Jesus Creed

Jesus Creed

A Brother’s Wisdom 61

posted by Scot McKnight | 1:26pm Monday June 1, 2009

JesusJames*.jpgWe didn’t finish this verse last week, so let’s look at it again:

Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

A few translations, including the NASB and ESV, are wooden and clumsy, but this TNIV captures the Greek well (Greek: ?a?p?? de d??a??s???? e? e????? spe??eta? t??? p????s?? e??????).

The truly wise teachers pursue peace in peaceful ways. This is how I would sum up the point of this verse. Again — the wise person, in contrast to those who pursue strife through self-ambition, has the goal of peace and gets there through peaceful means (not violent means).


Some pursue peace — misunderstood as the absence of strife — through
suppression (and they get the absence of strife); some through violence
(and strife goes away); some through manipulation behind the scene (and
they get the absence of strife); and some through deception — and they
get it too. The problem is that peace is not the absence of strife but
the conditions of justice and love. Genuine peace comes only through
God’s genuine approach: peaceful means only permit genuinely peaceful
ends.

This is the same as Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Anger, James told us in James 1:20, does not yield peace or God’s righteousness/justice.

Isaiah 32:17: “The effect of righteousness will be peace,
   and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.”



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Jason

posted June 1, 2009 at 2:45 pm


Great definition of peace – conditions of justice and love. I think that sums up well how God brought about peace (Romans 5:1)…through His justice and love He provided a way for us to have peace with him. How do you balance what God did in terms of the cross with your statement “goal of peace and gets there through peaceful means (not violent means)”. I don’t think people today would label the cross an act of “peaceful means”
Thoughts? Or could you expand on what you mean by “peaceful means”?



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BenB

posted June 1, 2009 at 3:51 pm


Jason,
I agree, and had the same thoughts as I read this post. The cross is not “peaceful” and is most certainly “violent.” I believe this is why there has been so much railing against “Penal Substitution” by those in the POMO and Emerging generation (as Scot discusses in Community Called Atonement).
However, I must say that, for me, it is the WAY in which we view the cross and Christ’s substitution which set the stage for how we develop our thoughts on “violence” and “peace” as they are wrapped up in the cross. Does God demand death in the cross and receive this by the punishment of Jesus on the cross?
Or does God, in the person of Jesus, fully absorb our sin and violence in the cross as an act of self-sacrifice?
The cross is non-violence and peace at it’s greatest. It is the absorption of violence in an act of sacrifice.
God sacrifices himself to our violence and sin. We are the culprits of violence at the cross, not God. God is the perfect example of peace.



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