God’s Favor: Introduction to the Beatitudes

In this foundational introduction to the Beatitudes, Dr. Josh Olds explores how Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount with a shocking reversal of the world’s assumptions about power, success, and blessedness. While ancient and modern cultures often equate blessing with wealth, comfort, influence, and achievement, Jesus begins His kingdom manifesto with a radically countercultural declaration: God’s favor rests upon the lowly, the grieving, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. Drawing on historical Jewish interpretations of “blessedness,” including Rabbi Sirach’s well-known second-century list, Josh demonstrates how Jesus deliberately subverts cultural definitions of the good life by centering God’s kingdom around those who lack earthly status.

Josh traces how Jesus consistently challenges this world’s reward systems—not only in the Beatitudes but throughout Matthew 5–7. Religious rule-keeping, public displays of righteousness, financial prosperity, charismatic leadership, and even successful ministry are exposed as inadequate indicators of divine approval. Instead, the Beatitudes introduce a community shaped by God’s heart for the underdog, the vulnerable, and the spiritually hungry. Josh reframes the Beatitudes’ opening word not as “blessed” in the worldly sense, but as “God’s favor is upon…”—a translation that captures the deeper theological reality. These opening lines function as the preamble to the constitution of God’s kingdom, marking out the kind of people who embody Christ’s character and participate in the Spirit-formed life of the new community Jesus is creating.

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