{"id":10237,"date":"2026-08-20T01:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10237"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:31:15","slug":"do-the-beatitudes-describe-prerequisites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10237","title":{"rendered":"DO THE BEATITUDES DESCRIBE PREREQUISITES?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We tend to take the Beatitudes and turn them immediately into &#8220;here&#8217;s what you need to do, how you need to think, how you must act&#8221; to get God&#8217;s blessing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Be poor in spirit, be meek, be a peacemaker, etc., and then God will grant you entry into the Kingdom.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But doesn&#8217;t this call into question our core evangelical profession that we do not in any way earn our salvation?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That Jesus came to seek the lost sheep? That he came as a physician calling those who were sick?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Think about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we read &#8220;Blessed are the poor in spirit&#8221; as &#8220;blessed are those who recognize their own spiritual poverty&#8221; for &#8220;theirs is the Kingdom of heaven&#8221;, then we are saying, point blank, HERE is the key to unlocking your salvation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As far as I can tell, &#8220;repent&#8221; is the only action directly associated with the arrival of the Kingdom in someone&#8217;s life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And even then, repentance is the response to the arrival of the Kingdom, not some internal mindset that draws it out in the open.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We tend to take the Beatitudes and turn them immediately into &#8220;here&#8217;s what you need to do, how you need to think, how you must act&#8221; to get God&#8217;s blessing.\u00a0 Be poor in spirit, be meek, be a peacemaker, etc., and then God will grant you entry into the Kingdom.\u00a0 But doesn&#8217;t this call into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10238,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions\/10238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}