How Are the Beatitudes Good News About Jesus?

The Beatitudes are not “Be-Attitudes” or a list of virtues to be achieved. They are the description of who Jesus is and the blessings to be received in and through him. These beatitudes or blessings are the gifts from God’s anointed one, as Isaiah 61 says. In this video, Chad Bird examines how Matthew 5:1-12 is patterned after Isaiah 61 and many of the psalms. In fact, the beatitudes are a summary and commentary on the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament. Join us for this week’s episode of “Reading the Gospels through Hebrew Eyes.”

[@unitedlutheranchurch5147]

Thank you for this great teaching. I feel like watching your weekly contribution here is my continuing education in biblical studies. So valuable and gratifying. God bless you and the fruit these lessons bear as the gospel is preached.

[@nigelmohammed7288]

Chad I was referred to you by a friend of mine who drank deeply from the well of Luther. I can do emphatically see God's Goodness in this referral to your ministry. There has been a famine of hearing God's Word for so long in the West.. I'm sure there are countless followers of the LAMB who are give thanks to God for your hard labour in the Word. THANK YOU DEAR BROTHER IN OUR LORD JESUS.

[@babecarla]

*Thank you, Teacher. Your teachings surely enlighten us & we grow in our Lord. ❤✝️

[@mabelchiu2205]

Thank you for your teaching

[@RonHaynes-kb9hm]

This is excellent. I love the way you make it come together. You are one of my favorites. I have your book, The Christ Key and watch your teachings often.

[@eyziets]

What a privilege to be under your teaching! Praise be to God 🙌

[@logicaredux5205]

If you really want to mine the riches of the preaching of Jesus, you need an Old Testament man. Thank you sir!

[@joelandkatelyn]

This is outstanding. So grateful for what you bring and how Jesus is always lifted up by your teachings.

[@lj3916]

Very happy to find your teachings. I love the sayings “the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.” I understand the message of the gospel, Jesus dying on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, is what being a Christian is about. But I can’t get enough of understanding the Bible and how it all works together. God is amazing and I love him so much! Prayers for you and your ministry! Thank you!

[@elvlogordinario]

Good job! This, to understand the passage in the OT-NT (the Bible as a whole), is helpful! Christ centered, gospel centered, and simple for everyone to understand it! ❤

[@brunet42]

Thank you for your meshing together the two testaments. I am seeing that they are of the one God and not the God of the Old Testament who is different from the God of the New Testament.

[@TexKen]

Love it!!!

[@aureliafox2924]

Thank you - YT just recommended one of your videos to me a couple of days ago and I’ve been listening to your gospel teachings every chance I get. I listen to UT as I go about my day… it wasn’t until I’d heard several of yours that I happened to see the screen in the middle of one and oh my goodness - for the first time in maybe ever I was actually dismayed at the thought of continuing to listen if I couldn’t watch at the same time!! Oof 😅 But since work has to be done and I’m learning so much from just the audio, I will just continue to listen to you tie together the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. I’ve been dabbling around the edges of learning the Hebrew language- absolutely astonishing the depth of meaning. And how perfect that in His Word God added to the Hebrew the precision of the Greek. Unending delight!!! Maybe some day I’ll have time to go back and take notes from these videos as I watch! Thanks so much for putting your teachings out there!!! (I just ordered three of your books 👏👏)

[@melaniek.h.]

Great teaching❤🙏🏽🔥. Be blessed.

[@brightbite]

Can you expound on the word "meek" having the definition of "bowed" in the Hebrew? I find that interesting!

[@rajiantony6306]

Your way of explaining is a real blessing 🙏🙏🙏

[@lc-mschristian5717]

Thank you Pastor Bird, always a blessing. God's peace be with you.

[@tadaskrivickas8409]

Than you for knowledge.

[@diannaroeder9661]

Meekness is strength under the control of God's Mercy.

[@audzg5202]

Thank you so much. This really was a blessing. It really helped me understand this scripture.

[@jbutera6215]

I wish you were my childhood pastor.

[@ronrossa3901]

awesome

[@vegacool1]

So the answer to, why did you make this way, is, so I could bless you...

[@markjapan4062]

2 WORDS BE ATTITUDE

[@chadbird1517]

That’s not what beatitude means. It’s not a command to “be” anything. It is from the Latin word for “blessed.”

[@astoryelangueuzian9149]

Thanks for this lesson: Question: are you saying these actions/behaviors are credited to those who are in and of Christ by the work of the Spirit, akin to something like "credited righteousness" to those who believe in Christ and not necessarily something we do on our own? In other words, that we don't really participate in these behaviors in of themselves on our own, due to our fallen nature, but actually receive them as natural fruits of the Blessed One (the true Beatitude) who is the only one who is and does these things par excellence, as the perfect obedient Son of God? Essentially, my question is what is our role if any in these beatitudes? Is it just the work (fruit--or even evidence) of the Spirit for those in Christ? Effectively, are you saying: this is the free gift of God that is given to us in Christ, the fully obedient One, since we can't and won't and don't fulfil these righteous acts all the time perfectly due to our sin, as opposed to Christ who has and does? Essentially is your doctrine of justified by faith providing your interpretive framework to interpret this passage? Is this essentially another case of the free mercy of God lavished on those in Christ?

[@chadbird1517]

Your very last sentence is a good summary of the points it seems you are making and the many questions you are asking. What we do, as believers, is never just what WE do, for we have died and our lives are hidden with God in Christ. Any good I do is a gift of God as a result of the Spirit working within me.

[@astoryelangueuzian9149]

@@chadbird1517 thanks for the response; got it. That's what I thought you were saying. I absolutely agree. It's the Spirit working in us as a result of our faith in Christ given to us as a free gift of grace by God. In fact, Irenaeus, Augustine and John Chrysostom (to name a few Patristic Father's) as well as Aquinas (yes, even Aquinas in the 12th century--Treatise on Grace) and then obviously Luther and Calvin, argued that faith precedes, or better yet, presupposes our ability to even live out/enter such a Kingdom life ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. In other words, this teaching is only possible by those who have "first" already been given (by grace) the free gift of faith who are now (and only now) enabled by the work and power of the Spirit to carry out such a rule. Thanks again!

[@matthewjohnson6360]

Did you know, The Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew?

[@chadbird1517]

I am aware of those traditions in the early church. Whether Matthew was originally in Hebrew is only a theory, however. It cannot be proven. The references to, or quotes from, a purported gospel in Hebrew does not mean that Matthew's gospel, as we have it in Greek, was a translation from a Hebrew original. It is equally possible that Matthew wrote some form of a gospel, perhaps only a collection of saying, in Hebrew for Hebrew-speakers. As the Matthew scholar John Nolland writes, "The difficulty for us is that the Greek Gospel of Matthew shows not the slightest sign of having been translated from a Semitic language... Matthew not only seems to have been written in Greek but also to have drawn on sources which were at least predominantly in Greek." John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 3.

[@eddysumlin7735]

One of the worst sermons I ever heard was of the beatitudes. He said blessed are the poor in spirit Christian. Blessed is the meek Christian! He added added Christian to every one of them. Sad

[@ILOVEYESHUA1ST]

Why don’t you use the correct name of Yeshua- His name is tied to salvation that is in so many of the verses you mentioned from the Psalms and Prophets

[@chadbird1517]

We call him Jesus because that is how English-speakers say his name. And the New Testament itself did not call him Yeshua since it is written in Greek. We speak his name in our native language, whether we are German, Spanish, Russian, etc. To insist on calling him Yeshua is a linguistic legalism that is unhelpful and unnecessary.

[@baronreed8131]

@Chad Bird It's amazing how often practical simplicity overcomes a religious and prideful spirit. It's something I will keep in mind as related to my own conversation and thoughts. Your simple direct response not only runs deep but sounds like something Jesus would say. Thank you for all your hard work that helps me to live in a straight line that always points to Christ.