Learning is truly mastered when we are able to explain what we have learned to others. I love trying to tell others why I have become excited about studying a passage of Scripture. This morning is no exception. All I could get through in the Sermon on the Mount today was one verse! Here's how I rendered it:
"How God blesses those who are destitute in spirit, because the kingdom of Heaven belongs to them!"
That done, I feasted at the table of Scripture for an hour. In the process, I was forced to think through at least 3 issues:
1. How to translate "Blessed." Notice I didn't use either "happy" or "fortunate." Writes Stott: "Happiness is a subjective state, whereas Jesus is making an objective judgment about these people." In other words, Jesus is describing, not a subjective feeling, but an objective reality -- that God is blessing them. In Hebrew, we find the very same construction in Psalm 1:1: "Blessed is the man." Here the Hebrew word for "blessed" is plural, which seems to denote fullness and variety. Hence my rendering, "How God blesses ...."
2. Greek has a word for "poor" and another word for "destitute." When I was in college, I was poor but hardly destitute! The latter word is used here. Hence, "How God blesses those who are destitute in spirit."
3. Finally, you might have noticed that I capitalized the word "Heaven." That's because the word seems to be a way of saying the divine name ("God") without actually using that word. Hence, "kingdom of Heaven."
The remainder of my time was letting the truth of this verse begin to seep into my soul. What Jesus is teaching us here is both powerful and timeless. The results of a prideful spirit are absolutely disastrous. A spirit of humility before God is indispensable for life and ministry. There is no substitute!
More coming up!