The seventh beatitude (Matthew 5:9): "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Greek eirēnopoioi — a compound of eirēnē ("peace") and poieō ("to make"). Peacemakers are active, not passive; they make peace, they do not merely keep it or avoid conflict. The background is Hebrew shalom, which denotes integrated wholeness — right relationship with God, self, neighbor, and creation all at once.
The peacemaker is not the peacekeeper. Peacekeepers avoid conflict at any cost; peacemakers enter conflict in order to resolve it. The distinction is vast. Every marriage-counselor, every pastor doing church discipline, every nation's diplomat making a hard peace, every friend who confronts a brother in sin — these are peacemakers. Peacekeeping often preserves false peace by suppressing the truth. Peacemaking speaks the truth in love so that real peace can form. The supreme Peacemaker is Christ, who "made peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20) — a costly peace that required confronting the problem of sin head-on, not papering over it. Those who do peacemaking work after His pattern are called sons of God — not because peacemaking earns sonship, but because it is recognizable family resemblance. The Father makes peace with sinners through the cross; peacemakers do the visible family work. In politics, in marriage, in church, in neighborhoods — the world desperately needs peacemakers. Appeasers are a dime a dozen.