Upside Down
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (II Thessalonians 1:2 ESV)
Peace
I once worked as a telephone salesman for a janitorial supply company. The company had developed a sales technique in which we pushed one of our products, a spray-on chemical that supposedly bonded with each individual fiber to protect fabric (carpets in particular) from stains. We began by describing a horrid stain event, in which some unprotected material was completely ruined by a series of stains.
We did not always complete a sale. But one customer was memorably annoying, in that he laughed at our danger warnings. He had a frustrating peace with the condition of his customers’ carpet.
Other peoples’ peace can be hard to take, when we do not share their sense of peace.
When Christians began to bring the Good News to the Roman world… a world of chaos, danger, political intrigue, injustice, violence, and fear (although they DID make great roads), Christians’ peace would have stood out.
Their peace in Christ’s sovereignty, peace in God’s grace, peace in the Trinity’s full-orbed salvation, peace in their saviors power, and peace in their future would have been strange, inexplicable, and non-sensible.
And that peace turned the world upside down.
It still does, or can, or would today.
If God’s people, living in Christ, forgot our fears and had peace. If God’s people, living through Christ, forgot our fears and had peace. If God’s people living for Christ, forgot our fears and had peace.