Traveling abroad always involves determining if there’s a need for an adapter for the power outlets. However, the truths of Scripture differ in that their application is universal.

I recently began reading Thomas Watson’s wonderful book entitled The Beatitudes notes, where he provides a valuable commentary on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.

The influence of the passage throughout history is well documented. Augustine described the Sermon on the Mount as a perfect standard of the Christian life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic work The Cost of Discipleship was inspired by an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. Even unbelievers, such as Gandhi, were deeply impressed and influenced by the Sermon on the Mount.

One might wonder why Christ began with Poverty of Spirit in His list of eight beatitudes. Watson provides insightful thoughts:

“Poor in spirit signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins, and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and sue wholly to the mercy of God in Christ…Why does Christ here begin with poverty of spirit? Why is this put in the forefront? I answer, Christ does it to show that poverty of spirit is the very basis and foundation of all the other graces which follow. You may as well expect fruit to grow without a root, as the other graces without poverty of spirit. Until a man is poor in spirit, he cannot mourn. Poverty of spirit is like the fire under the still, which makes the water drop from the eyes. When a man sees his own defects and deformities, and looks upon himself as undone—then he mourns after Christ. Until a man is poor in spirit, he cannot ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’. He must first be sensible of need, before he can hunger. Therefore Christ begins with poverty of spirit—because this ushers in all the rest.”

So while the need for power adapters differs from nation to nation, poverty of spirit is the required, universal prerequisite for ushering in other qualities that bring God’s blessing.