A while back, as I was struggling with some relational brokenness, I turned to a good friend, someone much older and deeply seasoned in Scripture and the gospel, who suggested I spend some time in the Beatitudes. I’ve been there again recently as I’m reading N.T. Wright’s new book, After You Believe. Not sure yet what I believe about N.T.’s new book, but I like what he says about the Beatitudes:
“…the key point about ‘bless,’ ‘blessing,’ and ‘blessed’ — one source and driving energy of the ‘virtues’ — is that this includes ‘happiness,’ but it includes it as the result of something else — namely, the loving action of the Creator God. ‘Happiness’ is simply a state of being for a human, as a self-contained unit. You might, in principle, attain it on your own and develop it for your sake. ‘Blessedness,’ however, is what happens when the creator God is at work both in someone’s life and through that person’s life. Likewise, blessedness is what happens when this same God is fulfilling the promises he made to his ancient people, the promises contained in the ‘covenant’ as set out in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy. And both of those — the human blessing and the Israel blessing — are evoked by Jesus’ remarkable words in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3 -11;”
Suggestion: Read Matthew 5:3- 11. How can we develop these habits of the heart? What happens as a result? How is this NOT the same as a modernistic approach (i.e., do A and B results?)
