The Gospel of the Beatitudes

Getting a hold of Dallas Willard's instant classic The Divine Conspiracy is worth it for the chapter on the Beatitudes alone. I refreshed myself with it this morning. Fantastic stuff.

It may not come from Conspiracy (I couldn't find the exact quote in the book), but here's a Willard quote on the Beatitudes seen at The Boar's Head Tavern this week:

The Beatitudes cannot be “good news” if they are understood as a set of “how-to's” for achieving blessedness. They would only amount to a new legalism. They would not serve to throw open the kingdom -- anything but. They would impose a new brand of Phariseeism, a new way of closing the door -- as well as some very gratifying new possibilities for human engineering of righteousness.

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