Peace Work Series

We human beings are not naturally peacemakers. On the contrary: we’re naturally trouble-makers. A few years ago a group of people tried walking across America on a mission of peace. They couldn't get along and divided into two groups by the time they were half way across.

According to the statistics, there have 14,553 known wars from 36 BC to date. Since 1945 there have been over 70 wars and more than 200 significant outbreaks of violence. From 1958 over 100 nations have been involved in one way or another in armed conflict of some kind. In the over 3,100 years of recorded world history, the world has only been at peace 8% of the time, or a total of 286 years, and 8,000 treaties have been made and broken. Someone once said, “Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stops to reload.”

What is peace, anyway?

It’s an extremely important biblical concept. The Hebrew word is “shalom”, and it means far more than the absence of war. It includes righteousness, justice, prosperity, health and wholeness. There are at least 400 direct references to peace in the Bible, and many more indirect references. God is the creator of peace, the giver of peace, in fact the God of peace. [Rom 15:33; 2 Cor 13:11; Phil 4:9].

The garden of Eden was a place of peace at the beginning of creation, but lost it in the Fall. Peace between God and man was destroyed, peace between man and wife was destroyed, peace between humans and creation was destroyed, and peace between brothers was destroyed. Christ restored peace between God and man through His death on the cross. And at the real end of history, not the one proclaimed by historian Fukuyama back in the 90’s, peace in all its other dimensions will be restored at last when we are ruled by the “Prince of peace.”

Peace grows where God rules.

The reason there is so little peace in the world is because of sin. You won’t get rid of war by eliminating poverty, or oppression, or ignorance. It’s not that simple. The war in Sudan, they say, was due to oppression of the Christian and animist south from the Muslim government. Well, the South got its independence, and now the southern tribes have been fighting against each other ever since. Sin seeks power over others; sin puts self first; sin is never satisfied. And sin can disguise itself as idealism. The reason communism and socialism are so attractive to so many was because they offer solutions to the enduring human problems of poverty and injustice... and yet what does it lead to? More poverty, and more injustice. Just look at Venezuela.

God’s peace is characterized by both prosperity and justice, but there aren’t any shortcuts. God doesn’t have a “system” like communism that coerces people into peaceful co-existence. As long as our sin natures rule, the inevitable inequalities will cause envy, resentment, jealousy, misunderstanding, accusations and counter-accusations, and eventually open conflict, whether it’s between individuals or between nations. We may think that we can attain peace by having everyone just stop fighting, to compromise, to lay down their arms and join hands - by being nice, in fact, and sharing, just as we were taught to do in kindergarten. Kumbaya, remember? And it’s a start. But it won’t last, because without radical, fundamental changes in values and world view, the peace purchased by coercion and maintained by blue-bereted troops isn’t deep enough, and it isn’t broad enough. It’s a superficial peace that denies the underlying reality. Conflict will always erupt.

God’s peace is not the same as the world’s peace - even though people filled with God’s peace DO bring peace to the world.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”[Jn.14:27] His peace doesn’t involve outward circumstances and doesn’t depend on the United Nations, treaties, truces or arbitration. It is above all else an inward tranquility that manifests itself in complete trust in the love and sovereignty of God. God’s peace “surpasses all understanding.” [Phil.4:7] It comes from His presence in our lives, and our knowledge that God is in control of everything that happens to it. God’s presence in our lives protects us from all of those inward attitudes that lead to wars.

God’s presence protects us from greed. Paul writes to Timothy, “Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” [1 Tim 6:6-9] And the author of Hebrews admonishes, “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” [Heb 13:5]