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Christianity Today, September, 2007 |

Reflections

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger

Quotations to stir heart and mind.

Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman | posted 9/10/2007 08:59AM

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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

Related Elsewhere:

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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September 2007, Vol. 51, No. 9

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Scot	Posted: September 11, 2007 10:03 AM

Each of the Beatitudes needs each other and needs Christ. Muslums hunger and thirst for righteousness. So do Hindus, Mormans, Jehova's Whitnesses and the followers of David Koresh. The beauty of the Beatitudes is their collection as a whole and their focus on the need for Christ as a savior. If I may say so, for David Martyn Lloyd-Jones to say that you can be quite certain you are a Christian if this beatitude - on its own - is the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture can be somewhat misleading and eternally dangerous to those counting on their own efforts for salvation.

Hunger versus Self-satisfaction

Posted: September 10, 2007 3:43 PM

Hungering for righteousness is "anticipating" joys of righteousness and the peace it brings to the eyes. Righteousness makes the eyes brighter. Like honey brings sweetness to the hungry mouth so righteousness brings righteousness to the starving soul. But it is also a hunger for the righteousness of our generation. When we are all starving and there is no righteousness among us we all suffer, and our collective starvation makes us all weak and weary. But righteousness is food indeed. Right love; right generosity and right peacemaking all bring happiness to society and our church. But those who are satisfied with their modicum of righteousness in a minimum of affection and adoration for our Lord bring coldness and heartache to churches. No hunger means evil rules and unrighteousness abounds. Lust and desire and greed and hurt will affect churches and fellowship will crumble as more and more people are hurt and wounded and led astray by their insecurities and the insecurities of others.

Eric Magazu

Posted: September 10, 2007 3:01 PM

Matthew 5:6 speaks to man in his natural state, a state in which he is completely outside the righteousness of God, as all men are miserable sinners and all men seek their own self-serving ends. In sum, the hearts of all men have turned away from God. Our Redeemer is teaching us that the best a man can hope to do is to hunger and thrist for righteousness, to yearn to restore himself to God. It is upon this realization that rests the entire foundation of the good news of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, the earnest love of God to restore us to him is made manifest. God so badly wants a relationship with each one of us that, while we are still sinners, He gave up everything for us. Upon the command of the Son of Man, the blind are made to see, the captives are set free, the oppressed set at liberty, and the dead made alive. If we don't see that, in our natural state, we are all of those things--blind, captive, oppressed and dead--then the good news of Jesus Christ is not for us.