The Beatitudes: Meaning and Explanation
Look at the crowd Jesus is actually speaking to on that hillside above the Sea of Galilee: fishermen with rope-scarred hands, people living under Roman occupation, women who had buried children young. Matthew wants you to notice that Jesus does not open his most famous sermon with instructions. He opens it with a list of people the world had already written off, and he calls them blessed. Read Matthew 5:3-12 slowly on its own before you read anything I say about it here, these words carry more weight than the greeting-card version most of us grew up with. Quick answer The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) open the Sermon on the Mount with eight statements naming who is truly blessed in God's kingdom, not the powerful or comfortable, but the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those hungry for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. Jesus is not assigning eight tasks so God will bless you. He is describing what kingdom life actually looks ...