Poor in Spirit

Articles

Lance Byers
05/16/25 - Text Study

Poor in Spirit

“I’d like to live like a poor man…only with lots of money.” ~Pablo Picasso

Jesus began His ministry with the simple words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) The next three years up until His crucifixion would be an expansion of why these simple words are so vital to man’s salvation. So, what does it mean to be poor in spirit and why was it so important for Jesus to select these words to begin what would be a manifesto of a sermon on the mount?

The idea of being poor is strongly negative in connotation. Especially at the time Jesus is speaking, being poor is vastly different from today. In our country, even the poorest among us still has the ability to be fed, clothed, and housed through many private charities and abundant government assistance. Being poor in the first century meant sleeping on rocky roadsides or with animals and praying daily that you will have a next meal as your ribs poked through your thin torso. Nobody wants to be poor, but Jesus calls them blessed who are poor, not in money, but in spirit.

People of the day knew poverty. Galilee was the poorest area of all Judea, a slum. The people were surrounded with the poorest of the poor, so for Jesus to say, “in spirit,” the images of poverty were associated with spiritual destitution.

Jesus is not saying those who lack good morals are blessed, but instead those who understand their spiritual condition and what peril we are all in. Jesus illustrates this in the negative a little later in the sermon when He teaches the attendees to pray. He tells them, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words,” (Matthew 6:7) and He expands the idea further in the parable of the pharisee and the publican in Luke 18:11-12 saying, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’” In both the case of the gentile and the pharisee, they thought they could do something to satisfy the requirements of salvation of their soul.

Those who are blessed understand what Jesus says in Mark 8:38 when He asks, “what can a man give in return for his soul?” While the context is speaking of physical things of this life, being “poor in spirit” has the same meaning. Spiritually, what do we have by which we can redeem our soul? How can we pay for what has been ransomed by sin? What do we have of value? Spiritually, we have absolutely nothing. The only thing we can offer is something offered to us as a gift from the one “who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:14)

Blessed are the poor in spirit because they know they need this free but most valuable gift presented to them through the death of the perfect, sinless Lamb of God. The ones who receive their redeemer belong to the kingdom of God and there is not greater blessing than that.

Lance Byers

May 17, 2025