In the fifth chapter of the gospel according to Matthew (and the sixth and seventh chapters too), Jesus preaches a major sermon (aka the Sermon on the Mount) It’s pretty lengthy by Jesus” standards (and you thought your pastor was the only one who preaches long sermons!) Verses 3-12 of chapter five are known as the Beatitudes. There are nine of them in total, each of them beginning with “blessed are.” (some translations word it “happy are”)
Blessed and blessing are tossed around a lot in and out of church circles. When something good happens to us, we may say that we have been blessed. Some of us say a ‘blessing’ (in this instance another word for prayer) before we eat, asking God to bless our food. We ask for blessings on our family, friends, country, homes, you name it we ask that it be blessed. Some even consider hard things that happen in their lives to be blessings.
Read the full column in the Aug. 19 Advance.
