“And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.”
My Notes
What Does Luke 6:20 Mean?
Luke's version of the Beatitudes opens with a direct, second-person address: "Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God." Not "blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew's version), but simply "blessed be ye poor." Luke's Jesus looks at His disciples—people who were actually poor—and declares them blessed. The poverty is literal, not merely spiritual.
The blessing isn't that poverty is enjoyable or desirable. It's that the kingdom of God belongs to the poor. The present-tense "yours is" (not "will be") means the kingdom is already theirs. Not in the future. Now. The poor possess the kingdom in the present tense, even while they lack everything the world considers necessary for a good life.
Luke's Beatitudes are followed immediately by corresponding woes: "Woe unto you that are rich" (6:24). The blessings and woes create a mirror: what the poor receive, the rich lose. What the hungry will be filled with, the full will hunger for. Luke's Jesus draws the sharpest possible line between the blessed and the cursed—and the line is drawn at the economic boundary.
Reflection Questions
- 1.If Jesus says the poor are blessed, what does that mean for how you evaluate your own financial situation?
- 2.The kingdom belongs to the poor in present tense. How does that change how you view poverty—yours or others'?
- 3.Why might poverty produce the posture that the kingdom requires? What does scarcity teach that abundance can't?
- 4.If 'woe' follows the rich, how do you hold material comfort alongside spiritual alertness?
Devotional
"Blessed be ye poor." Not the poor in spirit. The poor. Jesus looks at actual poor people and says: you're the blessed ones. The kingdom of God is yours. Not will be yours someday. Is yours. Right now.
This is one of the most confrontational things Jesus says. Not because it's harsh—because it overturns everything the world tells you about who's blessed and who's not. The world says the blessed are the comfortable, the wealthy, the secure. Jesus says the blessed are the poor. The world says the rich have arrived. Jesus says woe to the rich. The evaluation is completely inverted.
The present tense—"yours is the kingdom"—means the poor aren't waiting for their blessing. They already have it. Not future tense. Present tense. The kingdom belongs to the poor right now, in their poverty, without the wealth the world says they need to be blessed. The kingdom doesn't require a certain income level. It requires a certain posture—and poverty, however painful, often produces the posture of dependence that the kingdom demands.
If you're poor—genuinely struggling financially, living with scarcity, worried about provision—Jesus says something the world never tells you: you're blessed. Not because poverty is good, but because the kingdom is yours. The very condition that the world pities is the condition Jesus pronounces blessed. Your poverty isn't disqualification. It's the address where the kingdom delivers.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Blessed are ye that hunger now,.... Not only suffer hunger and thirst in a literal sense, in this present life, but who…
See this passage fully illustrated in the sermon on the mount, in Matt. 5–7. Luk 6:21 That hunger now - Matthew has it,…
Blessed be ye poor - See the sermon on the mount paraphrased and explained, Matthew 5 (note), Matthew 6 (note), Matthew…
Here begins a practical discourse of Christ, which is continued to the end of the chapter, most of which is found in the…
20-26. Beatitudes and Woes.
This section of St Luke, from Luk 6:20 to Luk 9:6, resembles in style the great Journey…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture