The Daily Word

Jesus had only just commenced His ministry when He taught His Disciples and other followers the Beatitudes. He had already demonstrated His love and power in many miracles and no doubt, this had attracted people to follow Him. His ministry and teaching was a world away from the teaching given by the Pharisees and the Beatitudes would have come as a total culture shock to His listeners.

To be ‘poor in spirit’ would have been the very opposite of what the Pharisees taught. With some justification they were proud of their religion, but they took that to excess. There was plenty of ‘mourning’ at the time Jesus was on earth as they were a conquered people under direct and often harsh rule of the Romans. But the next Beatitude would have floored them entirely, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. Under the yoke of Roman rule, they could see no way of winning back their own country, never mind the world! And much like today, might is right and meekness is still equated with weakness.

But it does not make any logical sense to equate a state of mind and heart, such as meekness with a physical conquest. And Jesus certainly did not have such a comparison in mind when He spoke about meekness. When He went to the cross, in the hours before at His arrest and trial, He demonstrated true meekness, but in that respect He showed massive mental and spiritual strength.

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we need to look again at Philippians 2 to see what true meekness entails and looking at things such as world conditions and mankind in general, should make us glad to follow the meekness of Our Saviour. When our view of eternal things colours our view of the world, then we can say that the world means less to us and in that way we have conquered it and one day, when Jesus returns in triumph to rule over this world, we shall be a part of His followers and have some part in that ruling process. But it is not by might but by His Spirit.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church