Beatitudes

Sermon on the Mount – The Meek and Those Who Hunger & Thirst

/ J.K. / Leave a comment

Matthew 5:3-6

Las week, I only made it through verses 3 & 4, so this week I’ll wrap up the first section of the Beatitudes and go through verses 5 & 6. So, let’s jump right in.

V5
Who are the meek? This isn’t a word used often in modern English. Discussing this passage with my study group, we could only come up with that Christmas song where they call Jesus meek and mild. The Greek word is praus, which can mean – humble, gentle, considerate, courteous, long suffering, and free from malice. Barclay calls meek being ‘angry at the right time and never at the wrong time’, and according to Aristotle, meekness is being ‘angry on the right occasion, for the right people, for the right amount, and for the right length of time’.

Maybe because they are homonyms, but I think most people just go straight to associating meekness with weakness. I think quite probably gets in there a good bit to. Other Biblical references include Moses being called meek in Numbers, and both James and Peter writing about meekness as a way to act and receive the Word.

How we see who the meek are in this verse is influenced by how we understand the blessing. The reward for being meek is inheriting the earth. The word translated can mean either earth (as in the physical aspect) or land. This has a pretty clear meaning to Israel, but what about today? Similar to those who mourn, you can double dip into eschatological meanings here. For Jews, it is the Messianic Kingdom, for Christians it is the second coming – think inheriting the new Earth. Considering the likelihood that the mourning is the broken world with the blessing being the new Earth, I view the meek as the longsuffering and humble. Combining the two verses, and we should read each in light of the other, that means we mourning the brokenness of the world, but in humility of our own sin, and of course we may live our whole lives in the world, not seeing the restoration, making us long suffering. The blessing for this combined affliction is the same, we will be comforted when we inherit (as heirs to the Kingdom) the new Earth after the second coming, resurrection, final judgement, and restoration of all things.

V6
This is another phrase that is hard to understand in modern American life, hunger for me means something drastically different than to the original hearer/reader (or the majority of Christians over the past 2000 years, or any number of hundreds of millions elsewhere in the world today). I’ll eat breakfast around 6:00, then get to work and get moving and around 11:00 someone will mention lunch, and I’ll think, ‘man, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, I’m starving.’ Compare this to even my grandparents who were growing up before ‘three meals a day’ was even a concept. Or to the original hearer/reader, where there were likely days when on food was consumed. That is real hunger.

Likewise, thirst is a difficult concept. For one, there is no running water, indoor plumbing, etc. You have to go to a well. Now, I live in what was formally a malarial swamp (if you’ve ever wondered why the CDC is in Atlanta…), but the context hear is a desert. The well can run dry and it may not rain for months. I have some neighbors that moved here from LA about a year ago and one of the things they said they enjoyed here was listening to thunderstorms. They tell me that it may rain once, and then not again for a month or so, and that is pretty much the expected outcome. So, this concept is a bit lost on me, as even in our level 3 drought years, we still receive about 30 inches or so of rain. However, I do know you can last weeks without food, but only days without water.

This is a long intro to two commonly used words, but it is helpful for context. The picture here is someone who hasn’t eaten in a week and had no water in a day or two. It is someone who will soon die if they do not find food and water. This is the level to which we should seek righteousness. This is a theme throughout Christ’s ministry, later He will tell us to ‘First, seek the Kingdom and its righteousness”. So we know that He isn’t talking, if you have time, or when it is convenient for you, but seek it as if it is the drop of water that will keep you alive.

Finally, what is the blessing? They will receive it. The BEC translates the promise as, they will be filled. This takes us back to the point from last week about being poor in spirit. We need to empty ourselves to be filled. Those who seek Christ and His righteousness will find it, and He will give it to them. They will be covered in Christ’s righteousness, and it is through Christ that we will one day enter the Kingdom or inherit the new Earth.

That wraps up the section of the Beatitudes about how we relate to God, next week I’ll move into the section about how we relate to each other.

Follow along in the series – Intro, The Poor in Spirit & Those Who Mourn.

Commentaries used in this series:
Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary)
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7 : Christian Counter-Culture)
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
The Expositor’s Bible commentary : Matthew, Mark, Luke, with the New international version of the Holy Bible (Expositor’s Bible commentary, Vol.8)
Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
New Bible Commentary

Sermon on the Mount – Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn

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Matthew 5:3-6

The beatitudes are broken up, like a lot of things in the Bible, into you relating to God and then you relating to people. The first four – the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – are how we relate to God.  The second clause is how He relates back to us – theirs is the kingdom, will be comforted, shall inherit the earth, will be filled. We will hit two of these this week and the other two next week.

V3

What does it mean to be poor in spirit? The best descriptor I can across was ‘spiritual bankruptcy’. However the focus isn’t necessarily on ‘poor’ in the sense that you aren’t very good at being spiritual, it is more in realizing that you are ‘bankrupt’. It is how Isaiah feels before the thrown of God when he says ‘woe to me, I am a man of unclean lips’. That is what knowing you are poor in spirit sounds like.

What about the opposite, what is rich in spirit? First of all, you can’t be rich, because of our fallen nature. We are too sinful to be rich in spirit, which is why Paul says I keep doing what I don’t want to do. Basically, I know I shouldn’t sin, but I just keep on sinning anyway. Self-righteousness is what happens when you think you are rich. That is the message to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:17 – For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

I have this quote in my notes, but forgot to attribute it, I think it was Martyn Lloyd-Jones, that you must empty yourself before you can be fill by God. Being poor in spirit means you realize what you have isn’t worth much, especially compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, so you are willing to give that up and look to God for fulfilment.

V4

Who are those that mourn? Reading through the commentaries and studies on this, there didn’t seem to be much in the way on consensus. There were four main ideas of what we are mourning, but the support for each seemed fairly well spread out. Those who mourn may be mourning:

  1. Their own sin
  2. The humiliation/destruction of Israel
  3. Their persecution
  4. A broken and sinful world

I am least inclined to agree with number 3, for one, it is early enough on in Christ’s ministry, that there are not any ‘Christians’ yet, and so it would have to mean some future persecution that those who are beginning to follow would have to be aware of now. Mostly, though, I don’t think it fits in this section of the beatitudes. Persecution is discussed, but it comes later; and working in the framework of the first four beatitudes being about our reaction to God, persecution doesn’t fit.

I’m also less inclined to go with number two, but mostly because it is difficult to understand (for today). DA Carson makes the argument that the mourning is the current low position of Israel and the coming destruction of the temple. As Matthew is the most Jewish focused of the Gospels, this seems to make sense. He points to the weeping remnant that mourns and that there is an eschatological hope for future comfort. This is pretty clean academically, but I struggle with the focus being so narrow. There aren’t any more first century Jews around. I’m two thousand years later, living on the other side of the world. Doesn’t mean it is the wrong interpretation, but it moves it from a broader point about life, to a specific time and place; which I’m not convinced fits in the Sermon.

Number four is related to this, in a way, but is still able to have a more broad meaning. It carries the same eschatological sense, but can be applied for today and for any Christian throughout the world. We can look around and mourn the sinfulness and brokenness of this world, but be comforted by the fact that Christ will come again. That is the ‘will be comforted’ part, that the world will be restored in the new Earth after his coming. This interpretation is probably the easiest to fit and understand, and I think is the best way to go.

Relatedly, but without the future earth and kingdom restoration connotations, is mourning our own sin. The comfort then is less about restoration, but more individualized, with the comfort being deliverance from God’s penalty. So, we mourn our own sinfulness, but we will be comforted because the penalty has been paid for us and we do not incur the wrath of God.

That is it for this week, check back next Monday for my thoughts on the Meek and Those Who Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness.

Commentaries used in this series:
Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary)
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7 : Christian Counter-Culture)
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
The Expositor’s Bible commentary : Matthew, Mark, Luke, with the New international version of the Holy Bible (Expositor’s Bible commentary, Vol.8)
Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
New Bible Commentary

Intro to Sermon on the Mount

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Matthew 5-7

This passage is one of the most well-known, while at the same time, it isn’t known very well. That is to say, if you mention Sermon on the Mount to most (church) people, they will know what you are talking about, but following up with any question – when/where/why, or what is in it, what is he saying, and I don’t think you’d get much of a reaction. There are number of ‘famous’ passages within it – the beatitudes (blessed are…) and the Lord’s Prayer probably being the most known, but there are other passages such as His words on Lust/Adultery and Hate/Murder. Really, the simplest way to state it is that the Sermon is a collection of all of the teachings of Jesus found in Matthew, which are not parables.

What exactly was the Sermon? I’m torn on whether I want to get into some of the deeper academic disputes. Was he actually on a mountain? If so, which one? Where there any in the area? Some commentators break this down a bit and say well, it was probably just a hillside, and in kind of a red-neck way, say that the translation could read the sermon up in the hills. Some people were also concerned that it doesn’t align with Luke’s sermon on the plain, and wonder if the Mount is really more of a plateau, but I think all that is beyond what I want to look at and discuss.

For me, there are a few things that matter, one is Jesus probably gave this sermon or message a number of times. It wasn’t uncommon for itinerate teachers (Rabbis) to go around to different towns and villages repeating their message. Luke focused on only a few ‘blesseds’ whereas Matthew had more and left off the ‘woes’. I also think that is why he puts it at the beginning of the his Gospel.

Finally, there is significance to placing it at the Mount (whether it was actually the first instance or not). Matthew is written for a mostly Jewish audience, and they would have seen the connection between Jesus giving the sermon (expanding and explaining the law) and Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the original Law (the 10 commandments). If that wasn’t clear, Jesus Himself draws the connection when He later explains lust and adultery, and hate and murder.

The entire intro Matthew gives us is just two verses (5:1-2), which basically says, people were around, so Jesus started His sermon.

Next week I’ll start going through the beatitudes, but for now, what is exactly are beatitudes? We get with word from the Latin word Beatus which means blessed, which is obviously taken form the start of each verse – ‘blessed are…’. So, what does blessed mean? There are two words typically used in the Greek – Makarious and Ealogetos. The latter is word used when someone is blessed by God that most people think of when they hear bless. The word used is actually the former, it means more something of along the lines of happiness, fortunate, or even congratulate (as the tense is accusative).

This is one reason for wide array of translations for the word, but it makes the sense of the phrase confusing in the English. He isn’t saying that God will bless those who are poor in spirit, He is saying something more along the lines of consider fortunate those who are poor in spirit (on famous sermon even used the translation ‘congratulate those…).

I hope that helps as a basic introduction, next week I’ll started on the Beatitudes and hopefully continue you on through the whole sermon.

 

Commentaries used in this series:
Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary)
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7 : Christian Counter-Culture)
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
The Expositor’s Bible commentary : Matthew, Mark, Luke, with the New international version of the Holy Bible (Expositor’s Bible commentary, Vol.8)
Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)
New Bible Commentary