The First Beatitude, Explained (or at least expanded)

[izhilzha]

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Blessed are the mentally ill, the depressed, the burnt-out, the overwhelmed, the weary, the lonely, the doubting, the empty-hearted.

Blessed are those who are so poor (in Greek, ptôchos, utterly without resources) that all they can do is hide from the world

Comments

[scionofgrace]

Beautiful, and absolutely true. Trying to learn that one myself right now. Thank you.

[izhilzha]

I'm glad you find it so. Hold onto this.

[kerravonsen]

I like that so much better than the standard Presbyterian interpretation, which is that "poor in spirit" == sin, sin, sin, Total Depravity etc. When my minister was doing a series of sermons on the beatitudes, I was going "Whut?" when he was preaching on that one. One of the ocassions when he was looking at the text through Doctrine Coloured Glasses. Fortunately he doesn't do that all the time.

[izhilzha]

I was actually going to write an essay, and looked up about 10 different glosses on this scripture from different doctrinal and denominational traditions. A couple of them sounded like your pastor's version, but I couldn't reconcile that with some of the other beatitudes, how Jesus is turning our ideas of what is blessed upside down (it's not the happy, the rich, those who have things to give), and how I've experienced this in my own life.

So I wrote this instead. :) I'm glad that it spoke life to you.

[kerravonsen]

but I couldn't reconcile that with some of the other beatitudes, how Jesus is turning our ideas of what is blessed upside down

Exactly!