Does Meek Mean Weak?

We don’t hear a lot about meekness today. It isn’t celebrated, but it is really important.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5 NKJV). To put it another way, you can be blessed if you’re a meek person. It means that you are no longer inflated with pride. You have seen your real condition, and as a result, you’re meek.

By the way, weakness and meekness are not the same. Let’s say, for example, that you’re a professional boxer. And let’s say that someone is harassing you. But you don’t hit them back, even though you could. You choose not to strike back, even though they’re mistreating you. That is not weakness. That is meekness.

Now let’s say that have no fighting skills at all and someone is harassing you. But you don’t hit back. That’s because you don’t really have a lot of options.

On the other hand, the person who knows how to fight has an option. Even so, they choose not to exercise that option. That is meekness. It means power under constraint.

The word Jesus used here for meek is a Greek term that describes the breaking of a powerful stallion. Have you ever been on a horse that didn’t want to do what you wanted it to? When a horse submits to the rider’s will, that is meekness.

In the same way, when we surrender ourselves to God’s will, we exhibit meekness. How different this is from our culture. In the Bible, the last are first. Giving is receiving. Dying is living. Losing is finding. The least are the greatest. Weakness is strength.

A happy person, therefore, will be a meek person. Seeing ourselves as we really are produces a vital spiritual quality: meekness.