Blessed Are The Peacemakers
August 26th 2007 13:05
Perhaps one of the few similarities between myself and Samuel L Jackson is that like him, I have a passage from the Bible going around in my head. It's not from the old Testament and I'm not going to shoot someone after I say it but still, it has been in my head for some time now.
"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." It's been bouncing around in my head now for a long time and shows no signs of leaving any time soon. It doesn't just crop up when I might need to remember it. For example, if someone is annoying me and I am about to start on them, but it just simply pops up for pretty much no reason whatsoever when I might not really be doing anything. As annoying as it can be though, I can't help but think it's important.
So I've been thinking about it. Not that I want it to go away, I simply wish to understand better what I think I am being told. What exactly is a peacemaker and what do they do? Well, I guess that part is fairly simple. They make peace. But how? Admittedly, the Bible is not exactly bursting with hints at that point in time, but it does generally hint at the fact that love, forgiveness, tolerance and wisdom are pretty well the means to achieve such a thing.
It's also lead me to be thinking about what it also says about such a person. That they will be called a son of God. Reading the Beattitudes it doesn't say who will call them such. It simply says that this is what they will be called. If a peacemaker is called a son of God by God Himself, it is an interesting theological point. One that I don't have time to cover right now (it would involve alot from the book of Romans and from Karl Barth though, I can hint that much about it). But what if the they in this case is not God but men? What if it is the actual true marking behind how we can truly tell those that are christians is how they make peace? Or whether they do.
I am like many of you, someone that has met irritating christians. Some of them go to my church. I will not say that I have had some of the terrible experiences that you have. I have not been accused of being evil, merely bad tempered. I haven't had the things hurled at me that have been hurled at you. I offer apologies to those that I have offended and for what it is worth, I apologise on behalf of my religion for the people out there that read this and have been hurt. I cannot defend alot of it. I can't and don't want to. Could we call the christians that inflicted these kind of things true christians? Honestly, I don't know. Part of me thinks, no, we can't. That part is quickly argued with and told that it is not for me to judge. The part that says yes is also quickly argued with (I tend to argue with me all the time, it keeps me sharp) and told "well, if they were christians, wouldn't they act like it?". You can see the bind that I am in.
I guess that there should be a point to what I am writing here. Here it is. I am a christian. To quote the late and great St Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
JZ
"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." It's been bouncing around in my head now for a long time and shows no signs of leaving any time soon. It doesn't just crop up when I might need to remember it. For example, if someone is annoying me and I am about to start on them, but it just simply pops up for pretty much no reason whatsoever when I might not really be doing anything. As annoying as it can be though, I can't help but think it's important.
So I've been thinking about it. Not that I want it to go away, I simply wish to understand better what I think I am being told. What exactly is a peacemaker and what do they do? Well, I guess that part is fairly simple. They make peace. But how? Admittedly, the Bible is not exactly bursting with hints at that point in time, but it does generally hint at the fact that love, forgiveness, tolerance and wisdom are pretty well the means to achieve such a thing.
It's also lead me to be thinking about what it also says about such a person. That they will be called a son of God. Reading the Beattitudes it doesn't say who will call them such. It simply says that this is what they will be called. If a peacemaker is called a son of God by God Himself, it is an interesting theological point. One that I don't have time to cover right now (it would involve alot from the book of Romans and from Karl Barth though, I can hint that much about it). But what if the they in this case is not God but men? What if it is the actual true marking behind how we can truly tell those that are christians is how they make peace? Or whether they do.
I am like many of you, someone that has met irritating christians. Some of them go to my church. I will not say that I have had some of the terrible experiences that you have. I have not been accused of being evil, merely bad tempered. I haven't had the things hurled at me that have been hurled at you. I offer apologies to those that I have offended and for what it is worth, I apologise on behalf of my religion for the people out there that read this and have been hurt. I cannot defend alot of it. I can't and don't want to. Could we call the christians that inflicted these kind of things true christians? Honestly, I don't know. Part of me thinks, no, we can't. That part is quickly argued with and told that it is not for me to judge. The part that says yes is also quickly argued with (I tend to argue with me all the time, it keeps me sharp) and told "well, if they were christians, wouldn't they act like it?". You can see the bind that I am in.
I guess that there should be a point to what I am writing here. Here it is. I am a christian. To quote the late and great St Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
JZ
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Comment by Ahmed
techy.Bytes
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Qwerk
Cinema Three
I say they get shot, but who am I to say? (actually I don't
Comment by David
The Catena Aurea (Golden Chain) of St Thomas Aquinas is a good reference regarding your questions. It’s basically a commentary on Sacred Scripture by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church compiled by St Thomas. It has quite a few pages on the Beatitudes. You can find it online through Christian Classics Ethereal Library:
Really Long Link
Ambrose: When you have made your inward parts clean from every spot of sin, that dissentions and contentions may not proceed from your temper, begin peace within yourself, that so you may extend it to others.
Jerome: The peacemakers [margin note: pacifici] are pronounced blessed, they namely who make peace first within their own hearts, then between brethren at variance. For what avails it to make peace between others, while in your own heart are wars of rebellious vices.
Aug., City of God, book 19, ch. 13: Peace is the fixedness of order; by order, I mean an arrangement of things like and unlike giving to each its own place. And as there is no man who would not willingly have joy, so is there no man who would not have peace; since even those who go to war desire nothing more than by war to come to a glorious peace.
Chrys.: Or, if the peacemakers are they who do not contend one with another, but reconcile those that are at strife, they are rightly called the sons of God, seeing this was the chief employment of the Only-begotten Son, to reconcile things separated, to give peace to things at war.
Hilary: The blessedness of the peacemakers is the reward of adoption, “they shall be called the sons of God.” For God is our common parent, and no other way can we pass into His family than by living in brotherly love together.
David ...
Comment by JoshZ
A Simple Christian
The funny thing is that I've met quite a few good American christians.
I think unfortunately, that there are americans who have spoiled it for everyone else. Also, I think that americans do sometimes tend towards the worst of mob mentality. Like everyone else.
JZ
Comment by JoshZ
A Simple Christian
I am going to read what you sent through before I try a full bodied comment.
Back soon.
Always glad to have you visit though.
JZ
Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
My point? I wouldn't stress out too much about dissecting the meaning of that one line (nice though it is).
BTW, I appreciate the fact that you found a way to compare yourself to Sam Jackson. Next thing you know, you'll be ending every sentence with "motherf***er"
Comment by JoshZ
A Simple Christian
I wrote you a post.
JZ
Comment by Anonymous
Winston stated, "If people actually lived their lives according to what Jesus says in the Beatitudes, we'd be screwed." And I agree.
Yes, the Beatitudes are tough words spoken by Jesus and not readily followable. I think they are some of the most difficult for the Christians to follow as they were and remain counter-cultural.
As you implied, many evangelical and pentecostal Christians seem to parrot a theology that is enculturated in American modernity- stressing individualism, nationalism, and capatalism. The tragic result is that we focus on those aspects of the moral teaching that reflect our culture and leave huge chunks of the stuff we find too hard or "impractical".
I concede that not all Scripture is on the same level. There are many statements in the Bible that aren't doctrinal but rather fill out the picture. I don't expect us to be giving these statements any further consideration than is warranted in the context in which they were given. Yet in the Beatitudes we have Jesus speaking plainly and we therefore we need to seriously consider the plain spoken directives of our Saviour.
An interesting side note regarding this passage. Unlike our American brothers and sisters, the Assemblies of God in Australia was for a time a peace church, that is, like the anabaptists, Quakers, etc they believed that Jesus' teaching on peace was best equated with certain forms of pacificism. Sadly now, the AOG is better known through its churches such as Hillsong as the church of choice for middle and upper class neo-conservatives.
Me, I'm with the anabaptists generally. LORD, make me a channel of your peace.
Comment by JoshZ
A Simple Christian
I intend to reply as best I can very soon.
It may become a post.
BTW, do I know you? You managed to name my church.
JZ