Fresh Studies in Matthew: Matthew 5:5

What is “the meek?”  What is “inheriting the earth?”  This is probably one of the most enigmatic statements of Jesus, and he really did not give many enigmatic statements.  He is pretty straightforward in the gospels, but that doesn’t mean that everything he says is easy to do or believe, just pretty clear.  But this one, I don’t know about, which tempts me to go on, not because I don’t like to dig, but because I don’t think I’ll figure it out to my satisfaction or have the verbal powers to express it. 

Meek is “not weak.”  Moses was meek, we read elsewhere.  But Moses’ only virtue was that he let God use him, really.  He was a weak person.  He had little to go on in himself and what matters, and he realized it (see Exodus 3).  

I think meekness is the right kind of humility and of self-view. Not self-loathing, just self-reality. 

Inheriting the earth—I have no idea.  Would we want it in the first place?  The new heaven and new earth will be a place where humble people are most happy.  While I am, I hope, working toward self-reality, true humility, and meekness, I am not ready for the new heaven and new earth.  I am still too in love with this one.  But if this one is so beautiful (I recently saw photographs of glaciers in Argentina I didn’t know existed), would not the new heaven and new earth retain and improve upon that beauty?  I would not teach that thought as gospel truth, but it’s a comforting thought.