This passage should be read again before deciding whether Jesus advised opportunism rather than morality. The words must be taken as they are; no interpretation can be based upon the assumption that Jesus was always right and therefore meant something different from what he said.
Many Christians say that they care nothing for theology; that the Sermon on the Mount contains all that is necessary for a religious life, being a perfect system of ethics.
The Sermon on the Mount does contain many admirable principles, but also some that are inferior to present standards. Few of the people who praise this Sermon would think it proper to abide by all the teachings therein. Christian parents do not wish their children to follow either the letter or the spirit of this famous preachment. It begins in the fifth chapter of Matthew.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Is it better to be poor in spirit than rich and eager in spirit? Being poor in spirit is to be faint of heart. This is bad advice, is it not?
"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." This means that those who mourn on earth will be comforted in heaven; but now that life on earth has assumed greater importance, so far as our daily conduct is concerned, than life in heaven, the philosophy of gloom is unfortunate. Jesus preached acceptance of unhappiness as the common lot of man; he should not therefore be credited with providing happiness on earth. His urge to rejoice was usually in anticipation of good things to come in the next world. He preached sorrow for all here rather than the greater happiness for the greater number.
"There shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake ... and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."[27]
"Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh."[28]
The beatitude, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" is of doubtful accuracy or value.
The commands to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand may not have been intended literally, although it does appear as if Jesus referred to the physical body, and men have often so interpreted these doubtful instructions.