For my Sabbath Thought this week, I wanted to continue reviewing Christ’s instructions to His disciples found in the Beatitudes.
Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit is a most important point to consider in light of the time we are in.
It seems a surprising way to begin talking about happiness by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are two ways in which we can come at the meaning of this word poor.
As we have them the beatitudes are in Greek, and the word that is used for poor is the word ptochos. In Greek there are two words for poor. There is the word penes. Penes describes a man who has to work for his living; it is defined by the Greeks as describing the man who is autodiakonos, that is, the man who serves his own needs with his own hands. Penes describes the working man, the man who has nothing superfluous, the man who is not rich, but who is not destitute either.
But, as we have seen, it is not penes that is used in this beatitude, it is ptochos, which describes absolute and abject poverty. It is connected with the root ptossein, which means to crouch or to cower; and it describes the poverty which is beaten to its knees.
As it has been said, penes describes the man who has nothing superfluous; ptochos describes the man who has nothing at all. So, this beatitude becomes even more surprising. Blessed is the man who is abjectly and completely poverty-stricken. Blessed is the man who is absolutely destitute.
So, in Hebrew the word poor was used to describe the humble and the helpless man who put his whole trust in God. It is thus that the Psalmist uses the word, when he writes, "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles" (Ps 34:6). It is in fact true that in the Psalms the poor man, in this sense of the term, is the good man who is dear to God. "The hope of the poor shall not perish forever" (Ps 9:18). God delivers the poor (Ps 35:10). "In thy goodness, O God, thou didst provide for the needy" (Ps 68:10). "He shall defend the cause of the poor of the people" (Ps 72:4). "He raises up the needy out of affliction, and makes their families like flocks" (Ps 107:41). "I will satisfy her poor with bread" (Ps 132:15). In all these cases the poor man is the humble, helpless man who has put his trust in God.
Let us now take the two sides, the Greek and the Aramaic, and put them together.
Ptochos describes the man who is absolutely destitute, the man who has nothing at all; 'aniy and 'ebyown describe the poor, and humble, and helpless man who has put his whole trust in God. Therefore, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" means: Blessed is the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God.
If a man has realized his own utter helplessness, and has put his whole trust in God, there will enter into his life two things which are opposite sides of the same thing. He will become completely detached from things, for he will know that things have not got it in them to bring happiness or security; and he will become completely attached to God, for he will know that God alone can bring him help, and hope, and strength. The man who is poor in spirit is the man who has realized that things mean nothing, and that God means everything.
This verse is describing the Pharisaic pride in one’s own virtue with which Jesus was so often confronted and which has all too often made its appearance in later times. “This is the man to whom I will look,” the Lord says, “he that is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66;2). These are the poor in spirit.”
Christ is describing a radical reversal of the world’s values. We must be careful not to think that this beatitude calls actual material poverty a good thing. Poverty is not a good thing. Jesus would never have called blessed a state where people live in slums and have not enough to eat, and where health rots because conditions are all against it. That kind of poverty it is the aim of the Christian gospel to remove. The poverty which is blessed is the poverty of spirit, when a man realizes his own utter lack of resources to meet life, and finds his help and strength in God.
Of these lowly people Jesus says, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We should understand this in the sense of consequence rather than reward. In no sense do they merit the kingdom, but being what they are they possess it. We should understand this in the sense “theirs alone.” Those who are not poor in spirit can never have membership in the kingdom.
If we take the two petitions of the Lord's Prayer and set them together:
• Thy Kingdom come.
• Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
we get the definition: The Kingdom of God is a society where God's will is perfectly done in earth as it is in heaven. That means that only he who does God's will is a citizen of the Kingdom; and we can only do God's will when we realize our own utter helplessness, our own utter ignorance, our own utter inability to cope with life, and when we put our whole trust in God. Obedience is always founded on trust. The Kingdom of God is the possession of the poor in spirit, because the poor in spirit have realized their own utter helplessness without God, and have learned to trust and obey.
So then, the first beatitude means:
O the bliss of the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God, for thus alone he can render to God that perfect obedience which will make him a citizen of the kingdom of heaven!
(from The Daily Study Bible, by William Barclay: First Edition. Biblesoft Formatted Electronic Database Copyright © 2015 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved and The Gospel according to Matthew, by Leon Morris, Copyright 1992 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved.)
Enjoy the Sabbath!
Gary Smith
