What Are the Beatitudes Really All About?

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Have you ever wondered what the Beatitudes of Jesus are really all about?

Matthew and Luke provide different lists of these beatitudes, with Matthew sharing nine and Luke only listing four. Many scholars believe these lists are derived from an unknown Christian source called “Q.” Because Matthew’s list is more extensive and the most cited of the two, we will focus on it.

Taking a step back, it’s essential to see Matthew 5:1-12 within the surrounding context. According to Scot McKnight, “Matthew 4:23–9:35 is a sketch of the mission and ministry of Jesus: he teaches and preaches in Matthew 5–7 and he heals in Matthew 8–9. The Sermon on the Mount, then, is a comprehensive sketch of the teaching and preaching message of Jesus. In the context of Matthew’s narrative, the Sermon is a presentation of Jesus’ moral vision, his ethic.”[1] “The Beatitudes are a radical manifesto of a kingdom way of life because Jesus reveals who is in and who is not.”^[2]

According to American Scholar Jaroslav Pelikan, “The Sermon on the Mount remains the greatest moral document of all time.”[3] N.T. Wright says, “The Sermon … isn’t just about how to behave. It’s about discovering the living God in the loving, and dying, Jesus, and learning to reflect that love ourselves into the world that needs it so badly.”^[4] And Saint Augustine said this sermon was the “perfect standard of the Christian life.”[5]

In Matthew 5:3-10, we see Jesus bless the poor in spirit, the mourners, the humble, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted. It’s not as though Jesus is saying, “This is what you need to do to earn God’s blessing.” Rather, Jesus is presenting an utterly countercultural view of reality. He’s saying the ordinary characteristics that would typically be despised by many of that day were just the kinds of people God was looking to bless. As McKnight says,

Clearly, Jesus goes against the grain. Instead of blessing the one who pursues wisdom and reason and develops a reputation as a sage, and instead of blessing the one who has a good family, who observes the whole Torah, or the one who has all the right friends and develops a reputation as righteous or as a leader, Jesus blesses those whom no one else blessed. The genius of the Beatitudes emerges from this contrastive stance: they are a countercultural revelation of the people of the kingdom.[6]

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | Lord, I praise you for the radical way you have revealed your kingdom's countercultural nature. I worship you for being someone who doesn’t just love the rich and powerful. You love those who are poor and oppressed.

Release | I release my desire for worldly recognition and status, understanding that your blessings are for those who embody humility, mercy, and purity. Help me let go of societal norms that value power and prestige and embrace the qualities you cherish. I surrender my need for approval from others and seek only your approval.

Ask | Lord, I ask for the strength to live out the Beatitudes in my daily life, reflecting your love and grace to the world. Give me the courage to be a peacemaker, the compassion to be merciful, and the integrity to be pure in heart.

Yield | I yield to your will and your ways, trusting that your blessings come through the paths less traveled. I accept that true happiness and fulfillment come from aligning with your kingdom vision, not from the world's standards. Guide me to live in a way that honors you and embodies the teachings of Jesus.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

To be poor in spirit is to live under the weight of poverty or injustice yet still trust in God’s redemptive plan. To mourn is to recognize that life is not what it should be and long for the day when God will make all things new. In Jesus’ day, people mourned in the spirit of Isaiah 61 that they were not free people, with the hope that God would one day bring justice to this world.

To be meek is not to be a doormat. Instead, it is to be so confident in the person of Jesus that one can seek the glory of God and the good of others, even when this comes at a tremendous cost to oneself. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to replace our inherited sinful longing for vengeance with God’s view of justice.

To be merciful is to live with open awareness of God's great mercy and eagerness to extend this same mercy to others. To be pure in heart means even the deepest motivations of our heart come not from a place of ego but from a position aligned with God’s heart for this world. To be a peacemaker does not suggest passivity. Rather, it implies someone who is actively making peace instead of conflict. To be persecuted because of righteousness is to live in uncompromising alignment with God's heart, regardless of the physical costs.

Thus, to be a blessed person, as McKnight says, is to be a person “who, because of a heart for God, is promised and enjoys God’s favor regardless of that person’s status or countercultural condition.”^[7] To the proud, these beatitudes feel like a convicting indictment. But to the humble, they are tremendous words of hope.

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[1] Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary Book 21) (Zondervan Academic), 20.

[2] Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary Book 21) (Zondervan Academic), 30.

[3] J. Pelikan, Divine Rhetoric: The Sermon on the Mount as Message and as Model in Augustine, Chrysostom, and Luther (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000).

[4] N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone (2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 1:53.

[5] Augustine, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (NPNF; ed. P. Schaff; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 3 (1.1).

[6] Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary Book 21) (Zondervan Academic), 35-36.

[7] Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary Book 21) (Zondervan Academic), 36.