The Poor In Spirit

   The beatitudes all go together. They do not describe different kinds of people who are blessed; rather, they present the different aspects of the one character that is blessed. The give the complete portrait of the individual who will be blessed by God. The qualities listed in the beatitudes (Matt. 5.3–12) are to be combined in each individual. All of them were present in Jesus; He lived what He preached; He was what He asked others to be. The beatitudes describe abstractly what He incarnated in reality.

What is meant by the phrase poor in spirit? In answer, let’s look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was a poor beggar who had been laid at the rich man’s gate. The word translated poor in Matthew 5.3 is the same word translated beggar in Luke 16.20. The poor/beggar is one absolutely destitute of wealth, position, influence, or honor. The poor/beggar is absolutely helpless, powerless to supply his own needs; he must rely upon the generosity of another. The poverty Christ describes is not monetary but spiritual. To be poor in spirit is to be humble. In the whole of the Roman language there was not a word for humility; thus, a word—poor—had to be borrowed from the economic vocabulary.

Poverty, in itself, is no blessing; it only becomes a blessing when it is in our spirit. And poverty in spirit is not to be equated with poverty of spirit, in which a man is a poor-spirited, cowardly weakling. To be poor in spirit is to have NO confidence in one’s moral excellence, but to put all confidence in God. One of the best statements about poverty in spirit came from Mary, the mother of Jesus: “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly” (Luke 1.51–52). Nothing proved the truth of this better than the fact that the pride, arrogance, and evil of Herod’s dynasty was soon overthrown, and Mary’s son was given all authority in heaven and earth. A Pharisee and a publican went up to the Temple to pray. It wasn’t the proud, self-sufficient Pharisee who received God’s blessing that day, but the publican who had not one good thing to say about Himself.

If you think hard work, self-centeredness, prayerlessness, and setting your heart on wealth and fame is the way to blessing, you’re wrong. The kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit, and to them alone.

Kenny Chumbley