Between the Church and the Synagogue: The Jewish Sermon

By J.J. Mireles

For much of my life, I had difficulty understanding what Jesus meant when He delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Through my blog, I decided to embark on a detailed study of this essential sermon. The goal was to better understand the subtlety behind His words so that I could better apply these principles in my life. This is a chronicle of the things I learned, and the insights into the sermon in ways that I found unexpected as my study took me deeper into the Jewish roots of Jesus' teachings. From there, it was not long before I found myself at the foot of the Cross, submitting to the Jewish Messiah, and beginning a much richer journey. Allow me to share this journey, and its insights, with you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. Mireles
• Release date: Oct 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223102427

J.J. Mireles

A native Texan turned Midwesterner, a healthcare worker, Soldier, husband, father, and constant sojourner.

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Chapter One: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)

This section of the Sermon on the Mount opens with the Beatitudes, which is a list of blessings Jesus pronounces for certain characteristics of believers. In this list, Jesus describes, with no elaboration, the character traits and states of affairs that would bring people to the Kingdom of God and righteousness. Each blessing begins with Blessed are, which is Μακάριοι ( Makarioi ) in Greek.

The word translates as happy, blessed, to be envied, and highlights how desirable these traits are. Given that the Sermon was probably delivered in Aramaic, before eventually being translated into Greek, there is the Hebrew/Aramaic perspective to be considered as well. The word that can be used here is בָרַךְ (Baruch), which means Blessed, and is used in a form of Jewish prayer known as a בְּרָכָה (b’racha), or a blessing.

In fact, the Hebrew name for the Beatitudes is B’rachot, or The Blessings. This is a form of prayer that would have been well known in Jesus’ day, and it would have surprised the people present to hear Him give these b’rachot, because this was a type of prayer typically used for blessing the Lord, not humans. While Jesus offers little by way of elaboration, suggesting that the concepts He is expressing would have been familiar to His audience, the fact is that these pronouncements correspond very solidly with Old Covenant principles.

When one does a cross-reference study of the Beatitudes what they will find is far more depth of meaning than most ever stop to consider. Most certainly, further study of these principles goes a long way toward shedding light on the insufficiency of modern surface-level teachings. With clarity comes understanding, and the deeper you go into this material, the greater your understanding will be. To that end, we will now go beyond the surface level to the deeper meanings brought on by the original languages, as well as the cross-reference in both Testaments.

One thing that one must bear in mind is that the Sermon on the Mount was not likely to have been delivered once. It was likely delivered over the course of multiple days, if not a full week, and possibly in more than one location. Why? The sheer volume of materials contained within the sermon would have been enough to blow the minds of many of the listeners. They would have needed time to digest what they were being given, and information passed down through the oral history requires repetition to ensure memorization.

We need to bear in mind that delivering an oral lesson, complete with the kind of repetition required, would take up far more of a day than would be taken up just by reading Matthew 5-7, given that there would have been many questions asked by the audience during the lesson.

As you will see with the section relating to the Sermon itself, there is a far deeper, richer, and more encompassing context to be drawn out. If I were to break it down, I would guess that each subject touched on in the sermon could have been a sermon in and of itself, and this is how I would want to approach it if I were you.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ~Matthew 5:3

Related Scripture: Isaiah 53, 64; Psalm 51

When Jesus opened the Sermon on the Mount, He began with the statement that the poor in spirit would inherit the Kingdom. It goes without saying that this is something that is highly desirable, but the question that we need to ask is, What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

The word used for poor in this verse is Πτωχοὶ (ptōchoi). This word is generally translated as poor, destitute, spiritually poor, either in a good sense (humble devout persons) or bad. (Strong’s Greek 4434) This is what makes the question so important. The word itself, especially in this context, seems to serve as a reminder that we should be humble, and that we should avoid being prideful.

For example, in his work Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Augustine of Hippo says that humility is the foundation of all other virtues; hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance. He also said, The poor in spirit are rightly understood here as meaning the humble and God-fearing, that is, those who have not the spirit which puffs up. Essentially, being poor in spirit is the point from which all other virtues flow.

We cannot be blessed in the manner expressed in the Beatitudes without first being poor in spirit. C.S. Lewis says that A proud man is always looking down on things and people, and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.[1]

Pride does not lend itself naturally to humility, and vice versa. If being poor in spirit requires us to be humble, then pride is something that we must profoundly lack. This brings us to an important point about the Greek wording used in this section.

There are two Greek words for poor. Ptōchoi is one, but the other is πένης (penés). What this word refers to is a working man, someone who lives an austere life, working for a living. He is someone who lacks nothing, and who works for all that he has. Someone who is penés is independent, skilled, and self-reliant. They do not really need help from anyone, which is why ptōchoi was the word used. To be ptōchoi meant to be completely without resources, totally destitute, and to have nothing of one’s own.

When you couple this with the Hebrew/Aramaic understanding of the word poor, which is the idea of someone who has nothing beyond a trust in God, what you get is a much clearer picture. To quote William Barclay, who provides a rather effective alternate translation of Matthew 5:3,

O the bliss of the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God, for thus alone he can render to God that perfect obedience which will make him a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven! [Barclay, "The Gospel of Matthew, vol. I] (Note: Bear in mind that this is a conceptual translation, and is not meant to replace what is found in the King James or any other version)

We need to remember that there is no hope for us without Jesus and that we have nothing apart from Him. No one owes us anything, and we are not due anything except for the deepest, darkest fires of hell. Not a one of us has anything not granted to us by God. This is evidenced by the fact that we will take none of our stuff into the afterlife with us, and that life will continue long after we have finally breathed our last. It is all transient. He makes it imperative for us to know that we are wretched sinners, condemned from the word go, and that any righteousness we have is His and His alone.

The poor man described by Barclay is a prime example of someone so destitute that anything they may possess clearly comes from someone else, and that someone else is God. As Isaiah 64:6 says,

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

The same is stated in Isaiah 53:6,

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The difference between the two verses is that 53:6 suggests the magnitude of our situation. The Lord laid our iniquities on the Messiah, even though we are criminals, and He did so out of love for those of us who would willingly follow Him. This is what mercy and grace are, the undeserved pardon for crimes committed before God, and we can never lose sight of what has been done for us. Apart from Him, we have nothing, we are nothing, and this is what is meant by poor in spirit. We cannot stress enough the fact that He does not have to do this for us. God is 100% self-sufficient. He needs nothing from us, nor from any other part of His creation. He could simply wipe the slate clean, create a new universe, and start over. Yet, He chooses to provide us with the One Way to Him.

There is not one thing He owes us, not one thing He needs from us, and not one thing we can command from Him. To think otherwise would be the height of arrogance and foolishness, and most humans are indeed arrogant fools. He commands us to be poor in spirit, so that we may not become confused about who is saving whom here.

In Psalm 51:17 we can find a much clearer picture of what it means to be poor in spirit. It says,

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

This is what it means to be poor in spirit, to be humble, to know that every single drop of innocent blood spilt on that Cross was done for us, not because of anything we said or did, but despite the things that we have said and done!

My wife once told me something very profound. If we were to receive what we truly deserve, we would all be burning in hell, forever separated from the Lord God, without one bit of hope. Unless we come to a place where we can be broken over our transgressions against God, we will not be able to be poor in spirit.

This also means that being poor in spirit requires us to be ready, willing, and able to be where God wants us to be, even if it removes us from everything we know, love, and find comfort in. This means that we must not indulge in vanity, pride, or reckless ambition, and we must be willing to lay down our own lives in service to our Lord because He has done the same for us. To quote Watchman Nee,

I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher. I consecrate myself to God to do His will where I am, be it in school, office, or kitchen, or wherever He may in His wisdom send me.

One thing we must do when determining how to do this is to go back to the example set for us by Jesus Himself. He is the all-powerful Son of God, second only in authority to the Father, and the inheritor of the heavens and the earth (universe). Yet, He chose to humble Himself by coming down to this earth, clothing Himself in human flesh, and even dying a physical death, all to bring us the way to Salvation. Think about it.

The King of the universe, the God who created our universe, saw fit to come down here and walk among us. You cannot possibly be poorer in spirit than that. You cannot possibly be humbler than that. He set the standard for us and used His entire life on this earth to show us HOW to be poor in spirit, and then He went onto the Cross and became Sin for us!

To delve more into the Old Covenant context of this blessing, we must turn to Jeremiah 17:7 as an example. It says,

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is."

The words translated as trust and hope are rooted in the word בָּטַח (batach). This word can be translated as be bold confident, secure, sure, careless one, put confidence, make to hope. This verse states that the man whose trust and hope is in the Lord is to be blessed. He must be our only hope and in whom we willingly place all our trust.

In the end, we cannot allow ourselves to be prideful, vain, ambitious, or arrogant. We must be humble, we must be fully aware of the fact that anything good we have in our lives comes solely from the Lord, and that the only thing we can be is grateful for His sacrifice and contrite over the fact that we all fall short of the glory of God.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. ~Matthew 5:4

Related Scripture: Matthew 11:28-30; 2 Corinthians 7; Psalm 51:1-4; Isaiah 61:1; 2 Samuel 11:1-25

In my effort to understand this verse, I quickly realized that mourning in this sense was not what I thought it was. In fact, I was in for a shock when I delved into the meaning of this verse, because I had always been under the impression that this verse referred to mourning the loss of someone or something of value. Instead, it is a reference to mourning over the fact that you have sinned before a Holy God, as well as mourning over the wrongdoing of the world.

The original Greek word used here is πενθοῦντες (penthountes), which means to mourn, lament, and feel guilty. To do any of that, you must understand that there is a reason to do so. You must understand that what you are or were doing is offensive to the Lord, and that He is the One to whom you must make amends.

It is also correct and necessary to be mournful and heartbroken over the brokenness of the world we live in, to include things like the murder of babies in the womb, the drugs and violence that have caused so much heartache and devastation, the list goes on. To mourn over these things is correct and necessary as they all constitute an ongoing assault against the Imago Dei[2]. This is no small thing, and it is RIGHT to be deeply wounded over these things!

This may cause a bit of confusion when looking at this verse of Scripture because that is not where we first go when we think of mourning. We often mourn the loss of loved ones, including people, pets, relationships, stages of life, etc. However, this is not what Jesus meant when He uttered the words in Matthew 5:4, and we know this because of other places where Jesus spoke of sorrow and comfort. For example, Matthew 11:28-30,

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

In this verse, Jesus says that all who come to Him and lay their burdens on Him will find comfort and rest. This brings us to something Paul said regarding sorrow or mourning,

2 Corinthians 7:10,

"For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death."

Two types of sorrow or mourning are mentioned here: godly and worldly. Two reasons to mourn, and one of them is referred to as leading to death, while the other is godly. What is the distinction? With godly sorrow, we are mourning over the ways in which we have offended the Lord.

We are also mourning over the ways in which the people around us live lives in such a way as to heap offense upon Almighty God. This leads to true repentance; in that we must turn to the Lord to be relieved of this burden and to experience the change of heart one needs for true repentance.

He is the only One capable of easing that burden.