Giving, Praying, and Fasting

Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount about giving, prayer, and fasting. As was the case with all His teaching to a Jewish audience, He showed them a better way than the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. Giving, praying, and fasting are three essential things every person learned in Judaism. The key was Jesus wanted His followers to do these things differently--not for a show, like the hypocrites, but in secret. However, when it came to prayer, He took the opportunity to give hem a prayer (a.k.a. "The Lord's Prayer") as a model and used His understanding of the Ten Commandments as the basis for what we now call the Lord's Prayer.