Today’s Reading: Proverbs 28; Proverbs 29; Psalm 60; Romans 16
Scripture: Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet...
Observation: What an amazing verse! Let's examine it piece by piece:
"The God of peace..." Here Paul describes God as one whose very nature is peace, that is, promoting a conflict-free and stress-free existence.
"...will soon crush Satan..." So this God, this peaceful God will do some serious damage and violence against Satan, described as "crushing". (This doesn't sound too peaceful, does it?!)
"...under your feet..." the feet that will actually "crush Satan" are not God's feet, but the feet of God's people. God will use his people to crush Satan. Interesting.
Application: I make three brief applications.
#1 This passage is an example of how easy it is for us to misunderstand the nature of God and what is written about him in the Bible. When we read the "God of peace," we generally take it to mean a nice, easy-to-get-along-with kind of God. But that is clearly not what it means. So the phrase "God of peace" means something very different than what our first impression might be.
#2 For peace to truly exist, evil must be destroyed. And that means conflict and warfare. Warfare is a means to peace. Without warfare there can be no peace. This seems contradictory to us, but that just demonstrates our skewed understanding -- we get it wrong.
#3 God uses people to do his work. He will crush Satan under our feet. I suggest that means we have a part to play. We are not just passively sitting and tapping our toes or shuffling our feet and -- ta-da -- there appears Satan under there. Nope. We will have to be more involved in the warfare. We've got stuff to learn and stuff to do.
Prayer: Lord, show us our part. I truly don't understand all that I need to do to cooperate with your will and plan in this matter. Show your people, and the leaders, how to engage the enemy and defeat him in your strength and power.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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