Burrowing into the Beatitudes
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
We talked about the meaning of the word “poor”, as well as what we thought the “kingdom of heaven” referred to. The consensus was that in the first step to becoming a Christ-follower is to recognize a poverty of spirit, the great lack in our lives of the ability to make things right by ourselves. We need to recognize our need for God before we can truly move on to understanding any of the rest of the relationship. We can then hope in the kingdom to come, and it seems that we will somehow have positions/jobs in the kingdom.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Rachel brought up a good point about mourning: we mourn because we have a deep grief over our sin that has caused all that is not right in the world to be so. Sin has broken the relationship between God and all of man, and the earth itself was cursed because of it. Yet, we seem to all have an innate sense of things not being as they ought to be. So we grieve over our fallen state, and in our grief and brokenness, God can draw us to Himself and make things right in our hearts; He will restore the right relationship between Himself and mankind.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the earth.”
I loved the discussion the meekness, because for so long, I thought that to be meek was to be weak. Rosanne looked up “meek”, and found there a word picture that really captivated my thoughts. She said that meekness is like putting a bridle in a horse. The horse is a powerful animal, capable of amazing things, but with discipline and lots of training, its capability is increased tenfold. A horse is not weak. But when trained to push into the bit correctly, rather than fight it, the horse can be collected and ready for action, well balanced, and capable of moving quickly, precisely, in any direction, and with a graceful beauty that is lovely to behold. Meekness is having great control over great power for others’ benefit.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.”
Nate was thinking, as was I, that the righteousness that we ought to be hungering and thirsting for was our own--like we ought to be striving to be righteous because God is righteous. However, he shared that he realized that we cannot be righteous, because we are fallen creatures, and have nothing in us that can be righteous enough for God. Rather, we want to see God’s justice and things “set right”, but on this earth, we will constantly be hungry, until that day when Christ comes back to “set all things right”.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
God showed us mercy first, so we can now show mercy to others. The Bible seems fairly strict on this point, we will receive mercy if we show mercy, and will be shown no mercy if we do not. We talked a bit about the parable of the servant who was shown mercy by the master and forgiven a vast debt, but then went and was unmerciful toward another servant who owed him a tiny debt. He was found out and then dealt with severely.
“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
Purity in this sense means 100% in original form. As it was intended. We are restored to how God intended us to be, following the process of poverty of spirit, repentance, having self control for the growth and benefit of others, pursuing God as our satisfaction, and showing mercy to others because we have been shown mercy. “Behold, all things are made new.”
”Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.”
I researched this one to share, and I like what I found! The Hebrew word for this peace, shalom, is used in greeting. But it means a whole lot more than a simple “What’s up?” It does not simply mean, “I wish the absence of anything bad happening to you.” Instead, it means the presence of all good things in someone’s life. So, peace is not simply the absence of war and conflict; peace is the abundant presence of good things in our neighbors’ lives. One commentary I read pointed out that this verse does not say, “peacelovers”, it says “peacemakers”. Sometimes, conflict and pain need to be present in order to bring about the presence of all good things and healing in a situation. We are to sow good things into people’s lives, even if it means making some waves. As for the “sons of God” part, it could mean inheritance, as in, we will be coheirs with Christ, and therefore have power and authority to bring His kingdom into our spheres of influence, or it could mean an adjective. In Hebrew, they don’t have adjectives much. Instead, they might describe a happy man as a “son of happiness”, or a beautiful woman as a “daughter of beauty”. So if we are God’s sons, it means we belong to God, and therefore, our lives ought to show that we reflect characteristics to He to whom we pertain.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The word “righteousness” here, in the Hebraic understanding, meant to “uphold one’s end of a covenant”. Daniel was given as an example here. He was counted as righteous because he kept His part of the covenant.
“Blessed are you when men cast insults […] and persecute you, for you reward is in heaven.”
The old church went looking for persecution, so great was their desire to gain rewards for the sake of persecution. We certainly don’t go looking today! Once again, as at the beginning, it seems to indicate that not all rewards will be equal, but that we will not be jealous of others’ crowns, but rejoice that every one cast at Jesus’ feet.
Comments