Of Lions and Lambs: The Call to Meekness in Every Moment
What is the true meaning of Meekness?
Recently, while preparing to continue guiding my students on a long journey through the Sermon on the Mount at the GoodLion School of Discipleship, I hit a roadblock. I had taught this passage before, but something was nagging at me…
Meekness.
It’s one of those words that doesn’t sit well with us today. We don’t celebrate it, and it’s certainly not a quality people post about on social media.
In a world obsessed with power, influence, and control, meek just sounds…weak. Passive. But I knew Jesus wasn’t calling His followers to weakness.
So what did He mean? What did He see in meekness that we are missing?
That’s when I encountered two very different interpretations that sent me on a theological rollercoaster.
The Traditional View: Power Under Control
The first view is the one many of us have heard before — meekness means “power under control.”
The Greek word used here, praus, refers to something strong and powerful that’s been tamed or restrained. It’s like a wild horse that’s been broken, still possessing all of its strength and energy, but now responsive to its rider.
That’s the image many Christians (rightly) attach to meekness: strength held in check.
And it makes sense, especially when we look at the life of Jesus. He had all the power of Heaven at His disposal, but He chose not to use it to crush His enemies. When He stood before Pilate, He didn’t call down legions of angels. When He was nailed to the cross, He didn’t retaliate.
His power was real, but His restraint was even more powerful.
That’s the kind of meekness we admire, right? The strong man who could crush his opponent but chooses not to. The leader who exercises mercy when they could assert dominance. There’s something noble in that picture, and it resonates with the part of us that respects self-control.
I was comfortable with this interpretation.
But then I stumbled across something that challenged my view.
The Marginalized: An Overlooked Interpretation
The Bible Project introduced me to another layer of complexity.1 They pointed out that Jesus didn’t preach in Greek; He most likely preached in Aramaic… and the Aramaic word for meek doesn’t quite match the English view of “a submissive mouse” nor the Greek image of a tamed warhorse.
In fact, it leans more toward describing the lowly — those who are marginalized, unimportant, and passed over by society.
This view sees the meek not as those who have power but choose not to use it, but rather as those who have no power at all!
They are the forgotten ones, the invisible people — the ones who can’t fight back or stand up for themselves because the system has already crushed them.
This makes sense considering the crowd Jesus was speaking to. These were not the influential elite or the political movers and shakers. His audience was filled with fishermen, tax collectors, women, the poor, and the sick — people on the fringes of society. They were not the ones holding back power; they had no power to begin with.
And Jesus looks at them and says, “Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the lowly. Blessed are the forgotten, for you will inherit the earth.”
He was offering them hope — a promise that they, the ones the world ignores, would inherit the earth.
But there’s even more to the picture.
Jesus may have spoken in Aramaic, but He thought in Hebrew. His Scriptures, His imagination, His worldview were all soaked in the language of Torah and Psalms. And the Hebrew word often tied to “meek” is anav (עָנָו), found in
Psalm 37:11:
“The meek shall inherit the land.”
This is no mere linguistic coincidence—it’s the verse Jesus is quoting!
Anav doesn’t just mean “gentle.” It also refers to the afflicted, the oppressed, the ones bowed low not by choice, but by suffering. Think Moses: powerful, but surrendered. Misunderstood, yet faithful. Meek, not weak.
So when Jesus blesses the meek, He’s pulling from this deep stream: those who don’t exalt themselves, but wait on God to lift them up. Whether crushed or restrained, they trust.
That’s who inherits the earth.
The Tension: Two Seemingly Opposing Views
Suddenly, I found myself caught between two interpretations that seemed to be pulling in opposite directions.
On the one hand, there’s the more common view: meekness is strength under control. On the other, there’s the idea that meekness is about being marginalized and powerless. These ideas felt like two opposing roads, but I knew that Jesus doesn’t speak in contradictions.
There had to be a connection. There had to be a way these views harmonized, right?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was on the verge of grasping something important. And then it hit me.
The Centurion’s Story: Power Meets Powerlessness
That’s when I remembered the story of the Roman centurion. You probably know the story — he comes to Jesus, desperate because his servant is dying (Luke 7:1–10). Now, this man is not some nobody. He’s a Roman soldier with authority. He says it himself, “I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes.”
This centurion is not powerless. He has authority. He has influence. Yet, when he approaches Jesus, he comes with humility. He doesn’t demand Jesus’ help. Instead, he says, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof… But say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
Here we see strength under control. The centurion knows he has power in his context, but he also knows that before Jesus, his power means nothing. He doesn’t try to strong arm Jesus into healing his servant. He shows restraint, humility.
But there’s more.
Despite his authority, the centurion is also powerless. His servant is dying, and he knows that all his rank, all his influence, can’t save the one he loves. In that moment, he feels small. Helpless. Unimportant.
And yet, in his powerlessness, he turns to Jesus.
Here’s a man who embodies both sides of the tension.
He is powerful, but he also feels powerless. He shows humility and restraint, but he also recognizes his limitations. He is both the mighty and the lowly.
And that’s when it clicked.
Meekness isn’t just about power or lack of power. It’s about the posture of the heart before God, no matter where you fall on the spectrum.
The Bridge: Meekness as a Posture of the Heart
It is here that two meanings — strength restrained and the powerless discovering their inheritance — converge. My humble theory is that there is divine wisdom in the way our Lord permitted both the original words of Christ and their translations to hold together in a subtle harmony! This very tension invites us to explore the depths of truth more profoundly.
Meekness, in its truest form, isn’t defined by how much power you have. It’s about surrender. It’s the posture of a heart that recognizes that everything — whether strength or weakness — must be laid at the feet of Jesus.
The centurion’s story reveals the essence of meekness. Whether you have power or feel utterly powerless, the call to meekness is the same: Come to Jesus in humility. Surrender your strength, your influence, your status… or, conversely, surrender your self-loathing, self-pity, and despair over your lack of power and status, and recognize that it’s only by His authority that anything can be done!
Meekness also means trusting Jesus when you feel like you have nothing to offer. It’s the widow giving her last coin. It’s the leper calling out to Jesus for healing. It’s the centurion, despite his status, knowing that only Jesus can save.
The Lion and the Lamb
And here’s the stunning part: in Jesus, we see both the Lion and the Lamb.
He is the Lion of Judah, the King who has all power and authority. But He is also the Lamb who was slain, the One who laid down His life in meekness and humility.
In our lives, each of us will face moments where we find ourselves to be lambs, and moments where we find ourselves to be lions. Moments when we lack power, and moments where we wield it. In each moment, the call to Meekness remains.
Meekness is the universal call of King Jesus, a call that shatters both the pride of the strong and the self-pity of the weak.
It says to the centurion and the slave alike, ‘You are not your own.’
It declares that whether you can command legions, or no one at all, whether you are a Lion holding back your roar or a Lamb that cannot roar at all, your place in the Kingdom of Heaven is secured not by what you can do, but by whom you pledge your allegiance to.
In the Kingdom of God, the lion and the lamb lie down together — not in opposition, but in harmony.
The Inheritance of the Meek
The meek have a glorious inheritance coming, a new Heaven and Earth.
But why do the meek inherit the earth?
Because the meek are the ones who have given up the fight to control everything. They are the ones who have surrendered — whether they come with great strength or none at all. The meek inherit the earth because they are the ones who trust God to define their worth, to be their strength, to lift them up.
The centurion learned this. The marginalized in Jesus’ audience learned this. And we are invited to learn it, too.
Whether you feel powerful today or powerless, the invitation is the same: Surrender. Bring your strength — or your weakness — to Jesus and trust that He is enough.
Because in the end, the meek are the ones who know the truth — that everything we have, everything we are, belongs to God. And it’s in that surrender that we find true freedom. We find our inheritance. And we find our place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I’ll end with a powerful quote by A.W. Tozer. In my own life lately, I have grappled with situations that have forced me to take a long, hard look at the call to meekness. This quote blessed me in ways I can’t fully express here, and I hope it leaves a mark on you as well.
“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life.
He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels.
In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own.
Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father.
He is willing to wait for that day. In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him.
The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.”
A.W. Tozer
Solid!
Really good piece. Made me rethink meekness for sure. Never considered the importance of Aramaic in relation to understanding meekness. Thank you