So, last we found out that the intentions of Matthew and Luke were not the same. One focused on compassion while the other on holiness. For the time being I will focus on Matthews Gospel first.
Reminder and discussion
To remind ourselves again, Matthew started his beatitudes by speaking about the quality of being poor in spirit and those who mourn. These qualities are qualities that a lot of head strong citizens would reject straight away. After all who in their right mind would take on these weakling qualities. Let us reflect on this:
The opposite of poor in spirit is to be full of pride and that one in their own strength without the need for outside help can do very well. It is true that these sorts of people can become very rich and wealthy but that doesn’t mean that they will be ‘happy’. To get to the top of the food chain they probably walked over people, knocked them metaphorically speaking out of the way. This sort of living can have serious detriments to one’s psychological and spiritual health. As Christians we follow the teachings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. In Christ by the Holy Spirit our minds and reasons for living left this road for a road of love. Our consciences day by day get better and better until we finally meet our Lord.
From poverty of spirit, we realize that God had to become a man and to die in place of us at the cross. God the Son who is pure love had to take on human flesh and to die in our stead. Who is this Trinitarian God? He is the God that spoke, and the universe was created. The God who breathed into Adam and made him live. The God who became Adam’s friend and walked with him in the Garden.
What did God get in return?
Adam and Eve who turned their backs on this friendship and wanted to take on divine status by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We as human beings individually and corporately have also sinned. Yet God in his love for us by the Holy Spirit shows us what our sin did.
Coming to a place to see how much our actions have hurt Him and his creation in Christ he gives us a second chance and God’s Kingdom is within our reach by His gift of grace by the Holy Spirit!
We mourn because we have seen the destruction and death, we have caused in our own lives but also the destruction caused in the world. God does not come to us with a punishing road but on the contrary in Christ we have real comfort.
As come closer to God through Christ by the Holy Spirit the scales from our eyes metaphorically speaking fall from our eyes. The next step on this road is humility, gentleness and meekness as Matthew says:
5 “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Meekness in the real world can be looked down on as a quality:
“Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5. the meek] Psalm 37:11. “But the meek shall inherit the earth.” See note Matthew 5:3. Meekness is mentioned with very faint praise by the greatest of heathen moralists, Aristotle. He calls it “a mean inclining to a defect.” It is indeed essentially a Christian virtue.” From https://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/5-5.htm
God’s way of seeing this quality is quite different:
3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) Numbers 12:3
This is an absolutely amazing statement but in the context of humility this is what God said about Moses!
“4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, “You three come out to the tent of meeting.” So, the three of them came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, 6 He said,
“Hear now My words:
If there is a prophet among you,
I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream.
7 “Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household;
8 With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the LORD.
Why then were you not afraid
To speak against My servant, against Moses?”
9 So the anger of the LORD burned against them, and He departed. 10 But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous… Numbers 12:4-10”
The world might see humility as a weakness, but God sees humility otherwise. We can see that our Lord took this saying from the Psalms:
“11 But the humble will inherit the land
And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. Psalms 37:11”
Let us take a definition of Meekness then:
“The quality or state of being meek: a mild, moderate, humble, or submissive quality” From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meekness
On this website someone posted the following:
“While studying scriptures I had been reading in the Bible (KJV) where meekness is a quality of a Christian. I wanted to know how this characteristic fits my person. I understand after reading this definition it aligns with the Bible as the quality of a believer in Jesus. In Ephesians 4 the writer is the apostle Paul speaking to the gentiles about the unity of the spirit of Christ: 4:1-2 I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith us are called, With all lowliness and meekness.” The unity of the spirit of Lord Jesus teaches believers to walk in this manner in the spirit of humility, meekness with patience bearing others burdens in love to one another.” From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meekness
When looking at meekness, gentleness, and humility then we see that the context is in ‘love’. If love as found in the first and second great commands is not the driving force, then it is not the type of meekness that Jesus is speaking about. Meekness has to be grounded in the love of God and our love for each other.
The world probably has counterfeit types of meekness. There might be a post for a better paying position, so they pretend to be submissive. once they get into that position perhaps, they start to boss others around with an air that they are better than everyone else.
Moses was not like that. He loved his people and on more than one occasion was willing to take God’s judgement on himself to save his people. He was a prayer warrior. He wasn’t perfect and sometimes he wasn’t very gentle and in his earlier day he murdered an Egyptian soldier our of rage for what was happening to the Israelites in captivity. In the long run however, God saw the potential in Moses and made him leader.
Reflection.
When the Holy Spirit reveals to us our sin it brings us to a place of mourning. God shows us how our wrong doings have hurt God, our neighbour, and the world that we inhabit.
Through this poverty and mourning we can only fall flat on our face before a Holy God, and we are grateful for the love by the Spirit he has poured into our lives.In the eschaton even now, (end times) we enter the kingdom of God. Now we mourn but, in the eschaton, we will laugh with joy of happiness before our Lord. We now walk in humility, but the promise is that in the eschaton we will inherit the earth.
To sum up, the believer now and in the eschaton:
- Will enter the kingdom of heaven
- Will be comforted
- Will inherit the world
Why do I speak about the end times?
The reason I speak about the end times is because in the second part of the main beatitudes the tense is ‘future’. The future is something that hasn’t happened yet but will take place.
I could also speak about ‘what Land’ they will inherit. Herman Bavinck in his Reformed Dogmatics; Volume 4; around page 719 gives us somethings to think about. However, I will save this for another blog because he goes into a lot of detail, and I have now run out of time.
So then what is your understanding of meekness?
Meekness is a quality that very few people have. From a world perspective it can be seen as a weak and low quality.
As Christians we ought to follow the example of Christ. Jesus was Meek but he certainly was not weak especially when he stood up to the leaders of the time and even turned over tables in the Temple area in Jerusalem. Meekness is a state of being that God values. When we stand before a holy God we are standing before Majesty. As Christians the driving force of meekness was not weakness but rather genuine love for God, his neighbour and dare I say it love of enemies for them too to come to know the Saviour and taste this love.
Weaver1has's Blog 
February 25, 2022 at 9:16 pm |
Thank you for reminding us that meekness is not weakness. Our Lord was certainly not a weakling. It is a difficult concep -t being meek, nad yet strong in purpose. Thank you for your words of comfort and challenge.