6/29/2023 0 Comments Inspirit scholars![]() Maybe that’s because, in this country, we have the bottom layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pretty well taken care of. The tragedy is that I see many Christians who have access to that power, but have only a dim awareness of what’s wrong with where they are. The poor in spirit are desperate because they know that they are powerless. Beyond seeing what’s wrong with where you are, you have to see your total inability to get where you need to be. The problem is that such unbelievers lack the second element in being poor in spirit. But ideas can only get you to the doorstep. ![]() You can watch such folks reason themselves to the very doorstep of the Kingdom of God. Non-Christian thinkers–philosophers, religious leaders, think-tank types–often have profound insights into what’s wrong with where we are. But sometimes it comes from a more general grasp of the brokenness of the world. This is usually an immediate, “on the ground” awareness. Looking at it from the outside, though, we can identify two essential components to being “poor in spirit.” The first is an awareness that things are bad. Understandably, people who are overwhelmed and desperate are not in a very analytical frame of mind. Think of some time in your life when it was “just too much.” Whether it was your kids or your job or your health or your relationship or it was 2020 and everything was crashing down. ![]() Being “poor in spirit” is a rather visceral, emotional experience. Rather, Luke’s “poor” are, in fact, a sub-category of Matthew’s “poor in spirit.” They are poor in spirit as a result of being straight-up poor. This means that Matthew is not “spiritualizing” Luke. Of course, literal, physical poverty is one thing that could lead a person to be overwhelmed and desperate. This gives us a good working description: To be “poor in spirit” is to be overwhelmed and desperate. Perhaps we could also add “overwhelmed” (the NASB translation for “grows faint”). That word “desperate” seems to capture it well. Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need.” “When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. All of these authors express trouble in their “spirit.” We see the common emotional core in Ps. 6), or realizing the depth of the damage their sin has done between them and God (Ps. 142, 143), dealing with physical illness (possibly Ps. Their circumstances include facing people who explicitly mean them harm (Ps. The exact phrase “poor of spirit” is never used in the Psalms, but several authors sure fit the description. So a person who is “poor in spirit” would be someone who lacks the inner resources to cope with the circumstances they are facing. Now, the core meaning of “poor” is to lack resources. For instance, “I remembered you God, and I groaned, I meditated, and my spirit grew faint” (Ps. In the Psalms, particularly, a person’s “spirit” is a way of referring to their inner life in general. To understand his language, instead of looking forward to the later New Testament, we need to look backward to the language of the Old Testament. Remember that Matthew is steeped in a Hebrew way of thinking. 6:20), Jesus is going to insist that we not be poor in the things of heaven! But we saw in a previous article that when Matthew wants to talk about the spiritual realm, he talks about the things that are “of heaven.” In this very sermon (Mt. 5:18)! A few times, Paul seems to use “spirit” to point to the spiritual realm in general (1 Cor. He wants us to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. In this sense, Paul certainly doesn’t want us to be poor in the spirit. Paul, for instance, usually uses “spirit” to talk about things that pertain to the Holy Spirit (as in gifts “of the spirit” ). That may be what we mean by “spiritualizing” something, but it’s not how any New Testament author uses the word “spirit.” It looks like Luke has the original, basic formulation–“blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20)–which Matthew takes and “spiritualizes.” But what does “spiritualizing” something even mean? Presumably, it means that Matthew took a concrete state (being poor) and, by adding “of spirit,” turned it into some kind of pious, other-worldly virtue. The waters get muddied on the “poor in spirit” because Matthew usually annoys or embarrasses scholars on this one. 5:3), and why do they get the umbrella reward of “the Kingdom”? What’s so special about the “poor in spirit”? Why does Jesus mention them first in the Beatitudes (Matt. Here’s the complete list of articles in the series: *Editor’s Note: This is the fifth article in a 13-part series on the Beatitudes.
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