Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: People of Peace
- People of Peace: A person of peace is someone whom God has prepared to hear God’s message through you. God does all the work of preparing that person for your presence in their life. Because of this preparation, these people will like you. They will listen to you. They will serve with you as you live out God’s calling for your life.
The people of peace concept is always very appropriate to study
within the missionary journeys of Paul. There
is something that is absolutely true about Paul. Paul polarizes people. There are always some people in the towns
into which Paul goes that are absolutely drawn to him and beg him to stay with
them and teach them more. However, there
are always also people who want to stone Paul, or arrest Paul, or follow to
whatever town he goes to next and make trouble for him there. Acts seems to tell us that when a person met
Paul they either really liked him or really despised him. Where Paul was, it became very clear very
quickly who was a person of peace and who was not.
I wonder if this is a bad thing.
After all, it happened everywhere Paul went. As we talked about yesterday, Paul was always
challenging people. It would only be
natural for Paul to challenge people into desiring to listen or desiring to get
rid of him.
I can’t also help but wonder how much of this dynamic we see
today. Are the spiritual leaders in our
midst challenging people into greater faith?
Or are the spiritual leaders in our midst about pleasing people and
making them happy? When you go to be
among the believers, are you welcomed into a cozy culture of acceptance or are
you invited into a challenging culture where growth is expected? Are the people of faith around you looking
for people of peace that they can help to shape and grow or are they simply
interested in warm bodies to sit in the pews?
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