Peace. Peaceful. Peacefulness.
Peace is quiet. It is calm. It is serene. It is slow, steady, and unperturbed. Peace is when things are just as they ought to be, set to rights, just so.
In Matthew 5 Jesus says “Blessed are the peace makers for they shall inherit the earth.” Read that again. “Blessed are the peace makers.” This is no blessing for the passive and the calm, it is a blessing for the intentional and the active.
That is because there can be no peace without justice. A peace maker is a justice maker. He is a doer of deeds and a pursuer of a cause, and that cause is the gospel which is the truest peace.
The peace makers will inherit the earth not because they will wait passively and patiently for God’s victory, but because they will further the cause of God’s kingdom. There is no blessing in this verse for the sideline dwellers, the watchers, the waiters, and the water boys.
In fact, being a peacemaker is likely the least peaceful calling. It calls us to the forefront of the advancement of God’s cause. The weak need defending, the poor need serving, the unjust need facing and rebuking, and the gospel needs declaring. And the Bible promises that it is not peace we will get for these actions, but pain and persecution.
And so, “blessed are the peace makers, for they shall inherit the earth.” And they will love it because they sought to make it peaceful.
