Wrestling with the "everlasting Word of life," as Quaker founder Geo. Fox called the good book, we at the Bible study seem to be aligning ourselves with the worldview promoted therein: have faith to mingle with all members of society great and small, actively do good in your world, go forth in meekness with an open heart listening intently for God's direction.
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We got through the part where the O.T. commandments are recapped ("You have heard it said: thou shalt not kill...") and read the Lord's Prayer version of Matthew (a little different to Luke 11 version). We wondered how come we say the version "forgive us our sins" [until the 1970s we used Debts]. We noted that this model prayer has the praise part to begin and the "give us" part afterwards. But many people skip the first part...
Getting back to the "you have heard it said..." discussion, we looked for the common denominator in all those statements. In other words, by taking things to that full (spirit of the commands, not just going through the motions/behaviors of the commands) meaning, what is Jesus really getting at in terms of the Right Attitude and Relationship between us and our God. One clue comes from the scene when Jesus is asked "what is the greatest commandment": love God and love your neighbor as yourself. By doing that master command, then all the rest of the commands/behaviors are mere details. When love for the creator and for fellow person is overflowing, then the sins/commandments will take care of themselves.
[listing the beatitudes alongside the reward/result of each illustration, a pattern emerges]
poor in spirit ->searching out/inside
those who mourn ->paused from rut
the gentle/meek ->power voluntary
hunger/thirst ->righteousness urgent; singlemnded
merciful ->forgive yield to bigger/higher
pure in heart ->open, not cluttered
the peacemakers ->vision of good
persecuted for righteousness->undaunted
reproached/persecuted/say evil of you for my sake ->foregrounded, searching out/inside
in summary, one's heart should be:
-paused from rut, routine or knee-jerk responses
-voluntary spirit
-urgent, single-minded
-forgive yield to bigger/higher
-open, not cluttered or distracted
-vision of the good
-undaunted by obstacles or threats
-foregrounded
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