day no. 16,694: a good war is better than a bad peace

"While a good peace is better than a good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the Gospels.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

While no one wants a bad war, too many settle for a bad peace. There are few things worse than fighting over something not worth fighting about, but barely more tolerable is not fighting over something worth fighting about.

Enmity is infused into our story by God. The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent are engaged in inexorable opposition. To pretend otherwise is to prefer bad pace.

Jeremiah 6:14

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace."

Crying, "Peace," can be more violent than a battle cry. It can do more damage and cause more pain. Bad peace cannot heal. It can only let the cancer spread. Declaring peace over the disease in seed form only leads to its spread. Decrying the surgeon does not heal the infection.

1 Thessalonians 5:3

For when they shall say, "Peace and safety;" then sudden destruction cometh upon them

Few things are more dangerous than assuming a safety seal can diffuse a landmine. Calling something safe doesn't make it so. Bad peace assumes that declaring a ceasefire will stop the tanks cresting the horizon from firing. You can lay down your arms, but you can't take their fingers off their triggers.

James 4:1-4

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

There will be fighting. Neither the Spirit nor the flesh can fully get what they want as long as they other is around. Friendship with the world is bad peace. To befriend the world is merely to enlist in its army. Those who defect to the enemy begin pressuring the remaining Christians to do the same. That is because enmity is inescapable.

Better a good war than a bad peace, but best of all will be the good peace provided by Christ after He has destroyed all of His enemies and hands the Kingdom to His Father before polishing off death itself.

1 Corinthians 15:24-26

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.