I heard a preacher once who talked about a man who came to a missionary in a foreign country and recited the Beatitudes. (Matthew 5:3-12) The story goes that the man was illiterate and had memorized the verses by rote. And when he had finished, the preacher said that was great, but now go and DO these things he had learned. The man responded that he had learned them by doing them, practicing each one until he knew it by heart...by experience as well as words. That seems like a simple and good place to start. These are some of the best known verses in the Bible, yet some of the most profound and rich with opportunities to put into practice.
Matthew 5:3 - Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the kingdom of heaven.
When younger, I often struggled with what "poor in spirit" meant and why someone would be blessed to have that quality. After all, we talk alot about being "spiritually rich"...who would want to be spiritually poor?
(If anyone has a theological authority about what the phrase actually means, or a better translation of the original text and what it "really" means, I would be glad to hear that. Please post.)
After thinking about it a long time, I think that poor "in spirit" means living in a spirit of poverty, identifying with poverty, even if you are wealthy. Certainly there is nothing wrong with wealth. Certainly, God pours out his blessings on some individuals and has historically done so. Solomon is an especially good example of this. God never chastised him for being rich, and he never commanded us to be poor, either. Though Jesus did say it was much harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a poor one...but "be poor" has never been a command.
However, being "poor in spirit" is called blessed. We live in the richest nation in the world. If you live in America, you are among the absolute wealthiest people in the world. Only a small percentage of the world's population even lives at the standard of those at our "poverty line". To most of the world, our rich live like princes. We have SO much...and sometimes when seeing how much we have, we forget how much it really is and we take things for granted. To be "poor in spirit" means, I think, to set aside the concerns that go with richness, to set aside the comfort a complacency and the illusion that we are providing for ourselves...rather than having our needs met by God. (After all...it was He who put us in this rich country. No matter how much we worked for our goods, He richly stacked the deck in our favor by virtue of letting us be born where we were.) So... I think that this verse says that we are blessed if we remember that we may be rich in earthly things but we are poor compared to the richness of God, and all we have comes from him...and to remember that there are others who are not as fortunate as we and let our hearts be broken by that and moved to compassion.
Action Challenge for Today:
Choose one luxury of our western culture. Something you enjoy, maybe even something you need, that others do not have or cannot do. Voluntarily give that up for one week. Post that decision here, and give an update at the end of the week...were you successful in living without that excess for even one week?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I took the night to think it over, what convenience or luxury I would give up. I'm going to go with novels. (For those of you who know me, you know that I read avidly. At least a chapter or two a day. It's an important passtime for me.)
ReplyDeleteI tried to come up with something that would be something I could give up without inconveniencing others besides myself. After all, if I gave up "cooking on the stove" or "hot water" or something... well, that would affect my whole family, not just myself. And that wouldn't be fair, since they didn't sign up for this.
So...novels it is. I'll probably be in withdrawal by next Friday!
Is that what some religions do at Lent? Or what is the reason they give up luxury or convenience.
ReplyDeleteJ. Dwight Pentecost (what a good name for a Bible Scholar)says that the word translated "poor" is the same word translated "beggar" in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-22. It means to cower or to cringe. The poor in spirit, then, are the people who have no merit or righteousness of their own on which to stand before God. They can't offer God anything in themselves to earn entrance into the kingdom. The are completely dependent on God. They are not proud of their own good works or what they have earned for themselves. They are the people who have recognized that they have no righteousness and turn to God to supply their need. So I agree that those who are poor in spirit don't just seek after wealth, but are seeking the finer things of the Lord. they are dependent on God, not their own ability to have everything they want.
As far as giving something up for a week it would probably be giving up playing Freecell on the computer. Pretty silly I know, but I can't stand to win less than 10 in a row and start all over when I lose. Is that complusive or what?
Thank you for the insight on the meaning of "poor in spirit". I think that hits the nail right on the head. Knowing that you are "poor" relative to God's riches and that your salvation and membership into His kingdom is completely dependent on the work Christ did on the cross, not anything we can possibly put forward in the "good deeds" or "being a good person" category. All our riches are, truly, from God.
ReplyDelete