mostly peasants and day labourers, for whom food and clothing were real daily worries. Their questions about money, anxiety and judging were practical ones.

The Sermon ends in the setting of covenant renewal. In the Old Testament, the giving of the Law concludes with a choice between two ways, life or death, blessing or curse (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1). Matthew 7:13-27 follows the same form, with two gates, two trees, two professions and two foundations. The crowds are amazed at the end because Jesus teaches with an authority different from the scribes' (7:28-29).

The Sermon is teaching discourse in the manner of Jewish wisdom, and it makes heavy use of paradox, hyperbole and proverb. A proverb states a general truth and does not promise every case. The promise in 7:7-8 that those who ask receive is a statement of the Father's generosity. It does not mean that every petition is granted as asked; Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane and was not spared the cup (26:39), and the New Testament links answered prayer to the Father's will (1 John 5:14). The log in the eye (7:3-5) is hyperbole, a plain piece of exaggeration to make a point, and not a literal timber.

• The second rule is to read each saying in its context in the Sermon. The command not to judge (7:1) must be read with 7:6, which tells the disciple to discern who will receive what is holy, and with 7:15-20, which tells the church to examine prophets by their fruit. The sayings forbid hypocritical, condemning judging and do not forbid all moral discernment.
• The third rule is to take the Lord's Prayer as a pattern: three petitions about God ('your name', 'your kingdom', 'your will') followed by three about people (bread, forgiveness, protection).

The fourth concerns the closing warning (7:21-23). Christians differ on how doing the Father's will relates to grace. This class reads the passage as joining the two: the true disciple is one whom Jesus knows, and that knowing shows in obedience.

6:1-4. Jesus warns against practising righteousness to be seen by people, since there is no reward from the Father for it. The word 'hypocrite' (hypokrites) first meant an actor on a stage. The blowing of a trumpet may be figurative. The command not to let the left hand know what the right is doing means giving without self-regard. The Father 'sees in secret' and will reward. This does not contradict 5:16, where the light is to shine. The difference is the motive: to be seen by people, or for the glory of the Father.

6:5-8. Prayer in a private room (tameion, an inner storeroom) is set against prayer on street corners. The Gentiles pile up words, as if the many words could move the gods, and the disciples need not do that, since the Father knows what they need before they ask.

6:9-13. The Lord's Prayer begins 'Our Father in heaven'. God was addressed as Father in Israel (Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 63:16), but the intimate and communal 'our' is marked. 'Hallowed be your name' asks that God make his own name holy before the world, a theme in Ezekiel 36:23. 'Your kingdom come' asks that God's rule be fully established. 'Your will be done, on earth as in heaven' joins the two realms. 'Give us today our daily bread' asks for what is needed for the day. The Greek word translated 'daily' (epiousios) is rare and its meaning is debated: for today, for the coming day, or necessary. 'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors' uses the Aramaic idiom in which debt means sin, and verses 14-15 underline that forgiveness received and forgiveness given belong together. 'Lead us not into temptation' translates peirasmos, which can mean a trial or a test, and the next line asks for rescue from 'evil' or 'the evil one'.

6:16-18. Fasting is to be done without a gloomy face. The anointing of the head and washing of the face were ordinary grooming. The reward again comes from the Father who sees in secret.

6:19-24. Treasure on earth is subject to moth, rust and thieves. The eye is the lamp of the body. In Hebrew idiom a 'good' eye was a generous one and an 'evil' eye a stingy one, so the saying about the eye fits the context of money. No one can serve two masters, God and mammon (the Aramaic word for wealth). The verb 'serve' means slavery, a claim over a whole life.

6:25-34. Because the Father cares, the disciples need not be anxious about food or clothing. The birds and the lilies are pictures of the Father's provision, and the argument runs 'how much more', from the lesser to the greater. Worry does not add an hour to life. The disciples are called people of 'little faith' (oligopistoi), Matthew's term for faith that is real but small. The Gentiles seek these things. The disciples are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and the other things will be added.

7:1-12. The measure used in judging will be used on the judge. The speck and the log expose the self-righteous. Holy things are not to be given to dogs. The Didache applies this to the Lord's Supper, though the text itself does not say so. The call to ask, seek and knock rests on the Father's goodness: a human father does not give a stone for bread. The Golden Rule sums up the Law and the Prophets. A negative form is attributed to Hillel (Shabbat 31a); Jesus states it positively.

7:13-27. The narrow gate leads to life, and the wide road to destruction. False prophets come as wolves in sheep's clothing and are known by their fruit. Some say 'Lord, Lord' and have prophesied and done miracles in his name, but Jesus will say, 'I never knew you', using words that echo Psalm 6:8. The wise builder hears and does, and builds on rock. The foolish builder hears and does not do, and builds on sand. The crowds are amazed at his authority (exousia).

The central doctrine of the two chapters is the fatherhood of God. The Father sees, knows what his children need, gives good gifts and rewards. The pattern of 'how much more' (6:30; 7:11) argues from human goodness to God's. The doctrine does not describe a distant deity. It describes a personal provision on which the disciples may rely, and it sets prayer as dependence and not as a technique.

The chapters teach the priority of the kingdom: the Lord's Prayer asks first for God's name, kingdom and will, and 6:33 sets the same order. They teach a theology of money and trust, with treasure laid up in heaven and God served instead of mammon, taking up the Old Testament's warnings about wealth (Proverbs 30:8-9; Deuteronomy 8:11-18). They teach that forgiveness is both received and practised, a theme also in Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:13. They also teach a final judgment according to a relationship with Christ shown in obedience, which agrees with the Old Testament's picture of two ways (Deuteronomy 30; Psalm 1) and with the parables of Matthew 13, 24 and 25.

The Golden Rule gathers the ethical teaching of the Law and the Prophets in a single principle, as the commands to love God and neighbour do in 22:37-40 and as Paul says in Romans 13:8-10.

These chapters are Jesus himself teaching, and the way he does it makes claims about who he is. He speaks of 'your Father' and invites the disciples to say 'our Father' (6:9), a relationship he shares with them through himself. In 7:21 he speaks of 'My Father', and the closing chapters of the Gospel show the Son praying in Gethsemane that his Father's will be done (26:42), the same petition he taught here. Paul later says that the Spirit leads believers to cry 'Abba, Father' (Romans 8:15).

In 7:21-23 Jesus places himself at the centre of the last judgment. People will call him 'Lord, Lord' on that day, and he will tell them he never knew them and bid them depart. The wording echoes Psalm 6:8, where the righteous man tells evildoers to depart, and Jesus speaks it as the one who decides who belongs to God, the role of the judge. The saying about the two builders puts his words as the only foundation that survives the storm (7:24-27). In the Old Testament, God is the Rock (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:2), and hearing and doing his word is the wise path (Deuteronomy 4:6), so Jesus' words take that place.

As a more tentative echo, the argument of 'how much more' is carried to its end at the cross. Paul asks how God, who did not spare his own Son, will not also give all things with him (Romans 8:32). The generous Father of the Sermon is the one who gave his Son. Jesus teaches with a teaching that the crowds recognise as different (7:29), since he speaks as the Son who knows the Father (11:27).