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BLESSED are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

THE MEEK are those who are gentle, humble, and unassuming, simple in faith and patient in the face of every affront. Imbued with the precepts of the gospel, they imitate the meekness of the Lord, who says, "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Chromatius, Tractate on Matthew

TO SEE what meekness is, you must look not at meekness but at Christ. Saying meekness is this or that sends you to concepts which are pale copies of reality. Saying "Jesus is meek" sends you to the living reality of it.
Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

IF IT IS the meek, the helpless, the disabled, who will inherit the earth, this is perhaps because the earth, God's earth, the real earth, can be had on no other terms. It is a gift. Or, in the words of the beatitude, it is an inheritance.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

THE LAND is always inherited; it is not taken. It is not ours to take, but God's to give. Thus we have no absolute right to it. Our "inheritance" of any land ultimately demands fidelity to God's vision for the household, how we are to live in the land.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

THE RENEWAL of the earth begins at Golgotha, where the meek One died, and from thence it will spread. When the kingdom finally comes, the meek shall possess the earth.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

THERE IS radiant meekness in Mary's response to the archangel Gabriel: "Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me just as you have said" (Luke 1:38). … In all its meekness, no other act in human history has had such significance. Through Mary, our Creator became one with us in the flesh.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

GENTLENESS, to be sure, is a fruit of meekness. But the main point about the meek is not their gentleness but their quiet faith and trust in God.
The meek turn again and again to God for help, for direction, and for the sheer joy of it.
John W. Miller, The Christian Way

THE SCRIPTURES make much of meekness … and so it is the more appalling that meekness does not characterize more of us who claim to be Christians. Both at the personal level, where we are too often concerned with justifying ourselves rather than with edifying our brother, and at the corporate level, where we are more successful at organizing rallies, institutions, and pressure groups than at extending the kingdom of God, meekness has not been the mark of most Christians for a long time.
D. A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous Reflections columns on the Beatitudes include:

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (July 17, 2007)

Poor in Spirit (June 27, 2007)

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August 2007, Vol. 51, No. 8