Yesterday we made it past verse one, Jesus was trying to take time away from the crowds, it did not work, the folks filled the mountain pews.
Yesterday we saw that the teaching ended with three A’s, we already knew it begins with the 9 B’s… The beatitudes. So who came up with that name, anyways? I remember, as a kid, assuming that meant they were beautiful.
They are beautiful, but that has nothing to do with the exegesis of word. I am all for using words that everyone can understand, enough of this churchspeak stuff. So I will call them the nine “Blessed Ares”.
Some people count eight of them, that’s fair, because numbers eight and nine flow together, both dealing with getting persecuted. But I know that Matthew likes the number three, and the square of three, which is nine. John, on the other hand is a strict number seven man, he never moves on to forty-nine. Peter has forged his place in the Number Hall of Fame with 490—seventy times seven.