The Beatitudes (Matthew 5) are often taken as generalizations that apply to everyone. Consequently, there are some interesting and questionable applications.
Yesterday on the radio show, Greg talked about the reasons he thinks that Jesus was referring to His followers. The people who are "blessed" are His disciples. The audience He's addressing is a large group of those who have been following Him. And the last Beatitude, the specific announcement of blessing, is about those who receive persecution for His sake. And is immediately followed by statements that seem like an expansion on that idea with no textual indication of a break in his theme or audience.
Only Jesus' followers would be persecuted on His account, and the encouragement about salt and light seem to be a exhortation to continue being His witnesses despite the persecution and difficulty. We often treat this passage as though there's a break between verses 12 and 13, as though there's a change of thought or theme, but there's no textual reason to do so. It's just that our Bibles are usually organization with the list of blessings stacked together and then a subtitle before verse 13. Read them altogether and see if it doesn't seem to make sense.
If this entire text is addressed to Jesus' followers, then that means that these are not general encouragements and can't be applied to those apart from Jesus. These are specific blessings for His own.
And listen to Greg's comments on this in the second hour commentary.
Greg is a great apologist and STR's materials are fantastic when it comes to equipping Christians to defend their worldview in the public square, so its with servitude that I make this harsh suggestion...
While on the radio, Greg should stick with apologetics and keep his scriptural commentary to a minimum as it comes off as unprepared.
This particular commentary is a classic case in point. Greg is right to identify the disciples as the audience of the beatitudes, but then it goes downhill fast. Greg's interpretation of Matt. 5 as a sort of 'Romans Road' stretches credulity. I can't imagine that any scholar would share Greg's opinion here, but I could be wrong. That being said, it's not for me to check Greg's scriptural comments against the backdrop of learned opinion--that should be Greg's job (as a responsible Christian) before he goes on the radio.
This bad interpretation of Matthew 5 could be the reason behind Greg's misstep a couple weeks ago in his “misquoting” angels commentary where Greg says, “...peace on earth is not a biblical value, unless what you mean by that is the peace that will only be brought by Jesus when he returns and he rules with a rod of iron. God has not commanded us to seek peace on earth...”
The “peacemakers” of 5:9, which Greg glossed over in this week's commentary and was apparently out of mind a couple weeks ago are not the ones manufactured by Colt.
I really enjoy STR, but I find myself cringing every time Greg opens his Bible-- sorry :(
Posted by: Mijk V | January 08, 2009 at 03:35 PM