Episode 17: The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

Christopher and guest co-host, Shiloh Logan, talk about the third Beatitude on meekness. When we read of Jesus’ temptations after 40 days of fasting and when Satan showed him the whole earth, our typical interpretation is that Jesus recognized and rejected the temptation–from a rather contemporary Lockean standpoint–because the world was already His (because He had already mixed his time and labor in creating the world). Why would Jesus worship Satan to receive something that was already His? Yet Jesus would soon explain that this was not the reason the world was His. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ taught us that the meek inherit the earth. The earth was His, not because He had mixed His time and labor with it, but because He was meek. That is the foundation for our possession and claim on the earth. But what does this mean? What is the connection between meekness and inheriting the earth? Satan’s temptation was to take power and control over the earth, but these are not God’s ways. God’s power and glory are found in His “grace, equity, and truth, full of patience, mercy, and long-suffering, quick to hear the cries of his people and to answer their prayers” (Alma 9:26). This power and glory are not found in control or coercive dominion, but they are found through meekness.