Our Gospel picks up with the last two antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus addresses the prescription of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” as well as the ancient command to love your neighbor but hate your enemy. This Gospel is chock-full of ancient context that we’ll bring to light by exploring the cultural background of the sayings. We’ll also take at look at what one 21st century Jewish scholar named Jacob Neusner has to say about Jesus’ sermon and we’ll see how the ramifications of Our Lord’s prescriptions may have caused some disciples to abandon Him.

In this episode we’ll look at:

- Why, according to an ancient Jewish text called the Midrash, striking someone on the right cheek was worse than striking them on the left

- The value of a tunic versus a cloak according to the Old Testament - a detail which helps us appreciate Jesus’ sayings regarding the two

- The prevailing law in first century Palestine that allowed Roman soldiers to press Jews into service for up to one mile

- The original Greek of our text which reveals Jesus using a telling grammatical construction called the “emphatic I”

- What it meant when Matthew says that Jesus taught “as one who had authority”