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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Keeping
Peace With Everyone Paul, in Romans 12:18
says, “if it is at all possible, as far as it depends on you, live at
peace with everyone”. Still Paul says “as far
as it depends on us” we should strive
for peace. In short, we are
to do our best to preserve peace with everyone, knowing it’s not
always possible. Why wasn’t Paul at
peace with everyone, and why are Christians today not always at peace
with everyone? Well, in
Paul’s case, it was the truth of the gospel he preached that caused
the disruption of peace. For
Christians today, a good chunk of the reason for the lack of peace we
experience is due to the way we treat others.
Our lack of peace with others isn’t always because of the
offense of the truth of the gospel.
Some of us can be just as
nasty towards others as we claim others are towards us.
For example, some Christians haven’t always acted very kindly
towards those in the gay and pro abortion community.
This unkindness isn’t doing our best at striving for peace with
these people. If these
people prefer not to be kind to us, which is often the case, that’s
their choice. We are to
choose to be kind to them know matter how unkind they are to us. And,
hopefully this unkindness we experience is due to the offense of
Scripture and not the way we treat them. This being said, we do
not compromise the truth of Scripture to preserve peace. Paul
was a peace loving man but not at the expense of truth.
Study his second letter to the Corinthians and you’ll see that
His love for Jesus and for people was the motivating factor in his life.
He wanted so much to be at peace with others, especially his
brothers in Christ. O I’m sure that some of Paul’s mannerisms
irritated some people, but for the most part it was the truth of
Scripture that brought the separation between Paul and others.
This should be the same with us. Some of our mannerisms may
irritate people as well but the real separation should come over the
truth of Scripture. It’s similar to what I
wrote a couple of weeks ago when I said we are to love people, but not
at the expense of justice.
In like fashion we are also to do our best at keeping the peace
with everyone without compromising the truth. Let
the truth of Scripture that we preach and hopefully live disrupt the
peace and not any carnality that we exhibit to others.
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