Read Along
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
The first command in the Sermon on the Mount isn’t pray, or give, or love your enemies. It’s “Rejoice.”
And Jesus says it to people He has just warned will be insulted, chased and lied about. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad.”
Why would anyone tell people under attack to celebrate? Jesus gives His reasons in the same breath, but they only make sense once you’ve walked through the blessings that lead up to them.
This is episode two of twelve on the Sermon on the Mount. Last time, the first four blessings named empty hands: the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek and the hungry, and God promised to fill every one. This time, Matthew five, verses seven to sixteen. The next four blessings show what God forms in people He has filled, and then what the world does to them. And Jesus ends by telling these same people what they are. Salt. Light.
The first blessing in this set is about mercy.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
The word for merciful appears only twice in the whole New Testament. Once here, and once in the letter to the Hebrews, where it describes Jesus, who became “a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.” So again, a blessing describes people who look like the One speaking it.
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