Week 24 Matthew 5
I’ve been thinking about a couple of significant differences between Matthew’s beatitudes and Luke’s.
Matthew said two kinds of people who would be blessed were:
a) people who were poor-in-spirit and
b) people who were hungry-&-thirsty-for-righteousness.
Luke said that the people who would be blessed were:
a) people who were poor and
b) people who were hungry-&-thirsty.
With Matthew the blessings hinge on what’s going on inside me – in my spirit & my mind. But with Luke it’s different. With Luke it looks like if I’m poor I’m automatically blessed. Am I malnourished? I’m blessed. Marginalized? Blessed. Underprivileged? Blessed. Below the Poverty Line? Blessed. With Luke my economic-financial state determines whether I’m blessed (not whether I’m impoverished-in-spirit or hungry-for-righteousness).
Personally I don’t think Luke – or the Lord – thought that. A bit later in his sermon Jesus says: a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. So there’s more to it than my economic circumstances.
Maybe Luke figured people could put two-and-two together. Maybe his subtext was: “you can be blessed despite being poor”. But I have serious doubts that he was saying ‘you’ll be blessed because you’re poor”.
It’s good to have Matthew in the back-of-my-mind when I’m reading Luke 6. Luke’s beatitudes – in isolation – could lead me down-a-garden-path.
Note: quote from Luke 6:45 (NIV)