Theme of the Week: Receiving and Being a Blessing
Bible Verse: When you enter a house, first say, “Peace to this house.” Luke 10:5
Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-23
Jesus sent his disciples to towns and villages to proclaim the gospel and to push back the darkness. It was an urgent, redemptive mission with a few simple mandates: pray, travel light, eat whatever’s on the menu.
And this: bless heartily. The first words out of a disciple’s lips as he or she enters a home are, “Peace to this house.” The first priority of evangelism is to impart peace, shalom, blessing on the entire household (the word translated house, oikō, implies everything about and within the house).
Jesus speaks of peace as a real thing – something that can rest on the one to whom it is given, or return to the one who gave it. Such peace is more than a vague sentiment. It is more than a platitude. It is more than well-wishing. It is a tangible reality. It is a power loosed. It is a truth embodied.
The word in Greek for peace is irēnē. Its equivalent in Hebrew is shalom. Our English word peace misses the richness and depth of the original. For us, peace simply denotes absence: absence of conflict, absence of strife, absence or worry, absence of threat. But the original – especially shalom – denotes presence: presence of joy, presence of hope, presence of wisdom, presence of God. It’s this idea of presence that Jesus’ followers are empowered to speak and to impart.
Peace to this house.
Speak the word, and something comes into existence that wasn’t there before.
Any man and his family who can speak and impart shalom must themselves live in a household abounding in it. Men, this is mostly your responsibility. You more than anyone else in your household determine the shalom quotient of the place. The depth and vitality and integrity of your relationship with the God of all peace will be the bellwether of your wife’s and children’s experience of peace.
And lead the way as you go forth in the world. As you step into the homes of friends, neighbors, in-laws, strangers, may everything in you and about you speak peace to the house.
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