Fresh Studies in Matthew: Matthew 5:11-12

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“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 

Stand up to persecution, which may not be physical torture or jail but reviling and false accusations.  This does happen to us in America, so it is comforting that Jesus included it and not just the most extreme kinds of persecution such as martyrdom and imprisonment.

As an academic, I don’t do reviling or false accusation well.  Reputation is everything.  Why do I care what people think?  Am I that afraid of losing a job?  This is what I signed up for.  It is part of being a Christian believer in a reviling world.  Academics have their own ideology:  that of not looking stupid around peers. They believe they are smarter than everyone else (they usually are better informed, but still have very strong lenses, as they say, for seeing the world.)

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