I recently spent some time studying one of the simplest verses in the New Testament: “blessed are the peacemakers.” There are no tricky words in this verse, no difficult Greek to parse. To be blessed means to be happy or to experience God’s favor; to be a peacemaker is to (wait for it!) make peace. But though the words are simple, the application takes some work. Essentially, Jesus is saying that peace with God leads us to make peace like God. But how do we actually do that?

It strikes me that there are at least three ways that each of us can serve as a peacemaker: we can make peace between God and man; we can make peace between man and man; and we can make peace between church and church.
Peace Between Man and God
Once we come to peace with God we naturally want to see others come to peace with him as well. What we call “evangelism” is simply this—telling others about the good news of the gospel and encouraging them to turn to Christ in repentance and faith—encouraging them to accept God’s terms of peace.
Do you do that? Are you sharing the gospel with other people? And are you asking them, or encouraging them, or pleading with them to turn to Christ? This is a serious and sacred calling God has given us. And I fear that of all Christians, Reformed Christians are among those most likely to neglect this task.
There are so many ways to share the gospel. You can speak to people at work and home and in your neighborhood. You can speak to your Uber driver and hairdresser. You can distribute tracts and Bibles. You can reach into the online communities you are part of. You can participate in formal programs of evangelism. Less important than how you do it is the fact that you do do it.
The peacemaker is the evangelist—the one who longs to see peace between God and man, and the one who then shares the gospel and calls people to it.
Peace Between Man and Man
The second kind of peace we can bring is peace between man and man. Everywhere you go you find people who are in conflict with one another and as a peacemaker you can help bring them to a state of harmony.
While we need to be careful not to involve ourselves in conflicts that are none of our business and conflicts we can really do nothing to help, there are times where we can helpfully intervene in a conflict and assist the two sides in coming to terms with one another. That’s especially true when the conflict is between two Christians and perhaps most important of all when it’s between two members of the same church.
To bring peace between two people doesn’t mean to merely act as appeasers, people who try to paper over conflict without actually resolving it. To be a peacemaker is to bring God’s own truth to bear on a situation of conflict and then to appeal to the different parties to do what God says. This is always the question we need to be asking: What does the Bible say about this, and how am I going to apply those Scriptural truths to this particular situation?
You may come into contact with a husband and wife who are just not getting along, who are always irritated with one another. And they ask you for help. Maybe you can begin by simply opening up Ephesians 5:33 and reading what God says: “Let each one of you (husbands) love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” And beginning right there you can help him think about how to love her and help her think about how to respect him. That may not bring full resolution, but it will at least get the process underway.
You may come into contact with two church members who have had a falling out. Perhaps one has sinned against the other and is denying it. You can speak to the one who has been sinned against and open up Proverbs 19:11 to remind that person, “It is the glory of a man to overlook an offense.” Can you overlook this offense—can you set it aside and continue to relate to that person as if it never happened? If not, then you can take that person to Matthew 18:15 and help him understand the process God gives us to resolve conflict: Go to that person alone, describe the offense, and see if they will ask your forgiveness; if not, take one or two other people and do it again; and if even then they won’t repent, take it to the church.
Of course maybe it’s you who needs to obey God when he says, “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Would it be said of you that you live at peace with everyone?
In these ways and so many others, you can imitate God by serving as a peacemaker. You can bring peace between man and man.
Peace Between Church and Church
And then I think there is also a way in which we together as the members of a local church can bring peace between church and church. It’s a sad fact that churches often end up isolating themselves or becoming suspicious of other congregations. We can even become competitive with one another when it comes to growing our numbers.
There is a sweet ministry of being a church that loves other churches—that makes peace with them and that fosters peace with them. You can read about one of these churches in 1 Thessalonians 4—a church that was commended for its love of other churches. There was no competition and no hard feelings. There was just love—love for other churches that were imperfect but on the same side, imperfect but carrying out the same labor and working toward the same cause. It is a beautiful thing when churches dwell together in love, trust, and unity.
We are called to be peacemakers, not mere peace-lovers or peace-attempters. And yet ultimately we need to acknowledge that the results are not up to us. We must do our utmost to make peace—but we must also then leave the results in the hands of God, trusting that he is wise and good. Sometimes, for his purposes, he will bring full resolution; sometimes, for his purposes, he will not. We can trust him with the results.
Then it’s important that we consider this: If we are called to make peace, why is there so much conflict? Why is there so much conflict even in the church, even between Christians? The simple reason is that we face strong enemies that hate peace and love war. The world around us, our own flesh, and the devil himself are all arrayed against us. They all tend toward the chaos of fighting, not the order of peace. And so we need to pray for peace—pray for peace in our own hearts, pray for peace in the world, pray for peace within the church. And then, having prayed, we need to labor for it. We need to make peace.
So, are you a peacemaker or a troublemaker? Are you a son of God in making peace, or are you a son of the devil in undermining or destroying peace? The clear calling for those who have come to peace with God is to make peace like God. The beautiful calling of the gospel is to imitate God in being one who loves peace, who values peace, and who makes peace.

I’m wondering if I have any readers in Croatia. If I do, and especially if you’re in or near Split, would you mind getting in touch?
Since Eerdmans is offering 80% off the Kindle editions of all of their books, I spent a long time yesterday scouring their rather extensive catalog. I came up with a long list of books that may be of interest.
Westminster Books has some favorite ESV Bible editions discounted up to 63%.

“Our heads may love the psalms from 20,000 feet—the passionate pleading, the glory in God’s grandeur, the praise of his perfect providence. It’s a captivating landscape of raw emotion and spiritual vitality. But our hearts sing plenty of antipsalms.” Pierce explains and provides an example here.

Sarah Walton: “I have been increasingly convicted by my attitude of entitlement and discontentment. Entitlement to health, success, financial relief, and God’s favor in ways that make sense to me. And yet, the truth is, he doesn’t owe me anything. He’s already given me more than I deserve and increasingly, I believe that God is pouring out his favor on me – and most likely you – as he strips away the lesser things that we measure his goodness by and sows in us a deeper, more settled faith that praises him in the darkness and rejoices in what he will do, even when that hope is yet to be realized.”

This is a brief reminder that the things you have don’t actually belong to you and, therefore, must be treated accordingly.

“If we’re to love our enemies, surely we’re to love ‘those’ people at church. Even the ones who drive us crazy. So how can we do that?” Jamie Dunlop offers a few ways.

This is such a sweet celebration of grandparents and grandparenting.

“When we read of ‘people walking in darkness’ or a ‘land of darkness’ it’s not hard to relate. That’s our reality. We feel the burden of the world’s evil daily—injustice, political upheaval, heinous crimes, greed, spite, dishonesty, exploitation, outrage, slander. And that’s all just in the morning’s headlines and a scroll through social media.”

Each of us who is in Christ is tending a little garden in which heavenly seeds have been planted and begun to thrive—seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

The coming of Christ is not only a magnificent spectacle; it is a personal welcome. And the welcome is supremely to himself.
—John Piper

This week the blog is sponsored by Desiring God and the post is written by David Mathis.

Some doomsdayers might say the church has a leadership crisis.
Perhaps a previous generation gave its presidents (and pastors) too much benefit of the doubt. But it that still our temptation today? Our criticisms of recognized leaders, cynicism toward them, conflicts with them, and controversies about them fill our feeds, queues, and real-life conversations. Are we becoming a society of discontents trying to take it to the man?
Whether in the world or in the church, both a fascination with and a negative mood toward our leaders and celebrities (we’re increasingly unable to draw clear lines between them) pervades our age. Many today are confused, and for good reason. Stories of use and abuse abound, and multiply, with the aid of our technologies.
While our list of what to beware grows longer and longer, do we have any corresponding list of (more positively) what to look for, and pray for, in our leaders?

No Confusion from Christ
For Christians, we have our conflicts and controversies to grieve and address, but the risen Christ has not left us to confusion for what to expect, pray for, and hold our leaders to account for. Scripture has a lot to say about our current crisis.
To my count, 1 Timothy 3 provides fifteen requirements for pastor-elders — the lead or teaching office in the church. Another list (again I count fifteen) comes just pages later in Titus 1, with most of them mapping on precisely to the first list. Added to that, we have, among others, 1 Peter 5:1–5; 2 Timothy 2:22–26; Hebrews 13:7 and 17; and the words of Christ in Mark 10:42–45.
Jesus has not left us without clarity.

Paul Really Knew
For more than a decade now, I’ve given unusual time and attention to lingering over the pastor-elder qualifications. Not only am I a pastor seeking to regularly rehearse what Christ requires of me (and grow, with his help, in these graces), but since 2012 I’ve been assigned “the eldership class” at Bethlehem Seminary. This class is typically a cohort of 15–16 seminarians, training to be vocational pastor-elders.
Over time, we’ve found the lists of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 to be worthy of far more than a brief review or a single session of focus. In fact, in seeking to present to the class and explain what Scripture teaches, and what I’ve learned to be significant in pastoral ministry, I’ve found again and again that essentially all the relevant practical issues in preparing for eldership pair with one or more of the traits Paul lists in 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1.
Imagine that. Paul really knew what he was talking about — not just as a list of prerequisites to become an elder but as a catalog of the kind of virtues that elders need day in and day out to be healthy, effective elders in the long haul for the joy of the church.

What Kind of Men?
Semester after semester, we have found much life, much to learn, much to say, much to discuss, and much to apply in these elder qualifications. For one, the graces mentioned here are not devoid of reference elsewhere in Scripture. Rather, in most cases, the Bible, from Old Testament to New, has much to say about these traits.
In studying these traits — and local-church leadership through them — I’ve come to organize the class (and now the book Workers for Your Joy) under three main headings: humbled, whole, and honorable. Or we might say, the devotional life (before God), the private life (before those who know us best), and the public life (before the watching church and world).
My hope is that such a study will be helpful, first and foremost, for current pastor-elders and especially for young men aspiring to the work. Under God, I’d love to see a new generation of pastors rise-and-fall proof their ministries, under God, long before the crises come.
But I also hope that congregants — church members — might enjoy finding new clarity about what they can expect in their pastors and hold them to. What does Christ call Christian leaders to be?
Christ has not left us without clarity. Christian leadership exists for the joy of the church. Such a vision may turn some of our churches upside down, first for pastors and then for the people. That’s the vision I hope to impart, and linger in, in Workers for Your Joy.