Post 70 of Study: Hebrews 12:14-17

These are hard verses. It reminds me of a holly branch I wanted to detach from its tree the other day. I had no knife or pruning tool with me (I was walking freely; I’ll need to take something next time). It was a thick branch and not breakable, not even bendable. I couldn’t take it home with me. I didn’t want the whole bush, just a two-feet long section. I didn't get to separate it, and it would have withered soon afterward. Detaching a verse from its context is like that.

“Pursue peace with all people,” sounds good. Yes, go along to get along. Don’t make waves. “Don’t let a root of bitterness spring up.” Definitely don’t want that. But just like my short branch, these become just decoration outside of the whole bush, not something with berries to feed the birds or nourish the earth or prevent erosion, the real purposes of a holly berry bush.

After a discourse on chastening, which is no fun for anybody but “yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness,” the writer admonishes us to make a straight path for our feet; engage in proactivity, I might say in the blah blah of today. In doing that, pursue peace. That’s not just going along, not causing problems. Pursuing peace means to be a peacemaker, as the Sermon on the Mount says, although human peace methods may be different. Jesus brings a sword as well as being the Prince of Peace.  A sword of division and dissension because of a different worldview and more, a different approach to humans, one of love.

Not everyone much likes what He has to say, and the same will be true of us. However, there is a way to be an agent of peace even in the midst of presenting a gospel that some will reject, even violently. That is a line we walk, perhaps, but it is not impossible. To pursue peace means actively, not passively. We can’t pursue anything passively.

If there is reconciliation to be made, pursue it. I am pointing at myself, although in some relationships I really don’t know how to achieve the reconciliation; the other person turns away. The verse does not say “achieve peace, or else.” Only to pursue it. Of that I am glad.