Monthly Archives: March 2023

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

Christian Life, ,

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

“Blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9

Matthew 5:9-11

The bookends in these final beatitudes are “Blessed are the peacemakers…” and “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

What are peacemakers?

Firstly, if we look at the ministry of Jesus especially described in Ephesians 2:14-18, making peace and reconciling are the same ideas. He put Himself between the two opposing parties, God and man, and brought them together by paying the debt that man owed God for his sin. Jesus bore the brunt of the enmity between God and man so that He could bring them together in peace.

According to Jesus, there is an irreconcilable rift between people who understand God’s heart and bend all their energies towards living God’s way, and those who are trapped in the world system of greed, selfishness and wickedness. This difference in disposition creates such enmity that those who are righteous are victimised by those who are selfish and greedy. 

Jesus Himself is our prime example. People hated their hearts to be exposed. Jesus said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19-20.

When we take the role of a peacemaker, bringing reconciliation between warring parties, and especially between man and God, we are re-presenting the work of Jesus and revealing our resemblance to God. When we do that, we reflect the disposition of our rabbi, Jesus, who is the Son of God.

If we are persecuted for doing this, strangely enough this will bring us real happiness.  This seems rather contradictory unless we look at the reasoning behind it.

1. It is proof that we understand and are living out God’s kingdom in the world and showing the world what it is like to be a son of God.

2. We are in good company because the prophets were in the same boat.

Secondly, the Hebrew word for peace is shalom which has the connotation of wholeness of body, soul and spirit. We live in a world full of broken people, fractured and wounded by their own behaviour and by the offences caused by others. It is God’s desire to restore broken people to the kind of wholeness where everything in their lives fits together in unity and peace. As we live in the kingdom of God, we are being made whole through the work of the Holy Spirit. Our role as peacemakers is to partner with Him in bringing wholeness to others. In this way we will truly be showing our nature as sons of God.

To work at reconciling people to God, to one another and to themselves will result in shalom, and will bring us true happiness, regardless of the persecution we may experience.

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART,

Christian Life, ,

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

In my previous article, we looked at the meaning of “hungering and thirsting for righteousness”, a yearning to be generous towards others which will mirror God’s generosity towards us which is the first “bookend” of the literary construction called reverse concentric symmetry.

Pure in heart is the other bookend that encloses the idea of being merciful. It is based on the teaching in the Torah about “tamai” and “tahor”, unclean and clean. Sin is not defined as doing bad things; sin is defined as anything that is not perfect which makes a person “tamai”, unclean. Being unclean separated people from the community and demanded sacrifice to restore them to a state of “tahor”, purity. Being “tamai” was very infectious. Anyone touching someone who was tamai became tamai.  Living in a situation like this made them realise how impossible this was. It demanded someone to rescue them from the ceaseless cycle of being tamai.

Jesus came to rescue to world from being in a state of tamai which separated everyone from God. He was the once-for-all sacrifice which made us permanently tahor before God. Everyone Jesus touched became “tahor” instantly, lepers, blind, deaf, lame, and dead people.  Because of Him we are no longer “tamai” because He has made us “tahor” in Him. To be “tahor” means that our vision is cleared of our selfishness and self absorption and we can more clearly see the suffering of those around us. Jesus said “Be perfect (tahor) as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

In Hebrew thinking there was something called “zikkut”. “Zikkut” described a person’s attitude of heart that reached out to help someone in need, not in obedience to a command but just because of the compassion in the person’s heart that moved him to help. The rabbis taught that “zikkut” enabled one to see the face of God – to see, know and experience God in a deeper way than simply by obeying His commandments.

This is what God said to Shallum, king of Judah, who was selfish and greedy, about his father Josiah. “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 22:16.

In the beatitudes Jesus is saying that to desire to be generous to people in need, sharing your resources with them even if your resources are meagre, means that you will always have enough yourself. You will never go hungry if you share with others.  But, more than that, when we have a burning desire to meet the needs of others, beyond our duty, we will truly understand the heart of God and God will take care of every need of ours in response to our self-sacrificing generosity.

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL

Christian Life, ,

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL

“Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” Matthew 5:7

Today we come to the main point in this second trio of beatitudes. Matthew 5:6-8, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy”, is the central thought between the bookends.Being a merciful person is in the middle of being righteous and pure in heart.

In Hebrew culture, firstborns always get justice, second-borns always get mercy. A curse on the second-born father was passed to his firstborn son – e.g. Ham and Canaan, Genesis 9:24, 25. Every firstborn son belonged to God (Exodus 13:2) and had to be redeemed by sacrificing an animal. At the first Passover, God killed the firstborns of Egypt (Exodus 11:5); they got justice for Egypt’s treatment of Israel.

Firstborns got the double portion as a compensation for their responsibilities; firstborns had to take responsibility for the sins of the family; firstborns had to be the judge of the whole family and they had to be the judged of the family; firstborns had to be kinsman redeemer e.g., they had to take over the role of a deceased brother, i.e. marry his widow(s) and produce a son.

John 3:1 – Nicodemus was a Pharisee; Pharisees made up 2% of the population and they were all firstborns. Jesus told Nicodemus he needed to be born again, from firstborn to second-born so that he could be moved from firstborn who got justice to second-born who gets mercy.

We are all in Adam (God’s firstborn) and get justice. Jesus (the second Adam) took the form of man (in Adam the firstborn) so that He could take the justice for Adam’s race in order that we can receive mercy.

All who receive mercy are expected to give mercy (James 2:12-13).Every word from God is to be full of mercy (James 3:17-18). We are to express to the world the heart of God that is full of mercy, full of passionate grief for lost potential.

The whole issue of being merciful is that God Himself in Jesus took on the form of the firstborn (Adam) to take the justice for Adam’s race. Through the miracle of rebirth by the Spirit of God, we become God’s second-born and are therefore eligible for mercy. Since we have received the mercy of God that has cancelled such a huge debt, we are to imitate the character of God (Exodus 33:19) by showing mercy to all people.

Like the wicked servant in Matthew 18:23-35, not to show mercy to those who offend us is to cancel out God’s mercy towards us and place us back in the position of firstborn – justice, not mercy.

We reflect the heart of God by being generous to those who do not deserve it, just as God has been generous to us so that we ourselves will experience God’s generosity to us and that we can truly know Him, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness – Exodus 34:6.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Christian Life, ,

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6

In Matthew 5:6-8, according the literary device we have already explained, called reverse concentric symmetry, the two “bookends” are:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and

            Blessed are the pure in heart…

And the central thought is:

Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy.

What is righteousness? We, from our western perspective, erroneously define sin as doing bad things and righteousness as not doing bad things but in the Old Testament, sin was regarded as anything that did not measure up to God’s perfection. God demanded a sacrifice for everything that was not perfect to make atonement for the “sin”. Hence, for example, childbirth required a sacrifice because the loss of blood made a woman less than perfect. The Apostle Paul, a trained rabbi, wrote, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. The blood of Jesus is the perfect sacrifice of atonement for all sin for all time. 

Righteousness is about living a life characterised by the same disposition as Jesus our rabbi, who mirrored the character of God according to Ex 34:6. Righteousness is both a gift and a lifestyle. The righteous life we live is an expression of the gift God has given. Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to us by faith (Phil 3:9) but it also results in a change of attitude. The natural human disposition is selfishness and greed but the gift of Jesus’ righteousness frees and empowers us to act generously.   Righteousness and generosity (tsadaq and tsadaqah), come from the same Hebrew root. They are two sides of a coin, and are often coupled together in Scripture, e.g., Psalm 37:21, 25, 26. Generosity is righteousness in action, sharing our resources with others.  

Jesus promised that those who yearn to be generous and willingly use their resources to meet others needs, will never go hungry. The word “filled” has to do, not with being filled with righteousness but with satisfying physical hunger.

There is something reciprocal about the way God treats us. Whenever we do something to meet the needs of others, God responds by meeting our needs. This requires faith. Everything we do to make some else’s life better, with humility and meekness, is a seed that produces a harvest of righteousness. All of God’s resources come to us in seed form. To reap a harvest, the seed needs to be sown. God’s resources can all be recycled. When we give to someone in need with a generous heart, we create a current which will always come back to us.

In the world system, people try to find happiness by acquiring things. Because things can only produce temporary pleasure, they have to acquire more things to maintain their pleasure for a while. God’s way of happiness is lasting because it results in a change of heart and disposition that reproduces that character of Jesus.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

Christian Life, ,

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4

In my previous article I explained that Matthew used a Hebrew literary construction called reverse concentric symmetry to record Jesus’ teaching on the Beatitudes. The first three beatitudes in Matthew 4:3-5, deal with the attitude of humility. Verses 3 and 5 form the “bookends” enclosing the middle thought which is blessed are those who mourn.

There are four ways in which Hebrew people expressed mourning.

1. They put on sackcloth – they wore rough and shapeless clothing to denote self-abasement.

2. They sprinkled ashes on their heads – a symbol of humbling themselves to come alongside the person who had suffered a loss. To wear sackcloth and cover oneself with ashes was to identify with and suffer the pain of grief with the person who grieves. It was an act of humbling oneself to bring life to someone else. 

The word “lovingkindness” (God’s covenant love) –  which is the Hebrew word  CHESED, is derived from the word CHESEDAH which is the picture of a mother swan plucking out her own feathers to make a soft nest for her young. The idea is that God creates a soft place for us through His own suffering. As we identify with someone else in their grief, we are creating a soft place for them by suffering with them.

3. They sat shivah – sitting for seven days with someone who was in emotional pain, in silence unless they were spoken to – eg, Job’s friends. The silent support was all that was needed to bring comfort to a grieving person.

4. They tore their garments – which meant exposing themselves for the good of some else.  In the temple, the veil was regarded as God’s clothing, hiding His glory from the general public.  When Jesus died, God tore His clothes to mourn the death of His Son, exposing His glory to bless His people, providing access to His throne and sending the Comforter to bless us.  When God mourned, it comforted everybody.

Blessed are those who mourn would be viewed as someone willing to humble himself to bring comfort to someone else.

The Apostle Paul picked up on this thought in 2 Corinthians 1:3. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

We can summarise Jesus’ words like this:

You will be truly happy when you choose a way of life that is not full of pride and self-promotion. Instead, by humbling yourself and to coming alongside others who mourn through grief or loss, you will discover that God will comfort you in your trouble when you comfort others by your presence and your support. In this way you will find real and lasting happiness where you least expect it.