What the Bible says about Meekness of Christ
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Jesus shows us that meekness is not a mere contemplative virtue; it is maintaining peace and patience in the midst of pelting provocations. In II Corinthians Paul realizes that the meek and gentle approach can easily appear as weakness to those unfamiliar with Jesus' example, so he calls it "the meekness . . . of Christ." True meekness is always measured by Christ's meekness. His humility, patience, and total submission of His own will to the will of the Father exemplifies meekness.
Martin G. Collins
MeeknessRelated Topics: Christ's Meekness | Humility | Meekness | Meekness of Christ | Patience | Peace | Self Control | Submission to God
Arthur W. Pink, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, writes, "Poverty of spirit may be termed the negative side of faith" (p. 17). Similarly, Charles H. Spurgeon, a Protestant preacher of the nineteenth century, comments, "The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves" (The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 21). It is this realization of our utter unworthiness, a sense of spiritual need and destitution, that drives us to seek Christ to lift it. The economically poor gravitate to where they can have their needs met. Recognizing one's spiritual poverty parallels this, motivating us to seek to have that need supplied through a relationship with God. Poor in spirit, therefore, describes a fundamental trait found in every son of God who earnestly seeks Him.
Jesus says in Matthew 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." This is how to cultivate this God-honoring attitude. We must do this because, while merely feeling lowly before God is insufficient, it nevertheless opens the doors to the awesome beneficence only God can give and indeed yearns to give. He says in Isaiah 66:2: "'For all these things [in creation] My hand has made, and all those things exist,' says the LORD. 'But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.'"
Poor in spirit is one thing, contrition is another, and humility is yet a third quality. They are all related, but they are not specifically the same attitude. To be contrite is to be sorry or remorseful because of guilt, equating to "Blessed are those who mourn" in Matthew 5:4. Humility is more active than either of the other two, involving consciously choosing submission in obedience. It equates more with "Blessed are the meek" in Matthew 5:5. Poverty of spirit, then, precedes contrition, remorse, humility, and meekness because it is a major factor involved in producing them.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beatitudes, Part Two: Poor in SpiritRelated Topics: Beatitudes, The | Christ's Meekness | Christ's Yoke | Contrite Spirit | Lowliness | Lowliness of Heart | Lowliness of Mind | Meekness | Meekness of Christ | Obedience | Pink, Arthur W. | Poor in Spirit | Poor of Spirit | Poverty of Spirit | Spiritual Poverty | Submission | Submission to God | Submissive Attitude | Yoke | Yoke, Christ's
Meekness, a tolerant, yielding spirit, represents having the right of way but not insisting on it. Jesus Christ sets the tone of this approach in His discussion with the sons of Zebedee and the other disciples. Many have looked upon meekness, lowliness of spirit, or the willingness to yield, with suspicion and perhaps even loathing. Meekness—or its common perception—may seem too much like weakness, wimpiness, or timidity.
Some have taken Matthew 7:29 out of context to sanction a pompous, brittle, authoritarian approach, stating Jesus "taught . . . as one who had authority, and not as the scribes." Such people assume that this gives license to higher decibels and dogmatic manhandling of the audience, but they seriously misunderstand its intended meaning. Jesus could speak with authority because He possessed an unlimited reservoir of experience. He personified the Word of God, while the scribes and Pharisees could only quibble about the bits and pieces they had studied. Even though Jesus spoke with authority, the Gospels show His manner to be peaceable and yielding in most situations.
David F. Maas
Servant Leadership: Practical MeeknessRelated Topics: Humility | Lowliness | Lowliness of Heart | Lowliness of Mind | Lowliness of Spirit | Meekness | Meekness of Christ | Meekness, Practical | Peace | Peace Maker | Peace Making | Poor in Spirit | Poor of Spirit | Practicality of Meekness | Servant Leadership | Timidity | Yieldedness | Yielding to God | Yielding to God's Will
The most recent update of the New International Version (NIV) includes a new understanding of the rare Greek word harpagmos which was rendered "something to be grasped" in Philippians 2:6 in the 1984 edition. The new version translates it as "Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." Further study has shown that harpagmos refers to a thing that a person has in his possession but chooses not to use to his own advantage. This makes clear that Jesus really was equal with God when he determined to become a human for our sakes.
Staff
Peter shows us how far the model, Jesus, went in suffering unjustly. It is a high standard, but He went all the way to the death without giving in to His emotions and without allowing Satan to get a hold of Him. Jesus never thought that God was being unfair or unjust in what He was causing or allowing Him to go through.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 4)Related Topics: Fairness | Fairness of God | God's Fairness | Jesus Christ's Suffering | Meekness | Meekness of Christ | Suffering | Suffering for Righteousness Sake | Suffering Unjustly