Daily Manna · Day 41 · February 10
Always Peace
“Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.”
Two days have passed since the argument, and the house still feels like someone holding their breath. Nobody is shouting, but nobody is talking either.
Set that beside the church in Thessalonica around AD 51, which had a real and unpleasant problem. Some members had stopped working. They were living off the others and going around as "busybodies." Paul's instruction is severe: "note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed." Then, because he can see how that might go, he adds right away, "Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." This church is about to go through a very awkward season. Somebody will overreact, and somebody else will be quietly written off for good.
The very next sentence Paul writes is today's verse: "Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means." "Always" means at all times, and "by all means" means in every way, by any road there is. Paul does not pray this over a church that has already made up. Paul prays it over a church he has just told to discipline one of its own members. He knows their peace will have to be given to them, because they cannot produce it themselves, and that it will be given into a room that has not sorted itself out yet.
That is the same room you are in, only smaller, with the dishwasher standing open.
So may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace tonight, in the house as it is right now, without waiting for it to be fixed. May His peace come by whatever road is open. And when it arrives before the apology does, may you welcome it. "The Lord be with you all."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 41 is Learning the Voice (1 Samuel 3:10).