September 2007

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BLESSED are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6

IF THIS VERSE is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

IT IS THE DESIRE for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

THIS BEATITUDE prompts a look at our heart's desire. What hungers and desires operate within us? Which of them commands our utmost loyalty?
John W. Miller, The Christian Way

IT IS NOT the one who has attained righteousness but the one who hungers for it whom the Beatitudes assert God blesses.
Bonnie B. Thurston, Religious Vows, the Sermon on the Mount, and Christian Living

THUS, because it is commonly thought that the rich are made wealthy through their own greed, Jesus says in effect: "No, it is just the opposite. For it is righteousness that produces true wealth. Thus, so long as you act righteously, you do not fear poverty or tremble at hunger. Rather, those who extort are those who lose all, while one who is in love with righteousness possesses all other goods in safety."
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew

BIBLICAL is more than a private and personal affair; it includes social righteousness as well. …

Thus Christians are committed to hunger for righteousness in the whole human community as something pleasing to a righteous God.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

THE HUNGER for righteousness is the one appetite that Christ blesses—not to covet possessions or achievement or recognition, but to live, through every action and perception, the kingdom of God.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

ONE MIGHT EAT and eat of the superficial, cotton-candy righteousness vended by the professional religious hucksters and never have his hunger assuaged. Or he might drink and drink of their holy water and never have his thirst quenched. But the kingdom righteousness is meat indeed and drink indeed—rich, nourishing, satisfying.
Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Recent Reflections columns on the beatitudes include Blessed Are Those Who Mourn, Poor in Spirit, and Blessed Are the Meek.

"Eat, Drink, and Be Hungry" is an essay on how it was emptiness, not fullness, that Jesus blessed.

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