Friday, September 18, 2015

Where do you find peace?

Those who talk most about peace are talking about peace in the world, and almost never about peace in the local church. The peace of the kingdom, I am contending, is first and foremost a shalom that marks the kingdom as it is present now—that is, in your local church as it is now. First we are to seek peace in our local fellowship, to end strife and to seek reconciliation with God and with one another, and out of this peace-shaped, kingdom-shaped church we spill over peace into the world. But our tendency today is to politicize peace, to make it about global relations and ethnic strivings, both of which are instinctual desires for anyone who follows Jesus. But I assign these to the expression “good works,” while I assign the peace Jesus talks about to be fundamentally about how members of a local church, or the church universal, live with one another under the King of Peace.— Kingdom Conspiracy, page 171 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Roger Olson is discussing the book now, too. You should definitely read his push-backs against Scot.
</idle musing>

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