A Good Life (Mt.5:3-12)
A “good life” is a function of the vision of the life that informs it. A good life for an athlete will be different from that of a businessperson from a wealthy trust fund person from a doctor from a drug dealer from a politician and so on. Jesus too has a vision of a good life. It’s found (but frequently misunderstood) in what we call the Beatitudes, the very first part of the Sermon on the Mount. This section is frequently misunderstood because the word usually translated “Blessed” (or “happy”) is not rightly interpreted. Jonathan Pennington, in his book The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary , has led the way to a more biblical understanding of this word. “Blessings (and the corresponding negative, curses) are divine, effectual speech,” he writes. Something he performs in us or on us. But the Greek word we find translated as “blessed” or “happy” (as here in the Beatitudes) is makarios. This word is “Macarisms (and the correspondi...