Posted on 12/27/2021 3:26:22 AM PST by Kaslin
Few verses are more popular at Christmas than Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward man.” It’s a heart-warming verse that Christmas cards and decorations have simplified, for decades, to mean “Peace on Earth.”
It’s also the one that Linus quoted in A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) in his classic “drop the mic” moment during a speech after Charlie Brown yelled in frustration: “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!” Charlie Brown was decrying Scrooge-like commercialism.
Boy, were those the good old days when that was all we had to worry about.
In our woke world, you don’t think much about commercialism destroying “the true meaning of Christmas” anymore because we’re too busy trying to keep political psychopaths from destroying the whole country. It’s creating an ambient sense of dread – a constant rattling that reminds us that things are way out of whack. We’re feeling like Asaph who wrote in Psalm 82.5: “All the foundations of the earth are unstable.”
When foundations and institutions that we thought were unshakable start to shift too much – and for too long – we instinctively let go of the stuff that’s crumbling to hold on to what’s immoveable.
Peace on Earth – at least the way most have understood it – is one of those crumbling things. Given the times, it rings hollow. And it’s OK to let it go because Jesus never said it. It’s not what the Bible teaches. You don’t have to look it up. Just look at the Earth. The proof’s in the pudding.
The kind of peace Jesus brought was a personal reconciliation between God and man, not necessarily peace between man and man. In fact, because of who Jesus claimed to be – the Christ, the Messiah, the one and only Son of God – it elevated conflict and division to biblical proportions between man and man, man and governments, man and learned culture, and between man and his most intimate relationships: Family. Some men, cultures, governments, and families can be deeply committed to things that are completely false, and they demand that you fall into line. Or else. Love them, then build boundaries. God comes first.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” Jesus said to His disciples as he sent them out as “sheep among wolves” (Matthew 10:34, NIV). “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword [division]. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”
Make no mistake, when you put what was happening in the context of the times, Jesus was history’s greatest Disrupter. He brought deep division in the most intimate of relationships. No one shook the foundation of civilization to its core more deeply than Jesus Christ. Why? Because men had come to believe things, for centuries, that were false. Because He came to tell them the truth – hard truths – to “make the crooked places straight,” as Isaiah foretold. And because He came with the highest authority – Son of the God who created everything.
That didn’t sit well with people.
Jesus never wished for division. Division came because of the way people, groups, religions, and governments responded to what He spent three years telling them. Hard truths. If this man really was God’s Son, as He claimed to be, that shifted authority away from the crooked things they had anchored themselves to for centuries. “Multitudes” followed Jesus. That was threatening. He kept talking anyway.
Jesus threatened the authority of the tyrannical religious leaders of His day. After His crucifixion, His followers threatened the authority of a Roman government that would persecute and kill Christians for over a century after Nero. Today, it threatens the tyrannical authority of Islamist states and groups, some of whom strategically create an atmosphere of extreme fear by killing Christians in the most grotesque ways when people who grew up in strict Muslim cultures convert to Christianity.
And Christianity now threatens the tyrannical authority of groups and governments in America that want to impose abortion, same-sex marriage, gender identity, critical race theory, arbitrary lockdown mandates, and a cornucopia of other legal perversions on all Americans – particularly Christians – regardless of who they ultimately answer to.
One of their tools? Cancel culture. It’s been difficult for me to respect this high-schoolish term; this malignant wart that grew out of social media. What we call cancel culture is really something more deeply inhumane that’s old as dirt. It’s threats, intimidation; it’s creating an atmosphere of fear to force people into violating their deepest convictions. It’s punishment. And it’s getting old.
Christians are peacemakers, but when you all but force them to defy God’s will, you’ve breached sacred territory. Under the cover of equity and civil rights, wokeness pressures Christians to put other things first. Christians are instinctively law-abiding people. But when you force them to obey laws that conflict with God’s immutable laws, don’t be shocked when a more muscular Christianity kicks in.
That doesn’t sit well with some people.
The woke response to people who refuse to violate their consciences is the sticking point. A tyrannical response makes division inevitable. It’s as old as “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This is where Jesus, Earth’s greatest Disrupter, brings the idea of peace into balance: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth? I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
In 2015, the woke crowd even punished Linus, a cartoon figure, when students at W.R. Castle Elementary in Kentucky were prohibited from quoting his biblically based speech in their performance of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Remember that?
“As superintendent of Johnson County Schools,” said Thomas Salyer, “I recognize the significance of Christmas and the traditions and beliefs associated with this holiday. In accordance with federal laws, our programs will follow appropriate regulations.”
Bah!
It took a bill from the Kentucky Senate in 2017 to turn that around but Linus had it exactly right in the cartoon. And if you look closely, Linus drops his trusty security blanket at the moment he quotes the angels urging the shepherds – who were “sore afraid” – to “fear not.”
The Christmas message should remind us to do the same. Drop the fear. Something sacred is being destroyed in America. With all the ruthless loss, suffering, and death that the woke crowd and their protectors have unleashed on good, hard-working, law-abiding people in this country, now is not the time for a misguided, milquetoast, misunderstood peace.
Very good
Check out my tag line.
The first sentence is misquoting Scripture making it altogether meaningless. Honestly, what does good will toward man” even mean? Luke 2:14 says: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.”
So I agree that Jesus never came to bring some false idea of peace as the mistranslated verse intends, but for those of good will, He said in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.”
Bkmk
It depends on the version of Scripture used. A few versions translate it as quoted and the God is love and we’re all His children crowd kind of glommed onto that ecumenical sounding translation.
https://biblehub.com/luke/2-14.htm
They choose to ignore that God is also just and sin will be punished.
Agree to disagree with the author, I asked/accepted Jesus in to my heart when I turned 18. This is my only real true source of - ‘peace, goodwill toward men’
Thank you, Kas… I appreciate that post very much.
They also largely choose to ignore the inspired Greek, which is perhaps the best, and arguably the only, conduit for which we have for getting back to the actual angelic message.
“...and on earth, peace...”
Eph.2: For He (Christ) is our peace...
Rom 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Know Jesus, know peace.
No Jesus, no peace.
Christians are instinctively law-abiding people. But when you force them to obey laws that conflict with God’s immutable laws, don’t be shocked when a more muscular Christianity kicks in.
***Reminds me of Sam Childers, the Machine Gun Preacher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Gun_Preacher
ff
God was saying, there will be peace from God toward men. There are so many small twists in translation of scripture watering down the meaning of what this scripture was conveying to the world.
The second person of the Godhead was coming to set forth God’s plan of salvation. Transforming sinful nature back to a righteous nature as though it were before the fall in the garden for those who believe.
God was actually saying, there will be peace between Me and My creation through the sacrifice I will provide.Jesus, the Lamb of God = The sacrificial lamb.
Jesus, the second Adam = through one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, through Jesus (2nd Adam) creation will be rescued from the curse of sin.
God SO loved (His creation) that He...
Our creator did not and does not want a separation between He and His creation. Agape love.
Anyhoo. Ol scratch has from the beginning twisted God’s word. Stealing souls from God by creating confusion, division, manipulation. The father of lies.
Remember this if nothing else. God created YOU and ME so unique that there will never ever be another YOU or ME. God placed His signature on each and every one of us.
Our DNA, our eyes, fingerprints...all unique and never to be repeated.
I will never love God like you nor will you ever love and relate to God like me. Our own special relationship with the Father. God wants each of us in His family. Receiving His plan of salvation through Jesus transforms your spirit from sinful to righteous just as it was before the curse of sin.
Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth toward men. This IS the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“Peace on Earth – at least the way most have understood it – is one of those crumbling things.”
Everyone understands that it is a Christmas greeting, in keeping withe the angelic announcement of Jesus’s birth.
Refers back, I suppose, to a future time, in Habakkuh 2:14 — “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”
“The proof’s in the pudding.”
That is sloppy. Old English proverb - “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Throughout the Old Testament the Jews tried to reunite with God through a sanctified State. But the State would rise, adopt different pathologies and crumble. Over and over again.
Jesus came into the world and preached that reuniting with God was only possible as an individual striving to meet Him.
This direct relationship with God made it possible for non-Jews to meet God because they no longer had to go through the national of Israel.
Nice post. Merry Christmas!
“Nice post. Merry Christmas”
Original post and comments. Thought provoking and enlightening for me.
It is a correct quote from the KJV. Even the NIV has Dimitar meaning. What version are you quoting?
What the heck is Dimitar? Meant to say similar.
...and the balance of the year to you.
God’s richest blessings to you and yours.
SB
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