What True Well-Being Looks Like

Jesus shows us the way.

I’ve been studying the Sermon on the Mount this year, and among a number of resources, I’ve been reading Jonathan Pennington’s The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing.

I read this gem this morning from that tome —

All of this provides the essential background to understand the occurrences of makarios in the Sermon. In light of the previous discussion of the meaning of asrê and its direct translation into makarios, it becomes clear that something other than a pronouncement of divine blessing is at hand.

Rather, Jesus begins his public ministry by painting a picture of what the state of true God-centered human flourishing looks like. He is making an appeal and casting an inspiring vision, even as the Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah do for what true well-being looks like in God's coming kingdom.

At the same time this is understood in the context of the Greek philosophical tradition with its appeal to flourishing and happiness. As Scot McKnight notes in his discussion of the Beatitudes, "the entire history of the philosophy of the 'good life' and the late modern theory of 'happiness' is at work when one says, 'Blessed are…’

I know it’s likely quite difficult to jump into the midst of an argument like this, but take away this truth about Matthew chapter five through chapter seven: Jesus is painting a picture of what the state of true God-centered human flourishing looks like. Which I think means that the Sermon on the Mount should have a gravitational pull for humanity — especially Christians — greater than the magnitude of the sun on the planets in its orbit.

And what’s just brilliant on Jesus’ part (and this is Pennington’s argument in this section) is that he’s using a word — makarios — that has bound up in it a concept far more complex than our English word “blessed,” a word and attached concepts that had significant implications for how the Greek philosophical tradition understood human flourishing and happiness.

Which means that when Jesus launches his ministry with the manifesto from the mount, he’s engaging an ongoing, extensive, broad, and diverse cultural conversation. He’s teaching spiritually and philosophically. And he’s arguing on their ground, in their terms, as they seek happiness and flourishing.

Huh.

That sounds like a pretty good strategy for our culture.
Today.

24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”

28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 because he was teaching them like one who had authority, and not like their scribes.

(Matthew 7:24-29, Christian Standard Bible)