“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
In Matthew Chapter 5, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus delivered eight teachings called The Beatitudes. Beatitudes comes from the Greek word beatus, meaning happy or blessed. Each Beatitude names a virtue and lists an eternal reward for that virtue.
The third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5), provides a great example of the importance of studying commentaries and other reliable sources to make sure that we understand the meaning of a verse.
First, word definitions matter. The simple definition in Merriam-Webster.com defines “meek” as “having or showing a quiet and gentle nature : not wanting to fight or argue with other people”. The Greek word translated as “meek” in this verse is praeis, which means mildness, gentleness of spirit, or humility. According to GotQuestions.org, “Meekness is humility toward God and toward others. It is having the right or the power to do something but refraining for the benefit of someone else.”
So being meek isn’t just having a quiet and gentle nature and not wanting to fight, but it is deciding to be quiet and gentle from a place of power to benefit others!
We are called upon to be humble before God in several places in the Bible including James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” and before other people as in verses such as Ephesians 4:2, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love”. Being meek is fulfilling these two commands, as well as the Greatest Commandment and the Second Commandment discussed in The Greatest Commandment.
In his Concise Commentary on the Bible, Matthew Henry says “The meek are happy. The meek are those who quietly submit to God; who can bear insult; are silent, or return a soft answer; who, in their patience, keep possession of their own souls, when they can scarcely keep possession of anything else. These meek ones are happy, even in this world. Meekness promotes wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world.”
We are commanded to be meek, and Jesus tells us that we will be blessed for doing so. Unfortunately, being meek is not natural for us. Acting in humility before God is difficult, but acting in humility before other people is counter-intuitive to our fallen nature. God is asking us to actively put others before ourselves every day. When you want to assert your rights, be meek. When something is not fair, be meek. When someone hates you because of your faith, be meek.
When we are meek, we are powerful, because we are obeying God.