People marked by the being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, hungering for righteousness, pursuing peace and mercy, etc. will draw the hostility of the world, but they will be rewarded with eternal life in the kingdom of God. We, his disciples, are not to shrink from following Jesus for fear that the world might hate us. We are to follow him, even though that invites mocking, scoffing and persecution.
How do you know if you’ve successfully understood a passage of Scripture? Start by understanding and embracing these basic interpretative convictions.
Like the merciful, those commit the costly act of refusing to answer injury for injury and seeking a peaceful reconciliation instead will find their inheritance as children of God in the kingdom of heaven. When we realize how deeply we ourselves are indebted to God’s grace and dependent on His mercy, we also realize we’re in no position to condemn the sins of others.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for immorality, porneia.
After you’ve done your observation, word studies, outlining and answered the questions you generated, it’s time to start putting it all together. In this step, you want to collect, refine and organize all those details you observed into a coherent meaning.
The pure in heart are not those who are morally perfect. Rather their hearts have been cleansed of rebellion and rejection of God. The pure in heart live like the gospel is true, though not perfectly. One day they will stand before God and be accepted.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for stumble or fall away: skandalizō
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Biblical Greek verb for comfort, parakaleō G3870.
The first step in Bible study is observation. The goal is to slow down your reading and generate a list of questions that must be answered to understand the passage. I tend to break observation into the following 4 steps which generally correspond to my first few readings through the passage.
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for mercy, ἐλεέω
You may have heard the “rule” in Bible Study that a text always means what the author intended it to mean. But how do you evaluate whether a particular interpretation hits the mark of authorial intent? You can test any interpretation with the five C’s.
Only those will to commit the costly act of being merciful will receive mercy in the kingdom of God, because showing mercy is an implication of having saving faith.
Krisan Marotta is a Bible teacher and host of Wednesday in the Word, the podcast about what the Bible means and how we know.