Blessed are the ....?

[pgrimes15]

I've been pondering the words of the sermon on the mount "Blessed are the . . . ".

What does "blessed" actually mean. I have searched christian and theology websites and have not found an explanation that does not involve circular reasoning. i.e "Blessed are X means that X is filled with Gods' blessing"

Anyone help me out here? The issue is that this sermon is supposed to be the longest teaching of jesus and contain his greatest wisdoms, but I cannot get past the first line.

Regards.

Grimesy

[Aoi Magi]

blessed = having the grace of god, or garnering the favours from god.

[pgrimes15]

blessed = having the grace of god, or garnering the favours from god.

Thanks for the reply, but haven't you just replaced the word "blessed" with "grace".

For the second part of your reply , what on earth does "garnering the favours" mean? We seem to be further away, not closer to an explanation.

Grimesy

[Aoi Magi]

blessed = having the grace of god, or garnering the favours from god.

Thanks for the reply, but haven't you just replaced the word "blessed" with "grace".

For the second part of your reply , what on earth does "garnering the favours" mean? We seem to be further away, not closer to an explanation.

Grimesy

Not quite! The concept is God controls everything and isn't someone you'd want to piss off. Garnering his favours imply that if he is pleased with you, he'd help you with the problems in your life, prevent bad and harmful occurrences, e.t.c

You can easily imagine why you'd want to be on the good-side or garner favours of your superiors, like your teachers or boss, right? That is the same concept with God.

[robvalue]

Blessed, sin, sacred, spiritual, divine, grace...

All filed under "meaningless".

I suppose blessed means favoured over others, which is something god's quite good at.

[pgrimes15]

Ok magi. Lets forget about the "garnering favours" and stick to the original question.

What does "blessed" mean?

Grimesy

[abaris]

In my opinion, with english not being my first language, it just means X is better than Y. These sermons exist in German too, after all and you can use the same word in entirely secular circumstances. They're derived from religion, of course.

[robvalue]

Yeah. Sometimes blessed is used to mean "happen to be good at/have this good attribute" such as "blessed with good looks" or "blessed with a good singing voice". There's sort of a vague implication that you deserve it, which is why I don't tend to use such language.

It can also mean better in some people's opinion, in some intangible way. Like someone blesses me, or some water. In their mind, I'm now somehow better, or the water is magic. In reality, it means nothing.

[Aoi Magi]

Ok magi. Lets forget about the "garnering favours" and stick to the original question.

What does "blessed" mean?

Grimesy

Are you looking for a replacement word or an explanation? 'Cause "being on the good-side of god and garnering favours" is the explanation of "blessed".

[pgrimes15]

Ok I'll go with it. What are the favours that a blessed person can garner, but are unavailable to a non-blessed person ? How long does this "being on the good side of god" last ?

Grimesy