Matthew 5:11-12

"'Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Change of address from the general to the specific: talking now to those disciples gathered around him. Those who are 'prophets' -like 'Moses' to Christ as 'God'. This personalises to the disciples the teaching of the last beatitude and so the remarks made at that point apply. My question beyond that though is whether we should see the 'great reward in heaven' as a result of the persecution or the persecution as a sign that they /we have a great reward? The difficulty with the former is that it implies a kind of salvation by works. Or does it? Is is the embryo of Paul's teaching about rewards of gold and precious metals versus straw and hay? If the latter, then it must surely be taken as telling us that our capacity for enjoyment of heaven is increased by faithfulness and perseverance. And against the not unnatural possibility of interpreting persecution as a sign that we're on the wrong track we are reminded of a bunch of figures who were doing God's will but got dumped on for it; the prophets.

This is the same insight as lies behind John's "people loved darkness rather than light' and in fact a part of the teaching about 'original' sin. If humans are naturally good, why do we spend so much time resisting the word and perspective of God in our lives? However, if we are naturally evil, how come we can recognise that there might be an issue? The work of the Holy Spirit? Of course but this isn't dualism; redemption implies also an original goodness as well as, in this case, an 'ab initio' corruption. We need to recapture the sense that original sin actually implies an original goodness and rework our cultural expression of 'good news' in the light of it.

Crosswalk.com - Matthew 5:11-12: