Being poor in spirit is being someone who knows that you have nothing, spiritually, to offer and therefore you stand completely dependent upon God—upon his grace, his mercy, his provision, and effort. Being poor in spirit is accepting that you are spiritually needy.

There’s a bright thread of connection between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the way the sermon on the mount begins. The tree stood as a perpetual sign for Adam and Eve to rely upon and walk submitted under God’s word. God declared all that was good or not good and they, as His creatures and image bearers were to trust Him. Of course, that didn’t pan out and we’ve all, since Adam, placed more weight on our own perspectives and words than we have in God and His word. Utterly foolish. William Henley’s Invictus declares that we’ve become the “captain of our own fate”, when in reality we’ve become conquered (victa) by own fallen self-reliance. Utterly foolish because the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God and a true fear of God is essentially a radical reliance upon Him.

Our world today, like Cain and Lamech before us, is intoxicated in self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We pronounce blessings upon the rich and able, the well-to-do and confident, for theirs is the power of influence and the world’s applause. But Jesus, picking up a rather well-defined Biblical theme, starts off his famous sermon with a still more ancient promise – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The idea of being poor, that is, materially destitute, is not a foreign concept. We understand poverty. And poor people are, more often than not, quite dependent upon others for any well-being. A beggar begs because he needs help from someone who has more than him. John Stott recognizes that within the Scriptures “gradually, because the needy had no refuge but God, poverty came to have spiritual overtones and to be identified with humble dependence on God.”[1]  Hence Psalm 34:5-6, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.”[2]

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