Ever since we started the renovations at our place in the country, it has always been a treat to go sit on the back porch and soak in the beauty of the Texas countryside. I can sit out there in the morning and listen to the birds awakening with the dawn and then enjoy the croaking of what must be ten thousand frogs and crickets in the evening. It is peaceful, quiet, and still – the way I long for my heart to be in the midst of the chaos of life. And it is in those quiet moments – when I am "still and know that He is God" – that God speaks to me and calms the storm within. That is what I want to share with you in these posts. I want to share my view from the back porch. Some of my posts will reflect a few of the things I have learned in my journey through life. Some will simply be statements of what I see in our culture and how we as Christians should respond. I teach a Bible study class each week to an extremely eclectic group of adults and some of the posts and videos I share will be taken from those lessons. I have no delusions of profundity but rather I hope to cause you to think, to laugh, to ponder anew your life as Christ would have you live it. Furthermore, I hope this will be a conversation and not just a monologue. I would love to hear your thoughts, hopes, fears and anything else you would feel comfortable sharing with me. It's wonderful to relax here on the back porch enjoying the view, so pour yourself some coffee (or the beverage of your choosing) and let's talk.
Many theologians down through the centuries – Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas, John Wesley, and Pam Young, just to name a few – have seen the Beatitudes as a progression of faith and a process of sanctification in which you begin with a poverty in spirit before you mourn and you mourn before you develop meekness. Meekness leads to a longing for God’s justice to prevail which leads to a response of God’s mercy for those who face God’s justice. This growth process must be observed when you find yourself in the role of peacemaker, because unless you are pure in heart, your peacemaking efforts will fall flat.
Purity of heart seems like a lofty goal, but it is actually an unattainable goal from the human perspective.Those who are pure in heart are those whose inmost being is focused on one thing and only one thing – God Himself – and that focus is not the result of human effort, but rather the Holy Spirit working within the Christian to purge the impurities and remove the things that keep us from pure devotion to Christ. The beatitude doesn’t say, “Blessed are they who have purified their hearts.” It says “Blessed are the pure in heart” – a condition that comes from the sanctification of Holy Spirit.
As our hearts are cleansed, then and only then can our hearts know true peace. The Hebrew word for peace is “Shalom” and it means so much more than just peace. It means properly joined together, whole, complete and, for the Christian, true peace is being properly joined together with Christ, whole in Him, complete as He intended us to be from the beginning. The singleness of focus for the heart that is pure is the same singularity in the peace that passes all understanding. It’s the peace of Christ.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the presence of God. If you want to be a peacemaker you must allow the Spirit to purify your heart and then you must bring Daddy to the table with you, because He alone is true peace.
The Final Word is this: Let the Spirit lead you as you are told in Galatians 5:16-25. Your heart will be pure (clean, clear, singularly focused) and you will truly know God and see Him work in your world. Furthermore, your heart will be at peace (whole, complete, bonded together with Jesus) and then you will be able to introduce into any situation the peace that passes all understanding.
Many theologians down through the centuries – Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas, John Wesley, and Pam Young, just to name a few – have seen the Beatitudes as a progression of faith and a process of sanctification in which you begin with a poverty in spirit before you mourn and you mourn before you develop meekness. Meekness leads to a longing for God’s justice to prevail which leads to a response of God’s mercy for those who face God’s justice. This growth process must be observed when you find yourself in the role of peacemaker, because unless you are pure in heart, your peacemaking efforts will fall flat.
Purity of heart seems like a lofty goal, but it is actually an unattainable goal from the human perspective.Those who are pure in heart are those whose inmost being is focused on one thing and only one thing – God Himself – and that focus is not the result of human effort, but rather the Holy Spirit working within the Christian to purge the impurities and remove the things that keep us from pure devotion to Christ. The beatitude doesn’t say, “Blessed are they who have purified their hearts.” It says “Blessed are the pure in heart” – a condition that comes from the sanctification of Holy Spirit.
As our hearts are cleansed, then and only then can our hearts know true peace. The Hebrew word for peace is “Shalom” and it means so much more than just peace. It means properly joined together, whole, complete and, for the Christian, true peace is being properly joined together with Christ, whole in Him, complete as He intended us to be from the beginning. The singleness of focus for the heart that is pure is the same singularity in the peace that passes all understanding. It’s the peace of Christ.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the presence of God. If you want to be a peacemaker you must allow the Spirit to purify your heart and then you must bring Daddy to the table with you, because He alone is true peace.
The Final Word is this: Let the Spirit lead you as you are told in Galatians 5:16-25. Your heart will be pure (clean, clear, singularly focused) and you will truly know God and see Him work in your world. Furthermore, your heart will be at peace (whole, complete, bonded together with Jesus) and then you will be able to introduce into any situation the peace that passes all understanding.
Many theologians down through the centuries – Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas, John Wesley, and Pam Young, just to name a few – have seen the Beatitudes as a progression of faith and a process of sanctification in which you begin with a poverty in spirit before you mourn and you mourn before you develop meekness. Meekness leads to a longing for God’s justice to prevail which leads to a response of God’s mercy for those who face God’s justice. This growth process must be observed when you find yourself in the role of peacemaker, because unless you are pure in heart, your peacemaking efforts will fall flat.
Purity of heart seems like a lofty goal, but it is actually an unattainable goal from the human perspective.Those who are pure in heart are those whose inmost being is focused on one thing and only one thing – God Himself – and that focus is not the result of human effort, but rather the Holy Spirit working within the Christian to purge the impurities and remove the things that keep us from pure devotion to Christ. The beatitude doesn’t say, “Blessed are they who have purified their hearts.” It says “Blessed are the pure in heart” – a condition that comes from the sanctification of Holy Spirit.
As our hearts are cleansed, then and only then can our hearts know true peace. The Hebrew word for peace is “Shalom” and it means so much more than just peace. It means properly joined together, whole, complete and, for the Christian, true peace is being properly joined together with Christ, whole in Him, complete as He intended us to be from the beginning. The singleness of focus for the heart that is pure is the same singularity in the peace that passes all understanding. It’s the peace of Christ.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the presence of God. If you want to be a peacemaker you must allow the Spirit to purify your heart and then you must bring Daddy to the table with you, because He alone is true peace.
The Final Word is this: Let the Spirit lead you as you are told in Galatians 5:16-25. Your heart will be pure (clean, clear, singularly focused) and you will truly know God and see Him work in your world. Furthermore, your heart will be at peace (whole, complete, bonded together with Jesus) and then you will be able to introduce into any situation the peace that passes all understanding.
This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, August 16, 2026. It is part of a series in a Bible study curriculum called Connect 360, published by the GC2 Press of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The overall title of the current set of lessons, which covers Chapters 5-7 in the Book of Matthew, is Kingdom Power: The Sermon on the Mount. You can find print and digital versions of this series online at https://gc2press.org/kingdom-power-matthew-5-7-digital-study-guide/ . Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com . Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .
Website – FromTheBackPorch.org Facebook – From the Back Porch in Texas
Pip: From The Back Porch, where the big questions get asked in the shade — and this week the question is about as big as a world-ending flood.
Mara: Bob takes us into the Old Testament’s greatest stories, starting with the flood narrative and what it means to call something a myth without meaning it isn’t true.
Pip: Let’s start with the flood, the ark, and a Greek vocabulary lesson that changes everything.
The True Myth of the Great Flood
Mara: The central tension here is a word problem: “myth” in everyday speech means fiction, but the post argues that definition sells the biblical flood story short before the conversation even starts.
Pip: The post draws on two Greek concepts to make that case, and the key move is in John 1:1 — the setup is that the apostle John deliberately enters the mythos-versus-logos debate, and the post quotes him directly: “in the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word (logos) was with God and the Word (logos) was God.”
Mara: So the upshot is that the biblical account isn’t classified as mere story — logos signals verifiable, rational truth, which means the flood narrative gets placed on the truth side of that ancient Greek distinction, not the fable side.
Pip: And that framing does real interpretive work. A myth in the technical sense is simply a story; what makes the biblical version different is the claim that it is the True Myth — the actual account of how the world was cleansed and how salvation entered the picture.
Mara: The post develops this into typology — a type being an Old Testament person, thing, or event divinely established as a foreshadowing of a New Testament reality. The ark becomes a type for Christ, and Peter’s comparison of flood waters to baptism pulls that thread forward into the New Testament.
Pip: The ark as a type for the Cross is the kind of structural reading that makes you see the whole library differently — one story inside another, load-bearing all the way down.
Mara: And the post doesn’t leave it abstract. It closes with Isaiah 43, promising presence through water and fire, and lands on a direct application: localized floods, storms, wildfires — the same God who provided salvation in the Great Flood provides it in the floods of ordinary life.
Pip: Short, grounded, and it earns the final line — “He is still our ark of Salvation” — because the exegesis actually got you there.
Mara: This is the opening lesson in a series on Big Stories from the Old Testament, and it sets the interpretive framework the rest of the series will presumably need.
Pip: One post, one flood, and a Greek word that reframes what truth claims even look like in ancient storytelling.
Mara: The mythos-logos distinction is the kind of conceptual tool that keeps paying out — worth holding onto as the series continues.
Pip: From The Back Porch, where the view stretches all the way back to the colonial era — and apparently the commute to relevance is shorter than you’d think.
Mara: Bob has been teaching a Bible study series on how Christianity and the Great Awakening shaped the founding of the United States, and these posts cover the full arc — from the first colonists arriving with scripture in hand, through revival, and into revolution.
Pip: Let’s start with how faith rose, faded, and came roaring back in colonial America.
Revelry, Rapaciousness, Reason — and Revival
Mara: This segment traces a cycle the colonists lived through — prosperity eroding faith, moral decline following, and then a revival that changed everything. The question is how a society slides from devotion to decay, and what pulls it back.
Pip: The anchor post opens with a line from Cotton Mather that sets the whole argument in motion: “Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”
Mara: That quote is from 1702, and it maps directly onto what the post describes — the more prosperous the colonies became, the more their rapacious desires pushed faith aside in pursuit of wealth.
Pip: So the pattern is: blessings arrive, gratitude fades, greed fills the gap. Mather diagnosed it three centuries ago and the post argues he is still right.
Mara: The earlier post, “Coming to America,” establishes where the faith came from in the first place. Columbus, the Pilgrims, the Puritans — they arrived believing they were doing the will of God, carrying both the Genesis directive to fill the earth and the Great Commission.
Pip: And then, as “The Slow Fade of Faith” documents, the next generation simply did not share their parents’ zeal. The post draws the parallel plainly — September 11 bound Americans together in shared faith, and then, as the threat faded, so did the commitment.
Mara: The post describes that era as offering what it calls “a watered-down faith — a cheap grace if you will,” and argues the early 1700s were as ripe for revival as the early 2000s are now.
Pip: Enter Jonathan Edwards, who apparently had a gift for making grace feel urgent.
Mara: The anchor post describes him as a Jeremiad preacher who brought both the fear of God and the supply of grace freely offered through the love and blood of Jesus. His book, “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God,” became the blueprint used by George Whitefield and others who ignited the Great Awakening.
Pip: And “The Great Awakening” post shows what that ignition produced — a revival running roughly from the 1730s through the 1760s that, beyond saving souls, broke down denominational barriers and fostered what the post calls a democratic spirit that helped pave the philosophical way for the American Revolution.
Mara: Which is exactly where the next segment picks up — what the preachers and founders did with that spirit once it caught fire.
Pulpits, Patriots, and the Sacred Foundation
Mara: By the time of the Revolution, the question was whether the theological energy of the Awakening would translate into political action — and a group of ministers made sure it did.
Pip: Peter Oliver, the last royal Chief Justice of Massachusetts, put it in terms the British understood: “But as little as the red Regiments performed, the black Regiment played its Artillery to some purpose; and The Pulpit — Drum Eccliastick — Was beat with Fist instead of a Stick.”
Mara: That contempt is actually a compliment in disguise. The Black Robed Regiment, as they came to be known, were feared more than the colonial military because they gave the Revolution its moral and theological frame.
Pip: And “Faith of Our Founding Fathers” asks the harder follow-up: what did the men who wrote the founding documents actually believe?
Mara: That post works through the full range — Christian, Deist, Unitarian, Theistic Rationalist — and holds them to scrutiny, as the series puts it, “warts and all.” The goal is not to exalt the founders but to understand how their beliefs shaped what they built.
Pip: The through-line here is that the same cycle — devotion, drift, decay, renewal — keeps recurring, and the posts are asking whether we recognize where we are in it.
Mara: Next time, we’ll see where the series goes from here. There’s still a revolution to finish.
Pip: From The Back Porch, with a view of the Sermon on the Mount — and Bob has been working through it one beatitude at a time.
Mara: This episode covers the whole arc of that study, from the introductory framing of Kingdom living all the way through poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger for righteousness, and mercy. Let’s start with the beatitudes themselves and what they reveal about inner posture.
Beatitudes And Inner Posture
Pip: The Beatitudes are not a to-do list. That’s the frame here — Jesus is describing who Kingdom people are, not handing down a new set of commandments.
Mara: The post on Matthew 5:3 sets the foundation directly: “Only from the depths of our spiritual bankruptcy can we look up to the One Who gives us all of the spiritual resources of the Kingdom.”
Pip: So being poor in spirit is not a deficit to fix — it’s the posture that opens everything. You can’t fill a cup you’re convinced is already full.
Mara: That logic carries straight into The Happy Mourners, which takes up the second beatitude. It makes a pointed distinction: the Christian response to grief is not avoidance or forced cheerfulness. The post puts it plainly — “The difference between Christian grief and worldly grief is not the absence of tears but the presence of hope.”
Pip: Which is a genuinely useful reframe. Grief is not the opposite of faith; it’s woven into the biblical record from David to Jeremiah to Jesus himself.
Mara: Meek, Hungry, and Thirsty covers the third and fourth beatitudes together, and it links them to a shared pressure point — watching injustice in the world and feeling the pull to act. The argument is that meekness is strength held under God’s control, and that hunger for righteousness is blessed precisely because it aligns us with God’s own longing before any human action follows.
Pip: Trust over reaction. That’s a harder ask than it sounds when the news is on.
Mara: For Mercy’s Sake takes the fifth beatitude and digs into the Greek word eleos, tracing how it became layered with the Hebrew chesed — lovingkindness, unfailing love — when the Septuagint was written. The upshot is that the mercy Jesus calls us to show is not a polite courtesy; it carries the full weight of Romans 5:8, God acting toward us while we were still sinners.
Pip: Mercy as a theological posture, not just a temperament. That’s the through-line — each beatitude is less about behavior and more about what you’re oriented toward.
Mara: And that orientation has a starting point, which is where the series itself begins.
Kingdom Living as the Foundation
Pip: Before any individual beatitude, there’s a framing question: what kind of kingdom are we even talking about?
Mara: Kingdom Living, the introductory post, answers that with a striking piece of context: “Of the 162 times the word ‘kingdom’ is used in the New Testament, 150 times it refers to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, etc. — 55 of those 150 are found in the Book of Matthew.”
Pip: Matthew is not incidentally interested in the kingdom. It is the whole gospel message.
Mara: And the post draws a direct parallel — early Christians learning to live as Kingdom citizens under Roman occupation, and readers today navigating a world the text calls controlled by “the prince of the air.” The Sermon on the Mount is the instruction manual either way.
Pip: Spiritual bankruptcy, hope inside grief, strength under control, mercy that costs something — these beatitudes keep pointing inward before they point outward.
Mara: More of the Sermon on the Mount is ahead. There’s still a lot of Matthew 5 through 7 to cover from the back porch.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (Matthew 5:7) Grace and mercy are often confused. One way to express the difference is “grace is getting what you don’t deserve, while mercy is not get getting what you do deserve.” Concise and to the point, but the mercy of God is far greater than a bumper sticker quip.
The Greek word found in the New Testament for mercy is “eleos.” However, when the Septuagint was written (the Greek version of the Old Testament completed sometime around the 1st Century BC) the translators usually used the Greek word “eleos” to translate the Hebrew word “chesed.” The word “chesed” is used 247 times in the Old Testament to refer to lovingkindness, mercy, loving devotion, unfailing love, and grace of God. Because of the use of the Septuagint along with the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the concept of “eleos” became enmeshed with the concept and understanding of “chesed.” (In fact “eleos” covered more than one word connected with mercy.)
The result was that the concept of what Godly mercy was and is became greatly enhanced. In keeping with the teachings of Jesus, who sought to expand the true meaning of the Jewish law – “You have heard it said . . . but I say,” – He expanded the concept of the “chesed” mercy of God to highlight the love of God as seen in Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the ultimate form of chesed – the ultimate form of eleos.
Blessed are those who show that kind of mercy, because God shows them that kind of mercy.
(Transcript)
What we’ve done for the last uh for the first four beatitudes is this. Uh this is kind of a synopsis of each one of the beatitudes. And I’m going to do this each week as we go through these beatitudes. I’m going to give you just a one sentence and each time I’m going to make it a little bit shorter so that I can get it on one page, [laughter] but a one-s sentence statement of what we talk about within that beatitude. The first one, the poor in spirit are fortunate because they know that in their weakness, God’s strength is enough. Those who mourn are fortunate because they receive comfort from the comforter who dwells within. Those who are meek are fortunate and that they don’t have to worry in the face of danger because God takes care of them. And those who long for God’s justice are fortunate because their desires are in harmony with creation’s supreme judge. And today, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. So I must ask you and you tell me, what is mercy?
What? Forgiveness when it’s not due. Forgiveness when it’s not due. What else?
Giving what we don’t deserve.
Unarn grace. Unearned grace. Saving someone from suffering. Saving someone from suffering. By the way, that’s an ER doctor who’s saving someone from suffering right there. [laughter] Okay. Anything else? Okay, I’m going to ask you question because I’ve heard this I’ve heard the term grace used. What’s the difference between grace and mercy?
Grace is just nice. [laughter] It really didn’t deserve it. Okay. Grace is undeserved mercy. Grace is undeserved mercy. Okay. I’m going to give you a definition that I have used in the past. Okay? So, some of you might remember it. I would hope at least one or two of you might remember it. I’m going to give you this definition. However, I’m going to tell you right up here, right up at the front that uh it is a very simplistic definition or statement. Okay? And I hope you realize that by the end of class. What is the difference between grace and mercy? Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Okay, is that fair? Is that fair? And uh like I said, that’s kind of a snapshot. It’s kind of a snapshot of uh grace and mercy. However, I want us to go a little bit deeper. Can I? You ready for the deep end? Okay. as we have done and by the way as we will do as we go through the rest of the biatitudes uh I want you to know what the words are in the original language okay uh in the original written language I’m not giving you the Aramaic which is the language in which they were probably spoken may have been spoken in Hebrew but uh Jesus generally you know that he spoke in Aramaic but this is the Greek this is the Greek for merciful The Greek for mercy. And then a word that is kind of like the the root word for those other two words is elos which means mercy. It’s the noun. Okay. Elon merciful, compassionate. Okay. Adjective. Uh Hebrews, you don’t need to look this one up. I’m gonna ask you to look up some I’m going to ask you to look these up, but you don’t have to look this one up. I’ll just give it to you. For this reason, he that means Jesus, had to be made like them, meaning humans, fully human in every way, in order that he, Jesus, might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. that he might be a merciful high priest. Why would becoming human make him merciful? Experience or more merciful? What? Experience. Experience of what? Temptation. Experience of temptation. He had all power but he would right. So experience of life on a daily with its limitations with its pains with its frustrations with it. Okay. So he it’s content. Yeah. And so he is merciful. He is merciful because he has been there. Right. Elmon. And then
I remember to read from a long way off. I have it written down right here. Why didn’t I look at that? Okay. And that is that is the verb form. The thing that I want you to know about the verb is the same thing that we had to talk about last week when we talked about the word filled. You look at the tense. It is a future indicative passive tense. And what that means is it’s going to happen in the future. Okay? You will receive mercy. The indicative part says you will, you shall, it’s going to happen. You are going to receive mercy. You can’t stop this. The passive part, and this is the beauty of it, you don’t have to do a thing about to get it. It’s passive. It is given to you in this case by God. That’s what the passive tense means. It’s done to you, for you, not by you. Got it? Now, I want you to look at these as I just, you know, [snorts] just I’m going to go through them real fast, but I want you to actually look at them in your Bible if you would. So, look at Ephesians 2:es 4-10.
Ephesians 2:es 4-10. Whoever gets there first, read it out loud. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression. It is by grace we’ve been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. in order that in the coming ages you might show the incomparable riches of his grace. Express in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in his hand for us to do. Now, see, we like to use this to talk about the grace of God, right? Back up to I don’t know whether it’s in verse four or verse five, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy. Do you see it? Do you see it?
That’s that’s the that’s the starting point. God is rich in mercy. And because of that, all of that that follows is ours. Okay. Whoever gets to Matthew 18:33, it’s like Bible drill, right? Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. This is this is the parable of the unmerciful servant. Do you remember this one? Guys, called in to his master. Oh, you know, I I can’t pay. I can’t pay. Okay, then you will be forgiven your debt. go. And then he walks out, finds some guy that owes him something, owes him some a little bit of money. Little bit, little bit. But he says, “Pay up or face the consequences.” I can’t do that. No, no, no. But word gets back [laughter] to the to the original to the original lender, right? The big man. And he said, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant?” So, what does mercy mean there? Not punishing him when you decide deserve to be punished. Okay. Anything else? Having the power to uh punish. Yep. Take it one step further. What do we say about Jesus? Why he was a merciful high priest is because he experienced mercy merc. I mean he he experienced life. That first dude had experienced mercy, right?
He should have shown mercy and and and that’s the way that’s the way it should have worked. Okay. Luke 10 36 and 37. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” Okay, you know what? This is parable of the good Samaritan, right? And and after Jesus tells the story, he asks the legal guy, the legal dude, right? He says, “So, um, who do you think uh who do you think was the guy’s neighbor?” And he said the one who showed him mercy. Now what did mercy mean there? What was the mercy that he showed him? Kindness. Kindness. [clears throat] Compassion. Compassion. Proactive hope. What? Proactive hope. Proactive hope. He was it was action that he was taking not for what he was going to get out of it. the emergency. Do what? The emergency. Yeah, [laughter] that’s exactly right. Unfortunately for you, [laughter] he showed he showed him grace and expected nothing in return. There you go. There you go. Mark 5:9.
Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.”
This is when Jesus showed us what he really thought about pigs. [laughter]
This is that this is that scene when he takes the demon’s postman to a herd of pigs and the pigs go and jump in the water. Remember that, right? This dude is so thankful. He’s saying, “Please, can I go with you? Can I go with you?” But what did Jesus tell him? and said, “No, you can’t go with me, but what do you need to do? I want you to go back and tell the people about the mercy that has been shown to you.”
What was the mercy?
Deliverance. Deliverance. Yeah. But but not just deliverance from a situation in which he was powerless to do anything about it. Right. Oo, mercy. Father, I think this is one of the key ways that we can actually share the gospel. It’s really that simple. Talk about what he specifically did for you. A lot of times we think that we have to have like certain scriptures and it’s by experience, you know, the Lord will will start opening the doors to talk about. I mean, you can word Jesus up in any conversation, right? But but but that’s what I think about is the simple fact that what has he done for you? That’s what these people want to know. Power of testimony, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I should have showed you this, but then y’all wouldn’t have looked it up. [laughter] I’m serious. I started out I mean, I was going to go ahead, but then I said first one to and I thought, no, we’re going to have fun with this. Um so blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy or they shall receive mercy. The first century meaning of the word mercy is couched in the Jewish concept of God’s loving kindness. The Greek word elios and the Hebrew word [snorts] are linked in translation and in cultural thought. Now guys, I’m going to get just a little bit into the weeds, okay? You know, you golfers that carry machetes in your golf bag [laughter] because you’re used to going and chopping your way out of the out of the rough. Well, you know, get your machetes out cuz this is going into the weeds. And if you say, “Wait a minute. Hold it.” That’s fine. The concept of Oh, by the way, I need to teach you how to say that. First off, do this. Yeah. Come on. Come on, work it up. Come on. Just way back there at the back of your throat. Yeah. If if you don’t if you don’t need to spit when you’re done, you didn’t work right. [laughter] Okay. Now say ess. Now say ess. [laughter]
[laughter] Okay. Tessid is is a concept, a Hebrew, a Jewish concept that is pervasive in their understanding of who God is. You if you don’t understand as a Jew, you don’t understand who God is. Are you with me?
Now, an interesting thing happens with the word. It’s used about 250 times in the Old Testament. Okay? It’s translated in the Old Testament as loving kindness, steadfast love, mercy, loving devotion, unfailing love, loyalty, grace. It’s all the way through the Old Testament, and it’s used it pervasively. Okay? But now, here’s the here’s the trick. Here’s the key that uh that I want you to be aware of.
You know that during Bible times, Greek is the language that people wrote in. You know that because I talk about Greek all the time. You know, y’all know that. Y’all have heard every every preacher says, “Okay, Greek, Greek, Greek.” Okay, I’ve already mentioned the fact that Jesus probably spoke Aramaic. He may have spoken Hebrew and I kind of lean toward him speaking quite a bit of Hebrew for this reason. Hebrews pretty much what everybody would know. The Aramaic was the language uh yall know what uh langua frana is? You ever heard that term? Like French language created. Yeah, but it’s not. [laughter] Although if you’re in the Olympics, if you’re in the Olympics, the langua frana is French.
Generally around the world, the langua frana is English
today. It’s It’s not the most prevalent, but it’s the one that more people use when they’re discussing things and they want people in other cultures to understand it. It’s crossover. It’s a crossover language. It’s a crossover language. Langua frank langua frana. Okay. Aramaic was the langua frana of the day. Okay. um
in in uh in in Hebrew in Hebrew is the word but at the same time at the same time the word became important because
you remember me talking about or maybe not me talking about it. But have you ever heard of the Septuagent? The Septuagent is the Greek form of the New of the Old Testament. It was developed in the you know like about 300 BC to about 100 BC or or 50 BC in that time time frame. It was developed by Jewish scholars. There were 70 of them, hence the name Septuagent.
Okay, there were actually 72, but he’s counting. Um, but these 70 Jewish scholars developed a Greek version of the Old Testament. Stay with me. Why Greek? Because everybody’s writing in Greek. Everybody’s using Why are they using Greek? What? Well, not exactly because Aramaic was the language of Hanka, but it was the language of scholars. Why was it the language of scholars? Because it came from Greece. Greece.
Greece. prior to the Romans before the Romans and there was a little brief period in there when the when the Jews themselves had control but the Greeks controlled the territory that we know as Israel. Okay? And so the Greek the Greek culture was developed over a period of a couple of centuries and it was still in existence in the remember we were talking about the Drop Decopolis. The docopolis is 10 cities that are basically Greek in nature, but they’re a part of, you know, as a matter of fact, there’s people from the Dopolis that are listening to Jesus say these words. Okay, told you I was getting in the weeds. So, we have Greek, we have Hebrew, we have Aramaic. Aramaic is generally spoken. Okay. Hebrew. Hebrew is getting down to the business of Judaism. Okay. So, when you’re talking about Jewish things, you’re going to usually be in Hebrew. Greek is what everything is written in. And Matthew wrote this in Greek.
You’ve got three languages converging, right?
is Hebrew. Is also Aramaic.
They share that word. Matter of fact, Aramaic and Hebrew share a lot of words. But but that one in particular when they were translating from Hebrew into Greek the Old Testament in the Septuagent, they needed a word for The word they came up with was alos. The Greek word alos. Hang on. I don’t even know that I wrote this down. I don’t think I did. There’s another word that that’s used much less in the Hebrew
that means um mercy.
was generally in the Old Testament thought of as the nature of who God is, his justice and his mercy in the midst of his justice.
You throw yourself on the mercy of the court, right? You throw yourself on the mercy of the judge, right? Mercy was thought of in those terms. The Rahan was more of a
um kind of a in your gut kind of compassion. It actually can be translated womb or bowels. Okay? It’s from the very seat of your emotions, compassion. Think of it if you want to as a mother’s compassion for her child. That which came from her, she is devoted to beyond measure. Okay? When they were translating into Greek,
they used alos. When they were translating ra they used alos. Are you with me? So what did that do? That took the meaning of those two words. Now rakam was not as prominent as okay but still it’s lumped in with it. And then when you read alos what do you see? All of the compassion of God. all of the nature of God’s compassionate mercy. It goes way beyond anything we can ever understand because we are incapable of that kind of mercy. And yet, what does it say? Blessed are those who are merciful. Let me remind you, and I should have said this earlier. Let me remind you, these biatitudes are not checklists, things that you can check off and say, “I got that one. I got that one. Yeah, there I got that one.” No, it doesn’t work that way. The Holy Spirit is the one who instills in you those characteristics. Poor in spirit, mourn, desire for God’s righteousness. Those things are given to you by the spirit within you. And the same thing is true with mercy. Only God’s mercy within you will do. Only God’s mercy. So hessid is the essence of who God is. Let’s look at this verse. Exodus 34 6 and 7. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in loving devotion and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Notice I have,
but there’s another time I use the word mercif I said the word merciful in the very beginning of that. Do you see it? I didn’t put it because it’s
when they translated this into Greek, they use the Greek word alleos and those other Greek words that you saw before like mononos moness. Those were the words that were used when it’s translating into Greek. You understand now what I’m saying? That concept of mercy is being expanded. It’s being grown. Doesn’t that make sense? Think about it. What was it? What was it that Jesus said about the law? I have not come to abolish the law, but that the law what? Thank you. How many times did he say, “You have heard it said, but I say,” right? You have heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say, right? How many times did he say that? Isn’t that’s what’s happening with the word merciful? You think you know what mercy is, but mercy goes way deeper than anything you’ve ever considered. I’m sure the preschoolers next door really appreciate my doing that. [laughter] Do you understand? This is a picture of who God is. And by the way, that particular phrase is quoted many times. Jonah Jonah quotes it. Jonah Jonah quotes a part of it. Why? Because God says, “I want you to go to Nineveh and preach the word.” And he said, “I don’t like them people. [laughter] I do not like those people. Those nineites are nasty. I do not like them. I will not go. No, I will go get in a boat and go someplace else far, far away.” Right? And when God is saying, “No, you really need to do this.” He said, “No, look, I [laughter] know what’s going to happen. I know what’s going to happen. I know because you are rich in mercy, abounding in loving kindness. He quoted this and he said, “That’s who you are.” By the way, if you want to look at epics, Jonah 4:es 1 and 2. That’s who you are. Jonah says, “And so I can’t do that because you are way too loving.” And what’s going to happen is they’re going to repent. They’re going to turn around and I’m gonna be stuck with these fools.
I’m not gonna have any toys. Yeah. There you go. Now you see if if you were to just think about the people you work with, your family, your friends, your neighbors. Just think about the people, right? If you were to ask them, you don’t need to say this out loud necessarily, but but just think about it. If you were to ask them, Old Testament God, New Testament God, which of those is the God of vengeance? Old Testament, every time. Which is the God that rains down judgment on people? Old Testament. Always. Always. Old Testament. Which one goes to Spity? Old Testament. Oh, great spider. Yeah. No, listen guys. Guys, the fact is the God of the Old Testament is loving just like the God of the New Testament. There ain’t no difference in the God of either one. And as a matter of fact, if you look at the things that Jesus said, were there words of judgment that came out of his mouth?
But people tend to think that mercy that mercy is not not what what God does. No, people tend to think that mercy is just being nice to people,
right? We’re getting in into a lot of trouble with that in our society because people are equating love with approval of what someone is doing. Okay. Jesus wasn’t nice. No. He came to turn people against each other because what he proclaimed was right. Right. Truth. And so people, you know, got all men out of shape because of what he said. Yeah. That’s right. So, you know, even though we kind of think of God as in the New Testament loving God is not, you know, yes, he was loving, he also was very uh you know, I guess he said it like it was very very straightforward. A lot of people really stirred up. Well, and and and and like the rich young ruler, he said, “All you got to do is just sell everything you own.” And the dude turned around and walked off. Jesus didn’t say, “But wait, come back.” No, what I meant was, “No, there was any of that.” Okay. Well, very quickly, let’s finish up Kessid in the Old Testament. Can we do that? Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. Y’all know that song? You know, it’s taken from Psalm 136. Every verse in that psalm, I forget how many verses it has. It’s like I don’t know 30 or 40 verses. Every verse concludes with his love endures forever or his mercy. That word that’s used there is in Psalm 136 is okay. So if you go through and you read Psalm 136, you will see what is. That phrase is his mercy endures forever. That’s found that phrase by itself is found 41 times. And then we’re not talking about just, you know, over and over again in the Old Testament. Not just in verse uh Psalm 136. Isn’t that amazing? His mercy is forever. By the way, next time you hear that song instead of singing his love and endures forever, just say this. His forever track. His forever. I think you got no more ch on the front. Remember? Ready? And his pass is forever. Now, here’s the thing. If you’re in church and they sing that song and you start doing that, just do it. You’re going to get some looks. They’re going to think you’re speaking in tongues or something, but still, you go ahead and you do it and and have fun with it because that’s what they’re actually saying. How about this one? Oh, Psalm 51. You know what was going on in Psalm 51? Let me refresh your memory.
Woo. David has just been told, “You are the man.” You know what that means? Nathan told him said, “You’re the you’re the you’re the dude that killed uh I can’t think of her name’s husband and is now having a baby with her. You’re that man.” And Psalm 51 is his response to that. Psalm 51 is his response to that. And his the beginning of that psalm, I encourage you to read the whole thing. Have mercy upon me, oh God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Notice only loving kindness has said effort. What are those others?
He’s appealing to God’s deepest compassion, right? According to your loving kindness, according to your mercy. Let’s go on one more. Psalm 23. Have you ever heard of the 23rd Psalm? Chessed is in there. Surely goodness and chessed shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I’m going to very quickly go through uh two or three aspects of you’ve already discussed them in in in y earlier when I asked you what is mercy you basically covered these but I want to go over them just to make sure you got it aspects of boundless grace
when a person in power stoops to help those who have no
That’s
okay. Love of covenant loyalty, a relationship of mutual commitment and love and action.
Verse goes with boundless grace. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son. He’s talking about David. God’s talking about David. If he commits iniquity, I will chasen him with the rod of men, but my will never depart away from him. His throne shall be established forever. Wow. The mercy of God is based on the covenantal nature of God. If God enters into a covenant with you, it’s binding. When you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, [clears throat] he cleansed you of all unrighteousness, declared you clean and whole, and you are to this day. It doesn’t change. That’s mercy. Second, boundless grace. Therefore know that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments. It’s not bound by time. It’s not bound by circumstances. It’s not bound by anything. There’s no cost limit. It doesn’t you don’t reach a time and go, you know what? I’ve forgiven you enough. Jesus Jesus said 70 * 7 and by that he meant just keep on forgiving because that’s the way your heavenly father forgives. Okay, he didn’t say that. I added that. But do you understand that’s what that’s what he was saying? And then the last aspect it’s love in action. It’s not emotional. Earlier we talked about this about how it it was action. I mean he did something right? It’s not sentimental. It’s not transactional. In other words, it’s not I’ll do this for you if you do this for me first. No, it’s not like that. It’s love given when the person loved cannot return the favor and the person loved choose the person loving chooses to love anyway. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I used a New Testament passage there because to me that verse is the ultimate picture of God’s essent
father forgive them. They don’t know. They don’t know what they’re doing. Oh mercy, mercy, mercy. So last thought, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. The loving devotion, the of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. We’ve already talked about that. But check out that next part from Lamentations. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin each new morning. Every day you wake up, it’s out of God’s mercy that you’re drawing breath. It’s out of God’s mercy that you can stand. It’s out of God’s mercy that you can go forth and show mercy through his spirit within you. It’s out of his mercy that you can do those things.
Great is thy faithfulness, oh God, my father. There is no shadow of turning [singing] with thee. You’re welcome to sing along if you want to. Thou changest not. Thy compassions, they fail now. As thou [singing] hast been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning my morning, new mercies I see. [singing] All I have needed, thy hand have proided.
Great is thy faithfulness
unto me. And Father, because of your greatness, because of your mercy, oh Father, we can face a new day. we can face all the trials. And Father, in light of what you have done for us, help us always to show mercy to those around us. You have blessed us with your mercy. May we bless others with your mercy by your spirit within us. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. [music]
This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, August 9, 2026. It is part of a series in a Bible study curriculum called Connect 360, published by the GC2 Press of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The overall title of the current set of lessons, which covers Chapters 5-7 in the Book of Matthew, is Kingdom Power: The Sermon on the Mount. You can find print and digital versions of this series online at https://gc2press.org/kingdom-power-matthew-5-7-digital-study-guide/ . Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com . Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .
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The two beatitudes for this session involve meekness and hunger for righteousness. They both include our response to the wickedness of the world around us. We are constantly bombarded with the evil actions of people around the world and in our own backyard. We see it on the news, at work, at school, in our politics, and in our churches. Our initial response might be anger, disgust, frustration, or any number of emotional reactions. However, at some point we will quite often allow our emotions to move us to taking action – or at least wanting to do so. That’s when the Holy Spirit, if He is allowed to do so in our hearts and minds, will trigger meekness. We exercise God’s strength under His control and we trust Him rather than our own power to act and assert our own will.
Similarly, these scenes of wickedness in our world – these acts of injustice – cause us to hunger for righteousness. Our justice warrior genes are activated and we are ready to go into the moral battlefield with our spiritual guns blazing. However, Jesus says we are blessed when we hunger, not when we act. We are blessed when we thirst for righteousness because it is at that point that we are most in tune with the heart of God who longs for righteousness to prevail. “Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
It all comes down to trust. Can we trust God or do we have to act? Can we trust the Hand of God or do we need to take matters into our own hands? Now and in the Day of the Lord we are more than conquerors not because of our wisdom or morality or strength but through Jesus Christ our Lord
This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, August 2, 2026. It is part of a series in a Bible study curriculum called Connect 360, published by the GC2 Press of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The overall title of the current set of lessons, which covers Chapters 5-7 in the Book of Matthew, is Kingdom Power: The Sermon on the Mount. You can find print and digital versions of this series online at https://gc2press.org/kingdom-power-matthew-5-7-digital-study-guide/ . Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com . Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .
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We spend so much time and so much money trying to avoid physical pain. Likewise, we spend time, money, and sorts of personal resources trying avoid or ease emotional pain. In the Bible mourning was woven into the fabric of life. In fact, the clothes worn were used as visible exclamations of mourning and lament as they were torn apart in the face of deep grief. Biblical characters like David, Jacob, Job, Peter, Mary and Martha, and even Jesus Himself mourned to the point of shedding tears. Mourning is Biblical. There is even an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations written by Jeremiah who was known as the “Weeping Prophet” because of his laments found in the Books of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
So what is the Christian response to mourning? Avoidance? Certainly not. Dismissal, since Christians are always to be joyful? Uh, no. We should mourn properly – first as God mourns. God mourns over the lost condition of mankind. God mourns over thee pain of death. God mourns over hardness of heart. If God mourns over these things and more, so should we. However, God also provides a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the One Who comes along side us in our grief. Furthermore, He gives us hope in the midst of our grief.
The Christian’s response to mourning? First, we don’t grieve as those who don’t know Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14) Second, we come along side those who are grieving with the same hope that we have receive. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) Third, we glorify God through our trust in Him when we face grief.
The difference between Christian grief and worldly grief is not the absence of tears but the presence of hope.
This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, July 26, 2026. It is part of a series in a Bible study curriculum called Connect 360, published by the GC2 Press of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The overall title of the current set of lessons, which covers Chapters 5-7 in the Book of Matthew, is Kingdom Power: The Sermon on the Mount. You can find print and digital versions of this series online at https://gc2press.org/kingdom-power-matthew-5-7-digital-study-guide/ . Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com . Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .
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The Jewish People in the 1st Century faced daily oppression and persecution. The promised deliverer – the Messiah – was prophesied to arrive at this time in history. The hope was that he would throw off the yoke of Roman domination and usher in a new Kingdom, a new restored nation of Israel. Jesus – the Messiah – did indeed come, and He ushered in a new Kingdom. However, The Kingdom He established was far more than any earthly kingdom that the people had imagined. He established the Kingdom of Heaven. He established a spiritual realm in which spiritual realities superseded the oppression and persecution of the earthly world around them.
In the Beatitudes Jesus shows what a subject (a citizen) in that Kingdom was, is, and ever more shall be. He does not give them a list of “Thou Shalts” and “Thou Shalt Nots” as Moses gave the Israelites in the desert. He gives them a picture of who “Kingdom People” are – who they are and what they are as well as where they are and where they are going.
In Matthew 5:3 we read the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Augustine refers to this Beatitude as the foundation for the Kingdom subject. Only from the depths our spiritual bankruptcy can we look up to the One Who gives us all of the spiritual resources of the Kingdom. Thus the truth and beauty of the Beatitude – we are truly blessed, favored, fortunate when we are poor in spirit and realize that spiritually we are powerless and empty because then we can see that all of the Heavenly Realm is accessible. The Heavenly Bank is open for business and all of the spiritual funds you need are available now and forever.
This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, July 19, 2026. It is part of a series in a Bible study curriculum called Connect 360, published by the GC2 Press of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The overall title of the current set of lessons, which covers Chapters 5-7 in the Book of Matthew, is Kingdom Power: The Sermon on the Mount. You can find print and digital versions of this series online at https://gc2press.org/kingdom-power-matthew-5-7-digital-study-guide/ . Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com . Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .
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