To many Christians, some of the most familiar verses in the New Testament are those known as the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12) and the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13). Mrs. Eddy regarded these as so basic to the teachings of Christ Jesus, and hence to the understanding of Christian Science, that in the Manual of The Mother Church she requires these verses, together with the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:3-17), to be included in the first lessons taught to children in the Christian Science Sunday School. See Man., Art. XX, Sect. 3 .
It wasn't until I began to study the Beatitudes for the purpose of teaching them that I learned to value their message. While I had always loved the weightiness of the Ten Commandments, which hit their mark with unquestionable force, I had never felt a similar effect from the Beatitudes; for me they were just poetically constructed verses—little promises lined up like pretty shells drying on the ledge of a collector's window. However, my whole attitude changed with the study of one key word—"blessed."
The word "blessed" is used in the King James Version of the Bible as the opening word of each of the Beatitudes. An adjective rather than a verb, "blessed" refers here to a condition of being. Scholars who translate the original Greek word makarios as "happy" rather than "blessed" risk losing its original meaning by confusing it with popular beliefs equating happiness with such outward variables as the company we keep, the pleasures we can afford, the job we have. Was the blessedness taught by Jesus equivalent to such materialistic views of happiness?
