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Swords into Plowshares

Star Wars

Eneas De Troya via Compfight

Kelley Nikondeha over at SheLoves wrote a penetrating essay on the work of peace and the prophet’s dreams of replacing the work of war into the work of feeding people. Peace isn’t passive. It’s hard work.

From Kelley’s essay:

Beating swords into plowshares is hard work–hammering, melting, reworking and shaping new tools. Transformation of this magnitude comes with sweat and sustained labor. Moving beyond hostility and hatred produces calloused hands, sore muscles and bone-deep exhaustion. Welders, after all, forge the lasting peace, a signal that maybe we need the work ethic of a tradesman for the task at hand.

But this ancient song is about more than bringing peace. Remember, we see God sorting things out between nations, negotiating the peace. It might be that their response, beating the swords and spears into something more useful, points to how we sustain that peace.

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