Yesterday I introduced a new sermon series where we will be taking a look at each of the Beatitudes individually over the next few weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The intro had to do with seeing Jesus as a teacher. In an important sense, He is even more foundationally a Teacher to us than He is a Savior.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
This week I am meditating on the first Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3)<\/p>\n\n\n
You might think there would not be much to work with in a single line of dialogue like this. But considering its position as the opening line of Jesus’ most famous recorded sermon, I think it is worthy of serious contemplation.<\/p>\n\n\n
Perhaps ESPECIALLY when there seems to be wide agreement on what Jesus meant. I am always suspicious of easy and obvious interpretations of Scripture, especially when it comes to the words of Jesus.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
What is interesting to me about this verse is the way the usual interpretation makes a leap based on assumptions … and little else.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
AI summed up the typical interpretation of “poor in spirit” as “having deep spiritual humility, recognizing one’s own sin, and knowing you are completely helpless and empty without God”. “It is about admitting you have no spiritual wealth or goodness on your own to earn God’s favor.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Some human commentators suggest getting at Jesus’ meaning by swapping the word “humble” in for “poor”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
“Blessed are the humble <\/i><\/b>in spirit.”<\/p>\n\n\n
But this is exactly what makes me suspicious and determined to keep digging. If Jesus was talking about people who are humble <\/i><\/b>in spirit, why didn’t He just use THAT word?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I introduced a new sermon series where we will be taking a look at each of the Beatitudes individually over the next few weeks.\u00a0 The intro had to do with seeing Jesus as a teacher. In an important sense, He is even more foundationally a Teacher to us than He is a Savior.\u00a0 This […]<\/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-3365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3365","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=3365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3366,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3365\/revisions\/3366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}