tokillthedragon:

“Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” Jordan Peterson says that in the Beatitudes, meek is actually a poor translation, and that the word actually means something like, “Those who have swords but keep them sheathed.” I think the meek are blessed because they reflect God’s merciful nature. If God had no wrath, His forgiveness would have no value. Mercy without justice is not mercy. It is weakness. God sparing Nineveh would’ve been a tacit acceptance of evil had he not been willing to destroy them, but in His mercy He spared the city when it repented. Likewise, God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah if there had been just ten righteous men, but Sodom and Gomorrah did not repent and did not have ten righteous, and that makes the mercy sparing of Nineveh stand out. You cannot have mercy without justice, and perhaps you can’t have true justice without mercy either, but that’s a thought for another time.