Those "He Gets Us" ads are funded by White Christian Nationalists

[WhiskeyGrinder]

48. I'm very familiar with it.

* The Beatitudes stress that people who are suffering will be comforted. It's clear, though, that the comfort is spiritual.
* The "salt and light" part is about making new disciples (salt) and bringing them to Jesus (light).
* The Antithesis broaden and deepen the concept of sin, making it clear that people cannot get to heaven without a savior/redeemer.
* It goes on to say that if they're true disciples, they won't have to worry about their lives and should just continue on preaching.

And all of it, which seems so straightforward, is interpreted in a wide variety of ways. A person could certainly see "blessed are the merciful" as an exhortation to exercise mercy through charity and policymaking; a person can also see it as being "merciful" by standing on a streetcorner and yelling about how to get saved, which some see as the most important work they can do. I've seen the "judge not" at the end to be interpreted as "don't judge unrighteously, but if you see someone going against God's word, go ahead and tell them what they're doing is wrong."

There simply isn't a whole lot of what we would describe as social justice in the gospels. Jesus himself said that he didn't come here to bring peace, but a sword. One interpretation is that he is warring against evil. Another is that he knew his word would divide people who might otherwise work together. It goes on and on.