TFL: “Do You Think I Came To Bring Peace?” ***
- Luke 12:49:
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- 49″I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! 51Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
- What Jesus says here runs contrary to everything else He said or did
- Even complicating things more for us, Paul explains Jesus in terms of peace
- Immediately before He asks this question, Jesus’ preface has to do with fire and baptism.
- Jesus refers to the fact that fire does two things
- Burns – Consumes what is combustible (food, paper)
- Purifies what is not combustible (metal)
- Baptism refers to His resolution to do the will of the Father
- His passion and crucifixion are ultimate display of Him doing the will of the Father
- Analogy: “The lifeboat is no good if the drowning man does not get into it. And no one else can do it for him. He must do it himself.”
- Going back to the question Jesus asks
- Jesus did not mean that His ultimate objective was division, but that the effect of His accomplishment would be division.
- When a life is saved, it changes the dynamic of interpersonal relationships
- Opening of Pilgrim’s progress is an example
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