An Inheritance for the Meek, Humble, and Unimportant
Jun 23, 2024
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Join theologians Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb as they discuss the paradox of meekness in Christianity. They explore the Christian perspective on power, humility, and inheritance, contrasting societal norms with biblical teachings. Learn about the countercultural nature of Jesus' message and how meekness reflects strength and trust in God amidst a world that values boldness and assertiveness.
Meekness leads to inheriting the Earth, challenging conventional notions of success and promoting humility.
Avoid an under or over-realized eschatology, embracing the tension of living faithfully in the already-and-not-yet.
Deep dives
The Paradox of Meekness
In Matthew 5, 5, Jesus proclaims, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. This verse encapsulates a profound paradox of exalting meekness in a world often enamored with power and dominance. The meek do not trust in their own strength, but they know that they need the Lord to be their strength, their advocate, and their defender. Through this teaching, challenges Jesus conventional notions of success and invites his followers to enjoy the countercultural reality of their humility and dependence on God. Rather than asserting oneself through force or ambition, the meek are portrayed as those who trust and have hope in God's sovereignty. They know that their ultimate inheritance lies not in earthly riches or authority, but in the eternal promises of God.
Nonviolent Direct Action and Social Change
One of the most profound instances of meekness in public life, I think, with the Civil Rights Movement. We see the method of nonviolent direct action playing a very central role in that movement. After MLK's house was bombed, he restrained those who wanted to retaliate on his behalf. And he says, we must not return violence under any condition. I know this is difficult advice to follow, but this is the way of Christ. It is the way of the cross. We must somehow believe that unearned suffering is redemptive. I think that if I might come to the contemporary moment and juxtapose the method of nonviolent direct action on the one hand, and what we're seeing with the Black Lives Matter movement and the other, which in all of its various sort of manifestations, is that we have one movement that produced a lot of social change. People throwing themselves in front of the proverbial bus in their meekness that has produced a lot of social transformation. I mean, we look at the voting rights and civil rights acts and so on and so forth, the economic changes, even the local changes like the laws of Montgomery about busing and these things like that versus the fact that we have a hard time pointing to anything specific that the Black Lives Matter movement has accomplished. I think the meekness of that movement applying this Christian principle in public life, I think has produced a lot of helpful fruit.
The Humble Inheritance and Trust in God's Sovereignty
Inherit the earth sounds like you should expect this to be, come to fruition sometime in reality. Sometime before Jesus comes back, you're going to be inheriting the earth, meet people. Or you have the other, which kind of avoids it, which is like there's an under -realized eschatology. Like, well, that'll just happen sometime in the future, and it's just one or the other without some type of overlapping now, not yet. And so, yeah, I feel that one, and we've seen this one. And so, you actually have kind of an Anabaptist retreatist, whatever, and then you have the Dominion theology list take over, and I'm not answering it. I'm feeling your question. I'm just setting it up, yeah. Y 'all looked at me like, and? I'm glad you understand the question. But there's an eschatological piece to both Psalm 37 and the language of inheriting the earth. It's easy to talk about the meekness and this is what we've done every single time, like, okay, well, you mourn and you're comforted. You're poor in spirit and there is the... You're meek, you're unimportant and the unimportant don't normally inherit the earth. So I think also it's humble in relation to God. It's not just in relation to the world. You know, the networks aren't covering our church services this Sunday. It's also humble in relationship to God.
The Danger of Misusing Power in Achieving Godly Results
Throughout the whole history of the church, the most dangerous thing to the church, along with heresy, the most dangerous thing in the church has not been when the church has used worldly means to achieve worldly results, but used worldly means to achieve godly results. You think of the Crusades and, well, you can justify this, right? Because Jerusalem belongs to us. Plus, we got to rebuild the temple, a lot of people said, you know, and so let's go drive the Turks out of Jerusalem. So, you could make up this sort of thing of cleaving the skull of an infidel, crying out, Christus es dominos, Christ is Lord, as the crusaders did, can you imagine? Yeah, meekly. You can do that in the name of Christ and absolutely drag his name through the mud. You can hold slaves, quoting Bible verses about slaves in Leviticus and Onesimus, you can do these things with a veneer through scripture -twisting. These are the things that have actually done the most harm to the witness of Christ. People trying to take the kingdom by force, people trying to make Jesus king in a worldly way, even in the hope of achieving a godly result. It's actually anti -Christic. It's demonic.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth” - Matthew 5:5. Who are the meek? And what does it mean that they will “inherit” the Earth? Does this mean that it’s wrong for Christians to seek prominence? In this episode, Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb discuss the many tensions of the Christian life on display in Christ’s statement. Together, we’ll consider what it means to avoid both an under and an over-realized eschatology—what it means to live faithfully in the already-and-not-yet.
