To be “poor in spirit” is not the same as being economically poor, yet both kinds of poverty matter, and the church must address both. In mentary on Matthew, John Nolland interpreted the phrase like this: “The poor in spirit would be those who sense the burden of their present (impoverished) state and see it in terms of the absence of God; who patiently bear that state, but long for God to act on their behalf and decisively claim them as his people.”

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