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The Sermon on the Mount, Part IV: Matthew 6:19-7:29

The Sermon on the Mount, Part IV: Matthew 6:19-7:29

Last updated on: November 5, 2026 at 6:27 pm by Gabriel Blanchard

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The Sermon on the Mount, Part IV: Matthew 6:19-7:29 2026-11-05T18:27:28-04:00 Gabriel Blanchard

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The Sermon on the Mount, Part IV (Matt. 6:19-7:29)

Initially I had planned to make this a five-part series, but I’ve changed my mind, for two reasons. One was simply noticing how little material 6:19-34 was! The other is that, while I’m not certain, I think I have figured out the through-line of what we might call the back half of the Sermon on the Mount.

This part of Matthew is often compared with the seemingly-randomly assorted material found in long stretches of Biblical wisdom literature (a category that mainly encompasses the books of Proverbs*,* Job*,* Ecclesiastes*,* Sirach*, and the* Wisdom of Solomon*).*1 Though there are extended purple passages in them, large chunks of most of these books are simply collections of sayings, often lacking any clear organizing principle or theme—on the surface at least, and to our eyes. There may have been, and I’d even risk saying “there probably were,” structuring elements in these books that they got implicitly from contemporary genre conventions when they were written, but which have since been lost. In any case, following the architecture of “nine blessings—six antitheses—three hypocrisies,” which governed the earlier parts of this discourse and which we took note of last week, this final portion of the Sermon on the Mount addresses itself to the superficially unconnected topics of detachment from riches, not being anxious about our resources, not passing judgment on others, asking God for blessings, the Golden Rule, distinguishing trustworthy people from hypocrites, and the Last Day. This does sound like texts like Proverbs 25-29, another collection of sayings; thematically, most of these topics are quite as humdrum as religious people being showy in the manner of the aforementioned three hypocrisies.

But look again. It isn’t merely that the rhetorical “temperature” remains the same, making the Sermon on the Mount feel united. Running through these disparate subjects is a subtextual continuity, one I’m finding a little difficult to express concisely. Avarice, anxiety, judging others, and corrupt shepherds all distract and misdirect us, pointing us away from the kingdom of heaven; by contrast, the exhortations to “keep asking, seeking, knocking” and “enter by the narrow gate” are exhortations towards perseverance and focus. This can be seen as a way of bringing the Sermon on the Mount full-circle, from the perspective of one of Søren Kierkegaard’s titles: Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing*.*

Matthew 6:19-7:29, RSV-CE

Poppy anemones (flowers sometimes understood
to be “lilies of the field”). Photo by Aviad2001,
used via a CC BY-SA 4.0 license (source).

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consumea and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound,b your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

“No one can serve two masters;c for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.d

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxiouse about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?f And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

“Judge not,g that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

“Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.h

“Ask,i and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them;j for this is the law and the prophets.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Diagram of an Onopordum acanthium (the cotton or
Scots thistle) by Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé for his Flora
von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz [Plants
of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland] (1885).

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.k Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

“Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’l And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you;m depart from me, you evildoers.’

“Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.”

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.n

Matthew 6:19-7:29, my translation

“Do not treasure up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and decaya vanish [things], and where thieves break through and thieve; treasure up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor decay vanish [things], and thieves do not break through, nor thieve; for where is your treasure, there is your heart, too. The body’s lamp is the eye. So if your eye is simple, your whole body will be bright; yet if your eye should be evil,b your whole body will be dark. If, then, the light in you is darkness—what a darkness. No one can slave for two lords;c for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot slave for God and for mammon.d

“This is why I tell you: do not come to piecese over your soul, what you may eat, nor over your body, how you may clothe [it]; isn’t the soul more than rations, and the body than clothing? Look on the birds of heaven, that do not sow nor harvest nor gather [stuff] in barns, and your heavenly Father gives rations to them; don’t you matter more than they do? Which of you, by coming to pieces, can add one cubit onto his stature?f And why come to pieces about clothing? Study the lilies of the field closely—how they increase; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you that Shlomoh in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If the vegetation of the field, which exists today and tomorrow is thrown in an oven, God dresses thus, won’t he [do as much] for you, little-faithful [ones]? So do not come to pieces saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we dress in?’ For the nations search after all these things; but your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Search first for his kingship and justice, and he will add all these things to you. So do not come to pieces about tomorrow, for tomorrow can come to pieces for itself; a day’s own bad things are sufficient.

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon
(1890), by Edward Poynter.

“Do not judge,g in order that you not be judged: for by the judgment you judge, you will be judged, and by the measurement you measure [it] will be measured for you. You see a twig in your brother’s eye, yet do not perceive the beam in your eye? Or how will you say to your brother: ‘Emit that twig out of your eye,’ and look, there is a beam in your eye? Performer, first throw the beam out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to throw the twig out of your brother’s eye. Do not give a holy thing to dogs, nor throw your pearls in front of pigs, lest they trample them with their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.h

“Ask,i and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For all who ask receive, and who search find, and to knocking it is opened. Is there any person from among you whom his son will ask for bread—he will not give a stone to him! Or if he will ask for a fish too—he will not give a snake to him! So if you, being evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those who ask him. So, everything which you want people to do to you, do thus to them;j for this is the law and the prophets.

“Come in through the narrow gateway; because the broad gateway and the wide country road lead to destruction, and there are many who go in through them; because the narrow gateway and the pressed-in road lead to life, and there are few who find them. Be aware of false prophets, the sort who come to you in sheep’s clothing yet within are wolves that snatch. By their fruits, you will recognize them.k [People] don’t collect grapes from thorns, or figs from briars, [do they]? Thus, every good tree makes fair fruits, while a rotten tree makes evil fruits; a good tree cannot make evil fruits, nor can a rotten tree make fair fruits. Every tree which does not make fair fruit is cut down and thrown in fire. Therefore indeed by their fruits you will recognize them. Not all who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will come into the kingship of the heavens, but the one who does what is wanted by my Father in the heavens. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and throw out demons in your name, and do many powerful [deeds] in your name?’l And then I will profess to them that ‘I have never known you;m depart from me, workers of lawlessness.’

“So everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be likened to a sensible man, who built his household upon rock. And rain came down and rivers rose and the winds blew and fell on that household, but it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine will be likened to a stupid man who built his household upon sand. And rain came down and rivers rose and the winds blew and struck that household, and it fell—and its falling was great.”

And it happened, when Yeshua finished these words, the crowds were dumbstruck by his teaching; for [there he] was, teaching them as [if] he had authority, and not as their scribes.n

Textual Notes

a. rust/decay | βρῶσις [brōsis]: I was a little torn about this translation. Βρῶσις really means “eating” or “dining.” The link between that idea and the “eating-away” of any kind of decay is clear enough, though as far as I know there isn’t a single English noun that expresses this succinctly. If this were its only New Testament appearance, I might have ignored it as one of those minor inconsistencies that can never all be ironed out; however, the related verb popped up in John 6 (see note i on this post). As a result, I’ve decided to … ignore this as a minor inconsistency that can’t be ironed out, but add this note about it.

Incidentally, my choice of “decay” rather than the RSV’s “rust” is deliberate. Recall that the text refers first to the moth, well-known to be a pest when it comes to cloth. What treasured-up things are decaying is not specified, so the question is whether the βρῶσις at hand is likeliest to be: (i) a near-synonym of this moth, which would suggest the rotting of cloth; (ii) a contrastive parallel that balanced the moth, in which case metals would be indicated; or (iii) intentionally ambiguous. “Decay” is a tolerable rendering in all three cases.

Portrayal (1863) of Mammon by Louis le Breton,
drawn for the Dictionnaire Infernal of French
occultist J. Collin de Plancy.

b. if your eye is not sound/if your eye should be evil | ἐὰν δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου πονηρὸς ᾖ [ean de ho ofthalmos sou ponēros]: This appears to be a play on the expression “the evil eye,”2 a phrase with two chief uses. The first is as the name for a folk belief, found in many cultures around the globe (though associated by some, a little arbitrarily, with the Near East), that a malicious gaze can inflict a curse on the thing or person gazed upon—either from the sheer intensity of the gazer’s malice and without further intent on their part, or as one element in the casting of a curse. The second is a metaphorical use, as a poetic term for envy. The relevance of envy to “laying up treasures” of any kind probably needs no further explanation!

c. No one can serve two masters/No one can slave for two lords | Οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν [oudeis dünatai düsi küriois douleuein]: There are some traces in Judaic literature of rabbinic discussions of the question of whether a slave could serve two masters, e.g., in subsection Eduyot (עֵדֻיּוֹת [ɜêdhûyouth]) from Nezikin (נְזִיקִין [N’zyqyn], “Damages” or “Torts”), the fourth tractate of the Mishnah. This may seem strangely abstract, but one thing we often forget about slavery is that it can be punishment for certain crimes;3 it’s not at all uncommon for crimes to have multiple unrelated victims, and dividing a slave’s duties among them may have made sense in some cases. Also, an element of the ancient practice of slavery that is sometimes ignored or missed in modern discussions of the topic is that there were such things as public slaves—not in the sense of state-owned slaves whom citizens could borrow for private use (like a lending library but for human rights abuses), but in the sense of state-owned slaves who were tasked with menial public labor: night watchmen, maintenance staff for public buildings, those kinds of things. Obviously a slave who was theoretically owned by the city of Argos or Colossæ or Rhegium would, also theoretically, have many more than two masters.

d. mammon | μαμωνᾷ [mamōna]: For a long time, this intrusion of the Aramaic term for wealth, מָמוֹנָא [måmounå’], into the Greek text here was held to indicate the name of a pagan deity or similar figure, presumably from Syria. However, there does not appear to be any evidence for such a deity, either in surviving written sources or in the archæological sphere. Perhaps מָמוֹנָא was just one of those terms that tended to be kept in the Aramaic even by Jews speaking Greek, the same way we now use expressions like Schadenfreude or je ne sais quoi (which are italicized because, even though both have been in use in English for more than a century each, we still categorize them mentally as German and French).

e. do not be anxious/do not come to pieces | μὴ μεριμνᾶτε [mē merimnate]: I decided on this translation essentially for the sake of a pun. The verb μεριμνάω [merimnaō] can mean “come to pieces” in the metaphorical sense, and can indicate two or three states of being overwhelmed by some emotion, nearly always anxiety. I opted for the more flowery version partly because it will technically sustain other meanings while naturally suggesting anxiety, and partly because, although the two words are in fact unrelated, μεριμνάω looks and sounds as if it could be a compound based on the word μέρος [meros] “part.”

Talmudysci [Talmud Readers] (c. 1930?),
by A. Adolf Behrman.

f. can add one cubit to his span of life/can add one cubit onto his stature | δύναται προσθεῖναι ἐπὶ τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ πῆχυν ἕνα [dünatai prostheinai epi tēn hēlikian autou pēchün hena]: The RSV-CE’s “span of life” is probably the actual drift here. The πῆχυς [pēchüs], conventionally translated “cubit,” equated to around a foot and a half. That would be quite a bit to add to one’s literal stature, whereas the rhetoric flows more naturally if a small increase is involved; most interpreters therefore take this to be an analogical reference to adding a moment to one’s lifespan.

g. Judge not/Do not judge | Μὴ κρίνετε [mē krinete]: I grew up in a religious milieu which tended to stress that “judgment” is the name of an intellectual virtue, and therefore not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously, this is quite true; just as obviously, judgment often is a bad thing in fact. I’ve long been grimly amused that Koiné, and New Testament Koiné in particular, developed the same idiom as in English by which “judgment” is the moral vice of hypocritical, unmerciful judgment.

h. Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you/Do not give a holy thing to dogs, nor throw your pearls in front of pigs, lest they trample them with their feet and turn and tear you to pieces | Μὴ δῶτε τὸ ἅγιον τοῖς κυσίν, μηδὲ βάλητε τοὺς μαργαρίτας ὑμῶν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν χοίρων, μήποτε καταπατήσουσιν αὐτοὺς ἐν τοῖς ποσὶν αὐτῶν καὶ στραφέντες ῥήξωσιν ὑμᾶς [mē dōte to hagion tois küsin, mēde balēte tous margaritas hümōn emprosthen tōn choirōn mēpote katapatēsousin autous en tois posin autōn kai strafentes rhēxōsin hümas]: Both dogs and swine are more dangerous animals than we typically realize: sometimes we remember this about dogs, but almost no one apart from farmers nowadays realizes that a fully-grown pig is also a large animal—an average-sized adult pig will likely weigh 400-500 pounds (and some breeds get a lot heavier and bigger)—and, like the domestic dog, an omnivore. Pigs do mostly eat plants when left to their own devices; but if you’re casting your pearls before them, then you’re the one involving them in the devices of others, and it isn’t like the pigs signed a treaty to restrict themselves to plants or anything. Male pigs can even have tusks.

I hadn’t registered this before, but Fr. Harrington, the writer of the Sacra Pagina commentary on Matthew, points out in his commentary that this saying is rather oddly placed. Immediately after telling us not to judge and to deal with the beam in our own eye, we’re suddenly meant to regard certain other people as being so clearly “dogs” or “pigs” that we should know better than to share—something—with them. (Probably “a holy thing” and “pearls” are in reference to theology, explanations of which are easily abused.) “Dog” was a stock insult for those outside the community, which in this context would be Gentiles; Fr. Harrington mentions rabbinic parallels to this saying, and says that they warn Jews against giving the Torah to Gentiles, but he doesn’t elaborate. Pigs, being one of the best-known animals banned by kashrut (Judaic dietary laws), were presumably convenient symbols for Gentiles accordingly. In the primitive Church, this text was understood, by some at least, as forbidding the Eucharist to be given to non-Christians:

Now concerning the Thanksgiving (Eucharist), thus give thanks. First, concerning the cup: “We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever.”
And concerning the broken bread: “We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.”
But let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving (Eucharist), but they who have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs.”
—The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (the Didache), ch. 9 (trans. M. B. Riddle, posted on New Advent)

i. Ask | Αἰτεῖτε [aiteite]: It seems ludicrous that the act of asking for things in prayer should call for so much exhortation. Isn’t supplication the simplest, most obvious function of prayer? In a sense, yes; I assume that’s why so many of us spend so much energy trying to prove to ourselves that we’re above mere supplication; ours are the more disinterested, more spiritual forms of prayer.

Folio from an Ethiopic copy of
the Gospel of Matthew (c. 1700).

This of course is hogwash. Except for the address Our Father which art in heaven, the remaining seven clauses of our explicitly-instated model for prayer are all requests, all supplication (except that, in the first three petitions, they take the more mysterious form of commands). True, they ask for kinds of things few of us would independently remember to, like the hallowing of God’s name or protection from temptation. But that doesn’t render them any less requests. It just makes them requests for intangible realities like forgiveness, rather than tangible realities like sandwiches. Probably our dislike of requesting things in prayer is more egoistic than we recognize, reminding us as it does of our dependence and powerlessness.

I’ve been on a bit of a Narnian kick of late, so I’ll allow myself a quotation from The Magician’s Nephew (the one Greta Gerwig is adapting to film). The child protagonists of the book, Polly Plummer and Digory Kirke, later the Professor Kirke of the Pevensies’ first adventure, have been sent on a mission by Aslan that is taking them deep into the west of the Narnian world, almost immediately after its creation. Both as their transport and, to a degree, their “grown-up in the room,” Aslan has also sent Fledge, the first pegasus of Narnia: Fledge was given the gift of language, transmogrified, and re-christened, after having spent his life up to this point as an ordinary London cab-horse called Strawberry. After their first day’s flight westward, they land in some very beautiful, but obviously unpopulated, mountains.

…..“I am hungry,” said Digory.
…..“Well, tuck in,” said Fledge, taking a big mouthful of grass. Then he raised his head, still chewing and with bits of grass sticking out in each side of his mouth like whiskers, and said, “Come on, you two. Don’t be shy. There’s plenty for us all.”
…..“But we can’t eat grass,” said Digory.
…..“H’m, h’m,” said Fledge, speaking with his mouth full. “Well—h’m—don’t quite know what you’ll do then. Very good grass too.”
…..Polly and Digory stared at one another in dismay.
…..“Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.
…..“I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.
…..“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly.
…..“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse (still with his mouth full). “But I’ve a sort of idea he likes to be asked.”
—Chapter XII: Strawberry’s Adventure

This stands to reason, really. If God loves us, wouldn’t he want some of our interaction and attention for, at minimum, the same reasons a mom would?

j. So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them/So, everything which you want people to do to you, do thus to them | Πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἐὰν θέλητε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς [panta oun hosa ean thelēte hina poiōsin hümin hoi anthrōpoi, houtōs kai hümeis poieite autois]: This isn’t quite, but is almost, a direct quotation from Hillel the Elder—the most illustrious rabbi of the generation preceding the Lord’s, and a celebrated nasi4 of the Sanhedrin—in a famous story about him and his younger contemporary, Shammai the Elder. Both Hillel and Shammai were rabbis, and indeed founders of illustrious rabbinic schools of thought—Hillel’s was widely regarded as the generous, permissive school, laying the heaviest emphasis on mercy, where his opposite number was stricter and more duty-centered.

Illumination (1768) of the Decalogue
by Jekuthiel Sofer. Photographed
by Ardon Bar Hama (source).

On one occasion, an ancient redditbro type approached Shammai, saying he would convert to Judaism if he, Shammai, could explain the whole Torah to him while he, the redditbro, was standing on one foot: Shammai, who happened to be at work on a wall at that moment, chased the redditbro off with a carpenter’s square (a response for which there is a great deal positive to be said). This obnoxious person then approached Hillel with the same offer, which the sage accepted. Our guy duly began to stand on one foot. Hillel said to him: “What is hateful to you—do not do it to your neighbor. There, that is the Law; the rest is commentary. Go study already.” Redditbro was compelled to admit defeat, and in some tellings really did go study already.

Regardless of its origin, this “negative” version of the Golden Rule, occasionally called the Silver Rule, appears as summary of all ethical and moral principles in a great many contexts both within and outside of Judaism.5 People sometimes try to claim that there is great significance in the contrast between the Golden/”positive” wording of the rule and the Silver/”negative” one, or in the ostensibly anthropocentric nature of summarizing the Law in love of neighbor rather than love of God. This is very unlikely; the differences are almost certainly just stylistic variations. I would not normally be so ready to dismiss a minor stylistic difference as having very little meaning—finding meaning in small details is, like, forty percent of my identity by volume! But we have a fairly strong counterexample here, from an obscure early Christian author called “Saint Paul”:

Love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” “Thou shalt not covet”; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
—Romans 13:8-10

k. You will know them by their fruits/By their fruits, you will recognize them | ἀπὸ τῶν καρπῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιγνώσεσθε αὐτούς [apo tōn karpōn autōn epignōsesthe autous]: I want to highlight this verse, because I’ve come to consider it one of the texts that makes the short list for “most widely and persistently misunderstood quotations in the entire Bible.”

If you weren’t already aware, that puts it up
against some stiff competitors.

I started college in the autumn of 2004; at the time, I was an evangelical, and I soon got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ,6 an interdenominational Protestant fellowship. (I stayed plugged in with them even after becoming a Catholic four years later, until I graduated in 2010.) There were students with all sorts of different backgrounds there: Reformed believers like myself, Pentecostals, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, non-denominational Christians (i.e. “Baptists, only not quite so much so”). Theological discussions were pretty common—and, in almost all the cases that I recollect, pretty civil.

One thing that did tend to come up a lot, under this name or not, was “the pale of orthodoxy.” What is “the pale of orthodoxy”? I’m glad you asked. Pale here bears a now-archaic sense: “limit” or “boundary” (the term palisade is related). “The pale of orthodoxy” meant the outermost limit of difference that still lay within beliefs we could call “Christian.” Within that pale, we still cared about right answers and wanted to figure them out (including when the right answer was This is not the kind of question that has right and wrong answers), but we weren’t worried that people’s differing convictions were the difference between being in Jesus and being outside of him. None of the Presbyterians in our group thought the Episcopalians were in peril of their souls for having priests and vestries and dioceses instead of elders and sessions and presbyteries. If something was beyond the pale of orthodoxy, however, that was bad news. That was the kind of thing that did mean your soul was in peril—the obvious examples were things like worshipping other deities, like Catholics did, or denying the divinity of Christ, like liberals did.7 So it’s probably easy to see where our concern with the pale of orthodoxy was coming from: if some beliefs were things we could agree to disagree about, while others were crucial parts of being a Christian, where’s the line? And, since the Bible (the only infallible authority we recognized) doesn’t contain any concise, clear articulation of that line, how do you know where the line is?

One solution a lot of people hit on was this verse. It feels plausible. If a teaching bears bad fruit, then that can hardly be something God intended, can it? The problem here is twofold. One is that this doesn’t work at all as a way of sorting beliefs. Take any group of people, defined by any kind of belief: you will find that some of them are good and some are bad. If this were the tool Yeshua had given us for determining what the truth was, it’d be credible evidence of him not wanting us to know what the truth is, because it is useless for that purpose.

Fortunately, or unfortunately—the former if you wanted Yeshua’s message to be good advice, the latter if you really had your heart set on this verse resolving the pale of orthodoxy—the other problem with that interpretation of this passage is that it’s simply and factually not what Yeshua said. He did not say “By their fruits ye shall know their preaching,” but “By their fruits ye shall know them.” This is about identifying bad pastors, not bad theology. (I say “pastors” in the broad sense, i.e. guides and teachers generally; they don’t need to have the title or job description “pastor” to be susceptible to this verse.)

The Lamb Defeating the Ten Kings (c. 1220-
1235), an illumination from Beatus of Liébana’s
Commentary on the Apocalypse.

l. did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name/didn’t we prophesy in your name, and throw out demons in your name, and do many powerful [deeds] in your name | οὐ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι ἐπροφητεύσαμεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δαιμόνια ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιήσαμεν [ou tō sō onomati eprofēteusamen, kai tō sō daimonia exebalomen, kai tō sō onomati dünameis pollas epoiēsamen]: The translations “many mighty works” and “many powerful [deeds]” are both slightly wrong: the phrase δυνάμεις πολλὰς literally just means “many powers.” Δυνάμεις is one of the stock terms for miracles in the New Testament, along with σημεῖα [sēmeia] “signs” and τέρατα [terata] “wonders.”

In this general list of miracles, specific mention is made of just two types: prophecy8 and exorcism. These two miracles in particular carry an implication of authority with them. Prophecy almost is divinely-given authority in the Hebrew Bible (especially the authority to interpret the Law)—the gift of foretelling the future is a miraculous sign that validates said authority, not the prophet’s main function. As for exorcism, demons do not willingly leave a person whom they have possessed. It normally requires both apostolic succession, or power de jure as it were, and persistently repeated commands, typically addressed to the demon by its true name (which may be hard to compel the demon to reveal in the first place) to “enforce” said legitimacy, a sort of power de facto. And, well, as in the previous note, so here: we very easily slide into the habit of clericalism, of supposing that authority—or worse, mere power—naturally goes together with goodness or grace. That’s not the truth.

Now, is there a Thomist typing up a storm in the comments about how actually, the is/ought distinction is a load of Kantian garbage, and God is the source of both being and goodness so really we can reasonably expect power and goodness to go together, and, and the virtues, five fingers on a hand, they grow together, all else being equal, and that stuff? Sure. Regarding most of it, they’re even (to quote Futurama) technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

The catch here is, uh … the fall of man? Actually, sorry, one edit: they are not correct that the is/ought distinction is a load of Kantian garbage. Really, any being with a conscious intellect and moral free will is going to have to grapple with the is/ought distinction. That’s what “ought” means. Ought-statements can always be reformulated as “It would be right for such-and-such an arrangement of things to exist” (sometimes with further restrictions). Is that ought-ness grounded in Being Himself, i.e. in God? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that ought-ness has been realized on the created plane, because God is not a creature.

m. I never knew you/I have never known you | Οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς [oudepote egnōn hümas]: As the Sacra Pagina commentary on Matthew points out, this will be horribly echoed in 26:69-75. There is also a terrifying, eerie quality to the idea of being told by an omniscient being, “I do not know you.”

A 15th-c. “doom painting”9 from St. Mary’s Church
in North Leigh, Oxfordshire. Photo by Motacilla,
used via a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (source).

n. as one who had authority, and not as their scribes/as [if] he had authority, and not as their scribes | ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν [hōs exousian echōn kai ouch hōs grammateis autōn]: This “autonomous” note was highly uncharacteristic for a first-century rabbi (and still is). Rabbis were constantly offering rationales and authorities for their midrash and halakhah.10 For example, take the selection below, with which the first subsection of the first tractate of the Mishnah salutes the reader (I sourced this text from the encyclopedic site Sefaria, which kindly offers it here, free to all readers):

…..From when, that is, from what time, does one recite Shema in the evening? From the time when the priests enter to partake of their terumah. Until when does the time for the recitation of the evening Shema extend? Until the end of the first watch. … Therefore, the time for the recitation of Shema is the first portion of the night … That is the statement of Rabbi Eliezer.
…..The Rabbis say: “The time for the recitation of the evening Shema is until midnight.”
…..Rabban Gamliel says: “One may recite Shema until dawn” … There was an incident where Rabban Gamliel’s sons returned very late from a wedding hall. They said to him, as they had been preoccupied with celebrating with the groom and bride: “We did not recite Shema.” He said to them: “If the dawn has not yet arrived, you are obligated to recite Shema.” Since Rabban Gamliel’s opinion disagreed with that of the Rabbis, he explained to his sons that the Rabbis actually agree with him, and that … wherever the Sages say until midnight, the mitzvah may be performed until dawn. Rabban Gamliel cites several cases in support of his claim, such as the burning of fats and limbs on the altar. Due to the quantity of offerings each day, the priests were often unable to complete the burning … so they continued to be burned into the night … And, with regard to all sacrifices … although the Sages state that they may be eaten only until midnight, by Torah law they may be eaten until dawn. This is in accordance with the verse: “On the day on which it is offered must you eat. Do not leave it until the morning” … If so, why did the Sages say that they may be eaten only until midnight? This is in order to distance a person from transgression, as if one believes that he has until dawn to perform the mitzvah, he might be negligent and postpone it until the opportunity to perform the mitzvah has passed.
—The Mishnah, Tractate Zeraim, §1. Berakhot

This is the kind of stuff Christ’s contemporaries were used to grappling with—at least, this is its background. I’m sure a given individual rabbi, when answering a practical question from a congregant, would give a much simpler reply! But I’m equally sure that that rabbi would take care to make it clear that his was one of several answers, which were all part of a lengthy discussion about the Torah that had been going on for generations. Christ just … not doing that would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

Footnotes

1Mainly, but not solely. A handful of Psalms can be understood in this light, and a little special pleading could interpret the “edifying novels” contained in Tobit, Judith, Esther, and Daniel 1-6 as an atypical variety of wisdom literature. (When I say “novels” here, I do not mean “fiction,” though the second word probably does describe Tobit and Judith; I mean “narratives told for the sake of artistic satisfaction,” which can be fiction or embroidered fact or unembroidered fact.) The book of James is often compared with wisdom literature as well.
2Some people, regarding the evil eye as a purely superstitious belief, seem disturbed by the idea that Christ would even allude to the concept. Nonetheless he assuredly does use the phrase—Mark 7:22 gives a more direct example, although many translations (including the RSV-CE) render ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός simply as “envy.” If you’re worried that this means Jesus was superstitious, it really doesn’t; there’s no reason he shouldn’t use a poetic turn of phrase like anybody else would, at least now and then.
3I say “can be” because slavery is a present reality, not a purely historical one. A lot of people fail to realize that the modern prison system uses inmates as slave labor—not in some clandestine sense, but publicly. That’s why you’ll see things like orange-jumpsuited convicts picking up litter. This is fully in line with the Thirteenth Amendment, which did not abolish slavery; what it did was to establish exactly one cause for enslavement as legally permissible and void all others: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States”. Whether you think slavery of this kind is reasonable or not
4The Sanhedrin’s nasi (נָשִׂיא [nåšy’] “prince”) was its principal head, and in that sphere superior even to the high priest, with a second-in-command known as the av beyt dyn (אָב בֵּית דִּין [‘åv bêyth dyn] “father of the house of justice”). The office of nasi of the Sanhedrin was instituted in the late 190s BCE, in response to a no-confidence crisis in the office of high priest during the high-priesthood of Onias III, who took office some time around 200 BCE and was usurped by his Hellenizing brother Jason in 175. All of this was part of the background to the Maccabean Revolt; some of the drama, up through Jason’s usurpation, is related in II Maccabees 3:1-4:15. The canonical Gospels and Acts discuss three or four high priests, but only one nasi, and they do so without mentioning his title: Hillel’s grandson, Gamliel the Elder (or Gamaliel in the Greek spelling). Hillel died in 9 CE; his son Simeon was apparently appointed nasi after him, but the year of his death seems to be unknown, and it’s possible that there was an interregnum between Simeon and Gamliel. If so, the high priest may accordingly have enjoyed greater sway in the Sanhedrin for a few years; Hillel and Shammai are seen as the last of the zugoth, or “pairs” of nasi and av beyt dyn who worked coöperatively. (My information on these offices comes mainly from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, e.g. in its article on the nasi.)
5Confucius, for instance, offers a version of the Silver Rule in Book XV of the Analects. The Mahābhārata, the national epic of India, even proposes the Silver and Golden Rules together: its thirteenth volume, the Anushasana Parva, says (according to The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue): “Do not to others what you do not wish done to yourself; and wish for others too what you desire and long for for yourself—this is the whole of Dharma; heed it well.” (In Hindu discourse, the term धर्म॑ [dharma] can indicate the whole order of the cosmos, moral law included, or can more specifically mean the moral law and especially one’s duty according to one’s position in society. It’s thus somewhat analogous to the Chinese concept of 道 [dào], and to the Ancient Greek philosophical notion of λόγος [logos], which I discussed in its own right in this post—scroll down to §III.1.c, “Hellenistic Judaism and Greek Philosophy.”)
6As it then styled itself. Being a proselytizing organization, and also one that operates internationally, it was moved by sensitivities attached to the word “crusade” to change its name in 2011; it’s since been called Cru. (As re-namings go, I feel like that choice is a bit who-do-you-think-you’re-kidding. Yet my circus this is not, neither are these my monkeys.)
7This is a little funny to me now, but not as funny as it should be. The idea that Catholics worshipped saints is one I’ve obviously come to deny pretty firmly! but the reference to “liberals” is slightly misleading. At the time, and given our milieu, what we mainly meant by that word was adherents of what’s called liberal theology, a name for a school of thought characteristic in mainline Protestant churches (the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the ELCA, etc.), which evangelicals consider doctrinally, morally, and structurally corrupt, especially by rejecting the reality of miracles and the inerrancy of the Bible. This is not an entirely fair portrait of liberal theology—there are liberal theologians who are thoroughgoing supernaturalists. The reason this isn’t funnier is that there are also liberal theologians like the late John Shelby Spong, who denied the Resurrection and argued that the church should move away from little things like theism, or like Katharine Jefferts Schori, who in a sermon on Acts 16 described St. Paul’s exorcism of a slave girl as him being “annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place” by the demon afflicting the girl and therefore “depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness”. (It is only fair to note that these two bishops have also drawn considerable unfavorable comment from other members of their own communion.)
8When spelled with a c, we’re dealing with the noun “prophecy”; it rhymes with “Tennessee.” With an s, we have the verb “prophesy,” which rhymes with “unify.”
9Doom paintings were murals of the Last Judgment, usually placed on the western interior walls of churches (both because sunset symbolizes death, and because Christian churches traditionally face eastwards, so that congregants would see, or at least face, a church’s doom painting as they left the church.
10If you haven’t come across these terms before or don’t recall their meanings:
• Midrash (מִדְרָשׁ [midh’råsh]) comes from the radical ד–ר–ש (D–R–Sh), which is associated with ideas like study, argument, and discussion. This denotes interpretation of the text of Scripture, whether narrative or theological. The claim that the earth and all it contains were created in seven twenty-four-hour days, because it’s dealing with the text and its meaning, would be an example of midrash—in my opinion, a very poor and strange kind of midrash, but midrash.
• Halakhah (הֲלָכָה [hàlåkhåh]) comes from the radical ה־ל־ך (H–L–K), associated first of all with walking but often used in extended or metaphorical senses. This denotes the real-world application of the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot (individual commandments of the Law), in settings ranging from daily village life to the most solemn liturgies in the Temple. The Jewish custom of never combining meat products and dairy products in honor of the mitzvah not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk (iterated in Exodus 23:19 and 34:26, and again in Deuteronomy 14:21), because it’s dealing with how to apply the text to life, would be an example of halakhah.

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November 2, 2026

Verses for Hallowtide

What Christian group believes in "baptism by immersion only"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Catholics Lutherans Presbyterians Baptists