Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3, NIV).

One day, as the crowds that followed Jesus grew, He called His twelve disciples apart for a bit of leadership training. Jesus knew that the only way He could make sure that this growing multitude was cared for was for Him to, in essence, multiply Himself by equipping His disciples to work with Him in His ministry. Most of what we typically call “The Sermon on The Mount” was a training session that Jesus gave to a small group of His closest followers.

The verse above is recorded in Matthew 5:3, and was one of Jesus’ opening remarks. For the modern Christian, this can be a difficult verse to understand. It sounds in English almost like Jesus is encouraging people to be spiritually poverty stricken–to go through life without spiritual growth, maturity, or resources.

But Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience, and He spoke to them in Aramaic, not in English. As in every other culture on earth, the words that He used had a specific meaning within that culture. We have this same phenomenon in America and in the English language. For example, I might tell someone to Xerox a document or a picture. We all know that Xerox is actually the name of an American corporation. But I am not telling the person to contact Xerox, to locate the nearest Xerox office, or even to make a copy of the document only using a copier made by Xerox. What I am actually saying is that they should make a photocopy of something.

When the term Xerox first came into our language, it referred to a company. But over time languages evolve and take on specific meanings that the local speaker and hearer both know. To an outsider, a word or phrase might be confusing, but to an insider it makes perfect sense. Every language evolves over time like this. Thank God we have so many great resources at our disposal so that we can discover the deeper meanings of Bible passages like this one.

The people that Jesus was speaking to that day knew exactly what He was saying. Bible scholar William Barclay tells us that the word “poor” used in this passage was an Aramaic word that had gone through four stages of development. It started out simply meaning poor. It came to mean, because of being poor, lacking in influence or power. Then it began to mean that because a person lacked influence or power, they began to be downtrodden or oppressed by men of power. And finally it came to refer to a person who because they had no influence or power, and had no resources of their own to resist the oppressor, they put their entire trust in God alone.

It is also important to remember that the Beatitudes are written not as suggestions, but as declarations of absolute truth. In Matthew 5:3 Jesus is declaring that for the person who has come to grips with the fact that in their own natural selves they have no power or resources to overcome in the spiritual arena, and so have put their entire trust in God, the whole Kingdom of Heaven is at their disposal – WOW! What a great truth! This person who was bankrupt of power, ability, and options, now has the whole force of God’s Kingdom backing them.

This applies to every one of us doesn’t it? None of us have the power within our flesh to overcome even garden-variety sin, let alone deal with the sin nature that we inherited from Poppa Adam. But when we trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, the sin nature is removed, we become new creatures in Him, we are delivered from the control of sin, and we begin a process of growth that brings victory and liberty where sin is concerned.

And, it doesn’t stop there. In fact victory over sin is just the beginning. In Christ we enjoy real friendship with God, the Bible says that we have the mind of Christ and hold His thoughts and purposes in our hearts. In Christ there is peace that overcomes all kinds of fear. In Christ we have healing, joy, prosperity spirit, soul, and body, satisfaction in our work, purpose, hope, strength, and new life. We could go on and on compiling the list of things with which we who were once so impoverished are now equipped.

If we take the time to meditate on a verse like Matthew 5:3 until it becomes a personal revelation to us, we will never again approach any aspect of life from the viewpoint of being ill-equipped, without power or influence, or as people who are under the thumb of the oppressor. Instead we can begin to live each day with a view toward possibilities, instead of impossibilities.

Powerful, life-changing, and all yours when you simply stop depending on your own ability, or the resources that man can provide for you, and begin depending on Christ alone.