What is peace?

Submitted by dds (Canada), Dec 5, 2005 at 16:23

As a recent (in the past 7 years or so) convert to Christianity, one of the changes which has come from studying the Bible is in my definition of "peace". Contrary to what a lot of peace "activists" (the rent-a-mobs who come out to rant against "American imperialism" on sunny Saturday afternoons at the Vancouver Art Gallery, e.g.) seem to believe, "peace" does not mean "absence of war".

Rather, if we look through the "historical" part of the Old Testament -- Judges and the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles -- peace refers to the condition in which God's laws are followed. When the kings of Israel and Judah "do well in the sight of the Lord", peace ensues. When they "do evil", their enemies run roughshod over them and there is famine and disease. But the periods of peace do not involve an absence of war. Rather, if attacked, the enemies are crushed, despite often-overwhelming odds.

Biblically, the hand-back of land taken when "the enemies were delivered into the hands" of the Israelis in 1967 runs totally counter to the Word of God. What we are looking at -- and what Israeli politicians are learning and the UN refuses to understand -- is the vast difference between appeasement-and-silence and peace-and-quiet.

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