The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is the title normally given to Jesus’ longest recorded speech, found in Matthew 5:1-7:29. This sermon is bracketed by two simple phrases that show where it took place. Matthew 5:1 says that Jesus ‘went up on a mountainside’, and Matthew 8:1, at the end of His sermon, says He ‘came down from the mountainside’. Luke 6:17-49 records a similar sermon, but we are told there that it was given ‘on a level place’, not on the mountainside (Luke 6:17). It is likely that Jesus preached similar material in several places, much like an itinerant preacher might do today, and these are just two of these occasions. This explanation accounts for both the similarities and the differences in the two sermons.
