Our pastor is currently teaching on the Beatitudes, This week the text was Matthew 5:6.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
He made a great point: we hunger and thirst for so many things. Even in our relationship with God, we hunger for blessings, we thirst for great experiences. We want revival. We want emotional stirrings. We want great worship. We want to feel God's presence. We want God's will for our lives to be laid out before us. We want wisdom to make good choices. We want all of our physical needs (and wants) to be met. We are not easily satisfied.
Notice the promise above. The promise is for satisfaction. Now notice who it is directed at: the recipients are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
I'm not sure I've ever really noticed that, as many times as I've read that passage, or fully considered what it means. But as I chew on this, pieces of the puzzle are beginning to click together.
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." - Matthew 6:33
- Charles Spurgeon
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Is the Greek also ambiguous about whether you should want to become righteous or whether you should want to establish righteousness in the world?
Looking at one of those verse-comparison sites, almost all renderings of this verse are very similar - and can be read either way. Two translations I've never heard of resolve the ambiguity, but each in an opposite way:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God's approval. They will be satisfied." - GOD'S WORD® Translation
This sounds like the beatitude is supposed to be about devoutly wishing for personal regeneration. (Also, registered trademark? What?)
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill." - Douay-Rheims Bible
This sounds as is the beatitude is supposed to be about working for a just world.
Greek-readers - does the standard translation, in leaving both readings possible, match an original that can be read both ways, or is one of the two unusual translations closer to the original in choosing a single reading?
Or am I dumb for thinking that this isn't clear?
Great question, dbd - I'm not sure I know.
I do remember our pastor shedding some light on the particular case of the verbs - and I've probably got this backwards, but it had to do with the word being in the accusative case, meaning "all righteousness", versus in the genitive case (again, I may have those backwards), meaning "just some, specific righteousnesses".
Not sure if that just muddies the water.
Greek scholars, please weigh in. Thanks!
I'm no Greek scholar (not any kind of scholar, actually), but in my 30 second explication of that verse, I defined "righteousness" broadly to include justice, healing from brokenness, and things "set to right."
I was framing the beatitudes as kingdom proclamations. Ie. "In the kingdom, those who hunger and thirst for God's restorative presence in their lives and in the earth will be satisfied."
I'm open to correction.
"not any kind of scholar, actually"
Whatevs :-)
When I read "justice, healing from brokenness, and things set to right", I think of righteousness as both being internal (sanctification - hungering and thirsting for a release from our own sin and brokenness - to be set right within) and external (justice and mercy flowing like a river, things on earth as they are in heaven). So not an either/or, but a both/and.
Does that seem right?
Well, it's right in the sense that, yes, that's what I was hoping to convey. A full sense of what the righteousness of God brought in the kingdom and its king Jesus entails (as I see it in the text). Both/and, yes.
But whether that's actually right or not, a "real" scholar could confirm or deny. I mean, I think it's right or I wouldn't believe it. :-)
Oh, and I guess I should mention that I read "righteousness" in that particular verse that way because of the full scope of what Jesus said and did to embody and usher in righteousness in the full testimony of the Gospels. There's personal, corporate, collective, etc etc aspects of kingdom impact.
Both/and, baby. :-)
As Paul says, the gospel bears fruit so that God may be "all in all."
Keener, 169-70: "In this context, hungering for righteousness probably includes yearning for God's justice, for his vindication of the oppressed . . . this context also implies that it includes yearning to do God's will."
Davies/Allison, 453: "The righteousness of 5.6 should probably be construed in terms of the word's usage elsewhere in the sermon on the mount, in 5.10, 20; 6.1, 33. And since in these places we shall find righteousness to be the right conduct required by God, such is probably the meaning here. Particularly weighty is 5.10: 'Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake'. Righteousness cannot, in this verse, have anything to do with divine vindication, nor can it mean justification or be God's gift. It is, rather, something disciples have, and they are persecuted because of it. Hence it is recognizable behavior of some sort."
Man, that's timely. I just finished our series on the kingdom last night at Element, preaching on the Beatitudes (and the Lord's Prayer).
Good stuff here.
I think the same value recalibration holds true for the oft-cited name-it-claim-it text "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."
I think the missing link there is that when our delight is in the LORD, the desires of our heart change to things other than "stuff."