Two Parts of the Beatitudes People Often Miss

Many folks, including non-believers and especially secular humanists, love to quote Matthew 5:3 this way:

“Blessed are the poor.”

In this edited version, the verse is co-opted to justify and call for any number of financial and material donations and entitlements.

However, although the Bible is very clear about how to meet people’s material needs, this is not the verse.

Because this verse doesn’t even say what many have professed it to say. Here’s what the verse actually says:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Poor here is referring to poor in spirit.

The reason the second half of this verse is normally cut off is because most people are quoting other humans when using this verse, having never actually read it in context for themselves in Scripture, and often without the attendant enlightenment of the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

(ditto for Matthew 5:6, which doesn’t say “blessed are the hungry,” but “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”).

This turning of the Beatitudes into a sanctimonious or sentimental secular platitude results in an off-kilter attempt at “doing good” without the actual good of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to heal the problems that instigated, and now perpetuate, the poverty in the first place.

And as long as this warped interpretation continues, the world will be spinning its wheels, with all attempts at alleviating societal ills short-sighted and temporary, because they don’t answer the deep need of the spirit.

The second part of the Beatitudes that those who use it as their trump card seem to miss, is this:

“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” (Matthew 5:11).

Those who love to quote "blessed are the poor" but who, at the same time, despise, misunderstand, mock and misappropriate the belief and motives of Christians not only misapply Matthew 5:3, they miss Matthew 5:11 entirely. They don't even realize that they are the ones doing the insulting, persecuting and lying about Christians, and thus, Jesus Himself, when they accuse belief in Jesus as being hateful, judgmental, dogmatic and useless. 

Why do I point this out?

Because it is so easy for those on the outside of faith to call Christians hypocrites simply because we put as much weight on feeding everyone, not just those in poverty, the truth of Jesus Christ as we do a hot turkey dinner.

Christians understand that poverty is equally applied to the poverty of one’s soul (which affects everyone at one time or another) as it is to the poverty of one’s stomach.

Because we, as Christians, understand and love the whole person, made in the image of God, we obey God’s call to thus minister to the whole person: mind, body, soul and spirit.

That is the fulfillment of the Beatitudes.

And since Jesus, God incarnate, is the source of all blessing (Genesis and Ephesians to start, Revelation 4:11), and the Beatitudes begin with “Blessed are you” then Jesus, being the source of the Beatitudes, is also the fulfillment of them.

copyright Barb Harwood

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10