Let’s Study the Beatitudes! Part 2: The Poor
Being poor in spirit is being someone who knows that you have nothing, spiritually, to offer and therefore you stand completely dependent upon God—upon his grace, his mercy, his provision, and effort. Being poor in spirit is accepting that you are spiritually needy.
There’s a bright thread of connection between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the way the sermon on the mount begins. The tree stood as a perpetual sign for Adam and Eve to rely upon and walk submitted under God’s word. God declared all that was good or not good and they, as His creatures and image bearers were to trust Him. Of course, that didn’t pan out and we’ve all, since Adam, placed more weight on our own perspectives and words than we have in God and His word. Utterly foolish. William Henley’s Invictus declares that we’ve become the “captain of our own fate”, when in reality we’ve become conquered (victa) by own fallen self-reliance. Utterly foolish because the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God and a true fear of God is essentially a radical reliance upon Him.
Our world today, like Cain and Lamech before us, is intoxicated in self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We pronounce blessings upon the rich and able, the well-to-do and confident, for theirs is the power of influence and the world’s applause. But Jesus, picking up a rather well-defined Biblical theme, starts off his famous sermon with a still more ancient promise – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The idea of being poor, that is, materially destitute, is not a foreign concept. We understand poverty. And poor people are, more often than not, quite dependent upon others for any well-being. A beggar begs because he needs help from someone who has more than him. John Stott recognizes that within the Scriptures “gradually, because the needy had no refuge but God, poverty came to have spiritual overtones and to be identified with humble dependence on God.”[1] Hence Psalm 34:5-6, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.”[2]
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5 Things You Should Know about Creeds
Most Christians have heard of things like the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed, but many Christians also have a number of misconceptions about creeds. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the nature, history, and purpose of creeds. Here are five things you should know about creeds.
1. The word “creed” comes from the Latin word credo, which simply means “I believe.”
The plural form is credimus, which means “we believe.” In short, when we recite a creed, we are simply making a statement concerning what we believe. What this means is that if you believe anything, you have a creed. What if you say, “I believe in no creed but Christ”? Well, then, that’s your creed. It’s a short creed, but it is a creed. When we understand that creeds are human statements of faith, it also helps us better understand the relationship between Scripture and creeds. Holy Scripture is inspired. The Greek word in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” Scripture is the inspired Word of God. Creeds are non-inspired words of men. In the Scriptures, we hear God saying, “Thus saith the Lord . . .” In the creeds, we respond, “We believe you . . .”
2. The Bible itself uses creed-like summaries.
Probably the most well-known example of this is the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4, which begins “Hear, O Israel: The lord our God, the lord is one.” This short creed-like statement is expanded upon by Paul in 1 Corinthians 8:6 to take account of the further revelation concerning Jesus Christ. Other creed-like statements in the New Testament are found in Romans 10:9–10 (“Jesus is Lord”) and 1 Corinthians 15:3–4.
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A Kiss Goodbye
We are to hold true and hold truth. We do so not alone but with brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we share a common faith and hold a common creed. Peter names names as he wraps up. He speaks of Silvanus, whom he identifies as a spiritual brother, and Mark, whom he calls a spiritual son. We can also name names of those we walk alongside in the trenches of life and ministry.
Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. (1 Peter 5:14, NKJV)
Peter has just reminded us that we are aliens and pilgrims in this world that is not our home. In our sojourning through it we face an adversary. We are called to resist him, standing firm in the faith, confident of the hope that is ours in Christ.
Now in his concluding words, Peter again urges us to stand. In verse nine the apostle bid us to stand against and here in verse twelve beckons us to stand firm. He points us to the true grace of God bound up in the apostolic word. We must stay rooted in that word, staying put against the enticements of the evil one.
Standing firm involves standing against while we find ourselves in Babylon (5:13), a reference to the fallen kingdom of this world.
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The Ravages of Cultural Termites
When the house crumbles to dust because of the action of the termites, it is not because they desired such a denouement: it was, rather, a natural consequence of their conduct. The destruction wrought by the adherents of Woke ideology is a good deal more deliberate.
In his great book titled Russia in 1839, the Marquis de Custine called the Tsar “eagle and insect.” He was eagle because he soared high above the country over which he ruled, completely alone, taking it all in at a glance, but he was insect because there was nothing too small or trivial for him to interfere with: he or his power burrowed into the very fabric of society as a termite burrows into the fabric of a wooden house. There was no escaping him.
This is the image I have in my mind of the operation of the adherents of Woke ideology. They have a grand vision, at least implicitly, both about the nature of the society in which they live and what should replace it. Insufficient, incoherent, or absurd as their vision might be, it actuates them. As human history demonstrates, intellectual insufficiency is no bar to effectiveness in the search for power; indeed it might be an advantage insofar as more scrupulous searchers after truth and goodness are riven by doubt.
On the other hand, nothing is too small for their attention. Being visionaries, they can infuse their slightest actions with the most grandiose theoretical significance. This gives them self-importance and confidence that they are doing what once might have been called God’s work. Triviality is thus reconciled with transcendence. They are part of the movement of History with a capital H, whose right side they both define and bring forward by their actions.
Of course, the metaphor of eagle and insect is not perfect. The eagle is sharp-eyed while the adherent of Woke ideology has cataracts. When the house crumbles to dust because of the action of the termites, it is not because they desired such a denouement: it was, rather, a natural consequence of their conduct. The destruction wrought by the adherents of Woke ideology is a good deal more deliberate.
The notion of those adherents as cultural termites came to my mind (not for the first time) when I bought a book recently. It was Conspiracy on Cato Street by Vic Gatrell.
Professor Gatrell is a good, perhaps even a great, historian. His writing is magisterial and as pleasurable to read as any novel. The Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820, in which a group of impoverished working-class men planned to kill almost the entire British cabinet and thereby start a revolution, was of interest to me in part because it may have had an important indirect effect on medical history.
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