<p>11:5<em> The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up- </em>The teaching of Jesus included frequent quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament. When we go back and read around the contexts of the passages He quoted, it becomes apparent that He very often omits to quote the negative, judgmental, or conditional aspects of the blessings which He quotes. Consider the way He quotes Is. 29:18; 35:5,6 and 61:1 in Mt. 11:5,6. These are all talking about Messianic blessings. But they are embedded amidst warnings of judgment and the conditionality of God&rsquo;s grace. Likewise Luke records how Jesus read from Is. 61:1,2, but He stopped at the very point where Isaiah&rsquo;s message turns from promise to threat. None of this takes away from the terrible reality that future failure is a real possibility, even tomorrow. We can throw it all away. We may do. We have the possibility. And some do. There is an eternity ahead which we may miss. And each one who enters the Kingdom will, humanly speaking, have come pretty close to losing it at various points in his or her mortal life. But the Lord&rsquo;s positivity is a powerful example.</p>
<p><em>And the poor have good tidings preached to them</em>- This was as remarkable and significant as the previous miraculous signs, of the blind seeing etc. There was a deep impression that religion was for the middle class or wealthy. Teachers didn&rsquo;t bother preaching to the poor because there was no possibility of financial support coming from them. Yet the Lord opened His manifesto in the Sermon on the Mount by saying that His message was especially intended for &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; (Mt. 5:3 s.w.). In many Christian circles, the same is true today. Churches need money (or, they think they do), and so their focus is not on taking the Gospel to the poor but rather to the potential tithers. The disciples were amazed that the rich wouldn&rsquo;t be saved (Mt. 19:24,25), so deeply ingrained was this idea that spirituality and wealth were somehow supposed to go together. The Lord was teaching the opposite. There&rsquo;s no doubt that the Gospel is designed for the poor; and that if one were to bring &ldquo;the poor&rdquo;&nbsp;<em>en masse</em>&nbsp;into many churches / ecclesias today, the existing membership would up and go somewhere else. The Spirit was clearly upon the Lord Jesus exactly&nbsp;<em>because</em>&nbsp;He preached the Gospel to the poor (Lk. 4:18). Our preaching attitude to &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; is a reflection of our spirituality. &ldquo;The poor&rdquo; in the immediate context were the disciples, for the Lord had just looked upon them in love and commented: &ldquo;Blessed are you poor&rdquo; (Lk. 6:20). In the response of &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; to Him, the Lord saw a Divine confirmation of His ministry. And it is the same with us. Our ministry is to take the Gospel to the unbelieving poor, and not to get middle class Christian religionists to shift churches and allegiance to our group. James 2:5 is clear that God chooses the poor&nbsp;<em>more than&nbsp;</em>the rich to be heirs of His Kingdom; so in this case, our preaching focus should be specifically towards them.</p>