What interests me most first here is the way that we mishear/read it straight away; appropriately dealing with this on Valentine's day highlights the difficulty: what is 'heart' about here?
We modern westerners hear it as 'the emotional centre of our life'. Jesus's Palestinian compatriots almost certainly thought of the heart as the intellectual and willing centre of their lives. This probably means that we should link this saying with the stuff later on in the sermon on the mount about not serving two masters and the eye being 'single'. In other words its probably about giving God a willed and 'intelligent' dedication of ourselves [offering our bodies as living sacrifices? Rm.12.1-2].
I used to have a badge which made me smile. It read: "Blessed are the pure in heart -they have so much more to talk about!"
And I kind of stick by that: except that purity that is meant there is more to do with not being dirty-minded, I think, which is a whole other set of issues.
Less time to blog today so I'll leave it at that.
Crosswalk.com - Matthew 5:8
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