'Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?' Jeremiah 23.23-29 Luke 12:49-56 As Christians we live with paradox – we believe after all in God made man ; perhaps the greatest example of a paradox that there is. Jesus talks in our passage from Luke about bringing division – which seems highly paradoxical, as isn’t he the Prince of Peace ? Why would Jesus come to divide households, mothers against daughters and fathers against sons? Surely, we can’t worship a God who proclaims such a message? The reason that Jesus brings division, and that he is labouring to see it completed (‘what stress I am under until it is completed’ ) is because the Word of God is not neutral, bland or irrelevant. As the Living Word our response to Jesus can’t be neutral or bland either. The Word of God is, as the prophet Jeremiah says: ‘ like fire and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces’ Or, ‘ The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edge
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