Blessed Are Those...

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I've started on Matthew 5 in my Matthew Henry commentary this week. Although I did accidentally spill tea on the sermon on the mount last Sunday, it has recovered well enough to be read.

When I was teaching the girl's Bible class at the church I attended while at college, I did some serious research (in the research section of the library, no less) on the phrase "poor in spirit." This portion of Scripture, especially the Beatitudes, has intrigued me since and I'm glad for the chance to sort some of it out in detail at present.

I thought what Matthew Henry had to say about happiness and blessedness was very interesting. He was pointing out that those described in the Beatitudes are not only promised future blessings, but said to be happy in the present. "Blessed are..." etc. And this description is twofold, according to MH: "to show who they are that are to be accounted truly happy, and what their characteristics are and what that is wherein true happiness consists, in the promises made to persons of certain characters, the performance of which will make them happy." So he's saying Jesus tells us about these people so we know who in the world is happy and also to tell us that if we do these things, we will also be happy. Of course, we are always saying happiness is not something we live for or search for. We don't find it; it finds us. But here Christ is saying that if we do these things, it will find us. I think that's very interesting. MH points out that men are often pursuing happiness, or blessedness, or at least they pretend to pursue it. However, they "mistake the end," forming a wrong idea of what happiness is, and therefore "no wonder that they miss the way; they choose their own delusions, and court a shadow." He says "the beginning of a Christian's practice must be to take his measures of happiness from those maxims, and to direct his pursuits accordingly." Therefore, I think we are supposed to actually seek out the lives described in these verses and in doing so, will find ourselves blessed. We have to get rid of our notions of "Happy are the rich," "Happy are the married," "Happy are those who get what they want," "Happy are those whose lives are going as they planned them to," "Happy are the healthy," - all of this is worldly and not according to Scripture. Some of these people may be happy, but it is because of how they are embodying the true Christian life as illustrated here, and not because of the situations we assume are bringing them blessedness.