Don’t get lost dancing around one tree, so that you don’t see the forest.
Jesus taught the Law of Moses. The Beatitudes come from Moses. The otherworldly outlook was the core of the Covenant. The reason you don’t hear that much in church is because the church was long ago hijacked by the Pharisees, which is the same as Judaism. The Judaizers won organizationally; the churches were subverted. John prophesied of this in Revelation. All we have today is this lie that the Law was somehow quite different from what it actually says in the Bible.
We have been kicked out of Eden. The ground grows for us thorns and thistles; life outside of Eden is supposed to suck. At its best, it’s very difficult, and you should be longing for what comes after this life. The Sermon on the Mount starts off with a pointed rejection of the false doctrine of the Pharisees that says: Wealth is the mark of God’s favor, and poverty is the mark of God’s disfavor. The first line Jesus said was that poverty is actually the mark of God’s favor.
And He goes on to emphasize how the world built by the Pharisees was a rejection of what Moses actually said. This system of unrighteous oppression was rigged up in favor of the rich and powerful, to keep them rich and powerful. It was rigged against God’s people, because the rich and powerful were convinced that they alone were God’s true people, and anyone poor was accursed. You have to read the Sermon on the Mount in that context.
I noted in the weekly Bible lesson that Jesus never told His wealthy supporters to dump their wealth. They were already in the process of doing that. They had decided to support His ministry. His work and His teaching were what really mattered to them, so their wealth was not that important. It was only a tool for God’s glory. That’s the proper perspective on material wealth.
And this whole teaching of God’s blessing on poverty extends into the issue of political power. How blessed are those who reject political power! How blessed are those who see it only as a tool to glorify the Lord. And glorifying the Lord means despairing of this life and it’s fallen systems so that we can return to Eden.
You are supposed to hate this life, not the people in it. Sure, the vast majority of those you encounter are cattle herded by demons, and so they shall remain. But at any given moment, in any given context, there will be a few who somehow come within reach of your gospel message, and they will be ready to receive the Word. That Word is rejection of this life, first and foremost.
Yep, there’s more.
