the beatitudes on Evil

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

According to the Puritan pastor Thomas Watson, Meekness toward other people consists of three things: the bearing of injuries, the forgiving of injuries, and the returning of good for evil.

Pastor: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Pastor: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the...

When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the ...

Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.

Persecution is never something sought by a Christian. It is the by-product of seeking first the kingdom of God rather than the privileges of the world.

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away. Rather than offering mercy, we...

In the Beatitudes something of the celestial grandeur breaks through. They are no mere formulas for superior ethics, but tidings of sacred and supreme reality’s entry into the world.

Self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude, and self-discipline usually its friend and generator. That is why gluttony is a deadly sin. The early desert fathers believed that a person’s appetites are l...

There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experienc...

Blessed are the liars, / For the truth can be awkward.

The socioeconomic rootedness of the word ‘poor’ does not permit exclusively the spiritual poverty interpretation, and the ‘in spirit’ demands that this be more than simple economic oppression…[neverth...

Self-made and self-sufficient people live in a fantasy world, empty of the reality of God. In contrast, the poor in spirit are deeply aware of being God-made and God-sufficient:

I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth... without taxes.

Beatitude is a strange but compelling word. It comes from the Latin word beatitudo, which is a translation of the Greek word makarios, meaning blessed, favored, or flourishing. The Beatitudes show us ...

[The beatitudes] serve to clarify Jesus' fundamental message: the free availability of God's rule and righteousness to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus Himself... They do this simpl...

Just a few minutes spent reflecting on the promises that come attached to the Beatitudes can lift us up like the whirlwind of God’s love in a revival tent meeting: inherit the earth, yours is the king...

The philosopher Aristotle taught that meekness was to be highly desired. He described it as a mean between anger and indifference, as the middle ground between excessive anger on the one hand and the ...

The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.

I never find “Blessed are the rich,” or “Blessed be the noble”’ but Blessed be the meek,” and, “Blessed be the poor,” and, “Blessed be the mourners, for they shall be comforted.”-And yet, O God!, most...

When Mary asserts explicitly that God is on the side of the poor, we can understand it within the tension of what it means to be blessed as the poor in spirit. Rather than elevating poverty to a form ...

These ‘meek’ people, Jesus added, ‘shall inherit the earth’. One would have expected the opposite. One would think that ‘meek’ people get nowhere because everybody ignores them or else rides roughshod...

Jesus explains what undergirds the actions of Paul, Isaiah, and Rev. Dr. King in two of his Beatitudes. He says, “Blessed are those who grieve, for they will be comforted. . . . Blessed are those who ...

The disciples are to be a moral disinfectant in a world where moral standards are low, constantly changing, or non-existent.

It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing that we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face-to-face with God.

First, the quality Jesus blesses in the third Beatitude has nothing to do with all the negative images triggered by the English word “meek.” Although it is a challenge to pin down the exact meaning of...

A third way of interpreting possession of the earth is that for someone who lives the Beatitudes—a man of humble heart, poor and meek—is well in the end. Every circumstance, fortunate or unfortunate, ...

Too often those characteristics [of the Beatitudes] … are turned into ideals we must strive to attain. As ideals, they can become formulas for power rather than descriptions of the kind of people char...

Heavenly father, we confess to you that we do not always think or act as the children which you made us to be. You tell us to honour our fathers and mothers, not to murder, commit adultery, steal or c...