the beatitudes on Future

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes one of the keys to understanding the beatitudes: live faithfully now, experience...

Nevertheless, it is plain from the rest of Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom of God is a present reality which we can ‘receive’, ‘inherit’ or ‘enter’ now. Similarly, we can obtain mercy and comfort now...

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

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

Gracious God, we believe our hard work should get us comfort, conveniences, and control. We rely on our abilities to create a life independent from you. Father, forgive us, because we need you more th...

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, ...

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...

In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...

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...

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.

The Bruderhof is one such Christian community with many locations around the world. Unlike most such attempts to build radical communities, the Bruderhof has not only survived, it is thriving. In 2021...

With every beatitude, the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, and their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest.

Almighty God, we trust in our own strength, abilities, and resources. We think too highly of what we have to offer this world. The truth is we cannot do anything without your strength and all we have ...

[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...

Imagine Jesus at the beginning of his ministry He calls his first disciples – the educated and advantaged? No. Some fishermen. He travels around his home region of Galilee proclaiming the good news o...

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...

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:

Becoming a child is living the Beatitudes and so finding the narrow gate into the Kingdom.

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...

Preaching Commentary Imagine Jesus at the beginning of his ministry He calls his first disciples – the educated and advantaged? No. Some fishermen. He travels around his home region of Galilee proc...

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...

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...

Blessedness… is an objective state, not a subjective feeling.

There is a great sequence [in the Beatitudes]. Experimentally no man [or woman] enters into any of these, save in the order indicated.

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 ...

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 glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at...

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

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 ...