This is a New Testament axiom from the “inaugural address” of Christ from the sermon on the mount.
But something about it has never seemed to jive. A better translation, tying into other Scripture, is this.
The person who has a sword and knows how to use it but keeps it sheathed, will inherit the earth.
It’s akin to the ancient Japanese axiom, “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war”.
It also ties into the Victorian wisdom of being a gentleman, that has worked for so many men for so many years. Essentially, be a beast. Recognize the beast that is within. And then sheath it. It is there. Everyone can see that it is there, ready to be drawn.
But the inheritor of the Earth and of everything . . . is the one who doesn’t draw it except on the rare occasion when it might be absolutely necessary.
I saw one samurai movie (forget which) where a powerful samurai master quelled an entire crowd by simply putting their hand on the hilt of their katana and drawing it enough the shine of the blade could be seen.
Then they re-sheathed it.
And they proverbially “inherited” the moment.
Thoughts?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
36 responses to ““The meek shall inherit the earth”.”
It was this very beatitude that launched my pursuit into understanding Scripture.
I was at a first time experience at a church that had been recommended by a friend as a realistic approach for people who were not into church.
The pastor was preaching the Beatitudes I went to meet him after the service and told I just didn’t get this one. How could weaklings be worthy of inheriting anything? He explained something that became the foundation of my research. Understand the context and also understand the original meaning of the word in the language from which it was translated.
He told me the work meek was used to to describe powerful, yet productively manageable, as in a horse. It was a wake up call for me.
What that triggered in me was the requirement to really understand the true meaning of the words I was reading and not allowing my understanding of a word, from the perspective of a person that didn’t try to understand translations beyond the literal interpretation.
When one studies Scripture in this way; you can spend a long time on one verse; let alone a chapter, or book or testament as a whole.
@spitfire3dc
And to me, this is evidence of “the Spirit” behind the words. It shines through time and translation, for those who seek deeper understanding.
And in a way it’s analogous to the scientific process where someone else runs the same “experiment” of understanding and a confirmation is achieved. I’d not heard the analogy of the horse before. But it fits in totally with the spirit of the example I “happened upon” today.
I truly do think that is how the Holy Spirit (The Spirit of Truth) works.
I saw on the internet that the Christians are expecting the Rapture to happen on April 23rd.
Oh wow! My birthday is April 26th and everyone is going to — arise — and I will be alone for my birthday.
Oh well, I spent all those years in Judaism, and when I decided to change my religion, I chose to be a Baha’i. I meekly eased into a religion that was comfortable for me.
So, all the religious people will arise and here I will be alone. I will inherit the Earth.
Hmmmm…. I wonder what I can find in everyone’s refrigerator???
Maybe fried chicken.
@ladybarbara
Lol!
Religion is mostly about trying to leverage some control over the unknowable; the uncontrollable.
So there is zero surprise that the religious ones would want to try to leverage some personal control over God’s timetable!
But of note, is that they’ve tried to predict this many many many many times before to no avail. Even the Apostle Paul tried.
Insanity is said to be manifest in trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Hmm. Are these the religiously insane, or just the insanely religious???
Ironic coming from a deity who says if you make a single mistake without salvation gets sent to hell. The same deity whose son is described as meek.
@Jear77
Correction.
If you persist in a mistake and don’t learn/heal/recant doing it again.
And if “hidden cost” [spiritual, psychological] is present (even if we cannot see or fully understand it), a way has been made to utterly eradicate that debt for all time. (Unless we choose to incur that same debt again!)
So what’s to gripe about????
If you want to give someone a great boon . . . what can be said about the person who carps and gripes endlessly at they don’t like having to walk over to you to accept it!!???
That’s just a dopey thing to do — and that’s being kind!
@griz there are things we may not see as mistakes/ harming others, yet in the end it doesn’t matter. Worse yet, there are those who weren’t taught, who were born the wrong place/ wrong time, couldn’t be taught – like aborted fetuses, and still will end up in hell
@Jear77
Do you think that the very mindset of earnestly desiring to limit “mistakes” (sin) we CAN see and react to, might count for those we cannot yet “see” and therefore not be able to react to? (It tracks the Judeo-Christian progression from “letter of law” to “Spirit of law”. To run, you first have to walk)
One of the concepts of “salvation-as-a-process” that Paul toys with is the idea that with each successful identification and resolution (ownership) of “mistake” (sin), we become more astute at identifying and resolving examples not previously identified.
And while that which Christian tradition calls “the written word” is valuable, it is certainly not essential. The “Wisdom of Life” or “Spirit of God” or even “Word of God” seems to crop up spontaneously wherever there is Life. I’ve seen in various other belief-systems I’ve experienced (remote from “Christianity”), not just shades of the same ideas, but almost the complete gist of them.
I would return to the observation that you were perhaps involved in a book-worshiping cult — and it is from this perspective that you now cast all of your jeremiads upon that twisted version of “God” (Life).
@griz not a chance. I just see things that others wish to gloss over, sweep under the rug. And it’s all thanks to the fact that only after i gave up my faith i was able to get employment. Had i gotten employment years ago, i probably would have been blissfully ignorant.
@Jear77
Hmm.
I’ll try to avoid running with the obvious extremism of “not a chance”!
What we all tend to “see” in spiritual texts . . . is exactly what we have prepared (or “allowed”) ourselves to see. (It is why most religious ceremonies begin with “prayer and praise” to “prepare the heart”.)
It could be profitable to you to examine just what aspect of your faith in the book . . . was keeping you from getting a job?
@griz prayer and praise do absolutely nothing to the situation. Why do you think you can’t go around saying “be warm and fed”? Because obviously it does nothing.
@Jear77
Why do you think those who understand the concept of Providence tend to be in a better mindset to see accept and offer it than those who don’t?
Those who are convinced it is only going to happen on their terms, needlessly blind and exclude themselves for many possibilities.
Sort of like excluding any possibility of effective communication with/from God because it doesn’t happen according to our narrow and arrogantly stubborn dictates.
@griz Still, you’d think that the words “be well and fed” from a person who believes in an infinite god, could produce something out of nothing. Remember e= mc^2. Words have energy (sound is a wave, hence an energy form). Jesus whispering “I am” flattened a whole slew of guards trying to arrest him. Why can’t a person, with a normal voice, produce food? (as a side note there was a youtube looking at the strongest “classic” Kirby (y’know the pink puffball nintendo property) and it was determined the “Mic” ability that killed all enemies on the screen)
@Jear77
Actually were you aware that the partial verse you are using is talking about hypocrites who say this to people in need yet do nothing to aid them?
So your measure of the Divine is the ability to produce something out of nothing? What existed before the Big Bang? Something or nothing?
Why can a finite person not do the infinite? You may have just answered your own question!
Consider that of the both of us I am more inclined to believe the two meet within us and inter-relate. So if such was possible ( and there’s absolutely no evidence that it is not), which of the two of us do you think, would be more likely to a) see it and b) be able to interact with it??
I see little wisdom in limiting the possibilities just out of ignorance, fear spite or resentment.
@griz yet once again, a god who can’t enable us to do that is… powerless!
@Jear77
Where’s your proof that he doesn’t?
Sometimes we have to chew our own food and wipe our own ass. And if we get it wrong we keep trying. That’s what makes us adults .
Because there’s nothing quite as ugly as an old infant who is pouting because their first attempt failed, and is now demanding others to do for them the things that they can do for themselves, but are just tired of trying.
The Holy Spirit will empower you to do the things you cannot do (that are not just for selfish gain). But first we have to grow up and properly do the things that we are able to do.
@griz how do we know? Say “be warm and fed” and expect to see blankets and a hot meal materalize, and you’re going to be sorely disappointed
@Jear77
Any idea why after I in effect restored the context of that verse, you turned around and ripped it off again?
There’s wisdom there for you if you’ll take it. That being, that you’ve had to miss read the Bible to turn it into something you can hate on.
@griz that context becomes meaningless, laughable even, when talking about a being of nigh infinite power.
@Jear77
Not much more laughable then an adult still playing the “if I were God” game.
Children cannot understand that infinite knowledge is necessary to understand how all the infinite realities weave together.
While it may be cute in children, such callow ignorance does not sit well on an adult.
It’s like someone who is totally ignorant of socio-political realities fancying becoming president and “fixing everything” by simply lowering taxes and increasing spending.
Jear.
I trust this point has been made and you will not try to use it again. If you do I will remind you that you have already used it, and it’s been debunked.
@griz no. I am simply talking science. We HAVE the nuclear bomb. E=mc^2 is not a theory; it is fact. The process to create should be equally easy as it is to destroy.
@Jear77
I could easily destroy a squash.
If you’d like I could mail you the remains so you can show me how easily you could re-create what has been destroyed.
It would be easier right? Or say, putting back together the atomic particles that nuclear fission liberated? (I won’t mail you those because both of us could get into a lot of trouble!)
Science is a powerful and unsurpassed tool for understanding and manipulating the objective.
But Descartes and Bacon specifically designed to be blind to the subjective; things which you yourself consider quite real.
And is the metaphysical an even further step beyond the subjective: adding a further level of inherent inadequacy to the tool of of science for a fuller understanding of all_that-is?
@griz it is… provided i use string theory. In it a broken glass (or in your case a squashed squash) is easily reassembled as it is destroyed.
@Jear77
We will have to use your particle accelerator supercomputer and team of award-winning scientists.
Mine are out being dry-cleaned!
Easy indeed!
(It was an interesting scientific read, though heavy in theory that no common person could ever experiment with. I still maintain the Christ experiment would be far easier for even a common person to run to successful conclusion provided one followed the damn instructions properly it didn’t get sucked into a religious ideology!)
@griz once again… simple for a deity who says “let there be” and we have a voice too. Just shows how much an idiot he is, says more amazing things. Not even close to the amazing thing i would expect to see daily.
@Jear77
Did you notice how seamlessly you are swapping personalities right now between yourself and a Deity?
We are clearly talking about things we can achieve right here and now (albeit with help), and you suddenly run off onto tangents of “a Deity should be able to do it!”.
All of your resentment is housed in the fact that you could not control a Deity; and are not having much luck in trying to be your own.
This cannot end well.
(And you know you don’t have a lot of friends who would tell you this so bluntly)
@griz remember what i keep saying about placebo? Instead of “More amazing things ” it should read “scientifically plausible/ provable things that can’t pass the level of placebo you will do in my name!”
@Jear77
Your “messiah” of science has been specifically designed by Descartes and Bacon to totally invalidate any shred of your very real subjective experience.
Your continuing to bow at its feet . . . is profoundly poignant.
@griz subjectivity is so… 500 B.C.E
@Jear77
But are you not trying to use your subjective experience to invalidate God?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
@griz perhaps. But remember, I embrace hypocrisy.
@Jear77
Is there a logical reason to?
(I’d settle for pragmatic).
Think about that, because an honest answer could be very transformational.
@griz it’s the best way to be. All accusations against a hypocrite mean nothing, as he can shrug and say “so?” as the saying goes “water off the duck’s back”
@Jear77
It doesn’t seem to have brought you a lot of peace, joy or purpose.
We can maintain the highly expensive facade that it “means nothing” — that we can “not care” about practically anything on a dime (others, ourselves, many other things).
But then in private we lick our wounds and grow more miserable, detached, angry, desperate . . . negative. Essentially the primitive and very-primitive parts of ourself we have programmed with “the goal” of negativity . . . are performing wonderfully.
Remember, that we tend to think we’re fooling others when really we’re just fooling ourselves.
@griz no matter what i say, you wouldn’t believe me, so let’s end this.
@Jear77
Closing statement:
If I see a facade, I tend to ask what’s beneath it. Because that’s how we face Truth and heal.
Because if Truth was there, it would be evidenced in specific ways.