BibleProject - Peace: Wholeness, Completion, and Flourishing

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Advent E2 — In the second week of Advent, we’re reflecting on peace. The word most often translated as “peace” in the Hebrew Bible is shalom, but its meaning goes far beyond the absence of conflict. Shalom is about wholeness, completeness, and everything being as it should be. It describes uncut stones at an altar, honest weights in the marketplace, integrity of the heart, flourishing relationships, and life lived in harmony with God’s purposes. In this episode, Jon and Tim trace the deep biblical meaning of peace and show how Advent points to the arrival of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who reconciles divided people and makes them one.FULL SHOW NOTESFor chapter-by-chapter notes including summaries, referenced Scriptures, biblical words, and reflection questions, check out the full show notes for this episode.CHAPTERSShalom in Stones, Weights, and Hearts—and Also Fulfillment (00:00–15:15)Shalom as Well-Being and the Prince of Shalom  (15:15–29:21)Jesus, Our Peace (29:21–35:38)Reflections on Peace With Allison (35:38-39:42)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESShalom / Peace: Though not referenced directly in the episode, this 2017 video explores the same biblical word, shalom.Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“Silver N Gold” by  Lofi Sunday & Yoni Charis“Snow Fall” by Lofi Sunday & TBabz “Snowflakes” by AvesBibleProject theme song by TENTS SHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Special thanks to our guest Allison Steyn. Powered and distributed by Simplecast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Tim. Hi, John. Hello. We're working through the four words related to Advent. Yes. Advent's a season of the Christian calendar. Yeah. Where you're anticipating the birth of Jesus.

Yeah. It's a Christian calendar tradition that emerged in the early centuries of the Jesus movement. It was a way of structuring the arc of. your year and your worship patterns, eating patterns, according to the story of Jesus. And begins with these four weeks of... Yeah, it begins with four weeks of Advent. Oh, word Advent means arrival or a coming. Okay.

And it's a period of waiting. And so... The story begins with waiting. Story begins with waiting. Yeah. And the season of Advent for the four weeks leading up to the birth of Jesus, it's about cultivating the virtue of learning how to wait. So week one is typically connected.

to hope, which is we just talked about in the last episode, the generative tension of waiting. Yeah, that's a good summary. And then the key second word is the word peace. Peace. Peace. Yeah. So we're going to ponder the

biblical topic of peace. Okay. So in the Hebrew Bible, the word translated as peace, most consistently, is the Hebrew word shalom. Yeah, shalom. It's probably the Hebrew word that most people who don't No Hebrew?

No. Because it means hello, right? Oh, in contemporary Hebrew, it's what you say when you come up to a person and greet them. Yeah. You say, shalom. Because that's a modern Hebrew thing. That's modern Hebrew thing. Well, but we'll see there's some ancient precedent for it.

So that's a noun, shalom. It's related to a verb at its root, which is shalom. And what would that be in English? If peace is the noun, making peace? Well, or being at peace? Being at peace, to be peace. To be at peace. Be at peace.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it would be there's Shalom, and then there's the state of being shalom. And we're just going to see some examples. Deuteronomy chapter 27. This is Moses talking to Joshua and the Israelites. They're on the east side of the Jordan River, and Moses is going to die, and he knows it. But the people are going to cross the river and go into the land.

And he says, when you cross the land, you're going to come to this spot, and Deuteronomy 27, verse 5, you shall build there at that spot an altar to the Lord your God. An altar of stones, you shall not use an iron tool on them. Don't carve these stones. Yeah, don't carve them. Don't get fancy. Don't make them into nice blocks. And in the background here is ancient, both Egyptian and Kempian.

Canaanite, like, altar styles, which you would make these huge platforms. Okay. By huge, I mean, like, 10 by 15 feet square, big carved rectangle stones. Okay. Actually, there's one, a northern Israel. It's a massive platform, and they've recreated it. These are rectangle stones are probably like four feet by two feet or something like that. These huge rectangle slabs.

And you've got to carve those so that they fit together. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. Okay. Don't do that one.

Yeah. Rather, you shall build the altar for Yahweh, your God, of Shalame stones. Hmm. Natural stones, but Shalame. Shalem stones. Undisturbed. Yeah, there you go. Undisturbed, whole.

Ah. Unedited. Unedited. Yeah. There's something about fullness or natural, complete. You haven't altered them. It's the Shalame stone. Okay.

Yeah, interesting. So let's hold that one, all right. A couple chapters earlier in Deuteronomy 25, Moses is talking to the leaders of Israel saying, hey, when you go in and, you know, you are living in the land, you're going to need to have marketplaces where people are buying and selling and trading stuff, and they would have weights and measures,

you know, like, hey, could I have, like, whatever, 10 grams of some cassia oil or mer or something. Right, and you get a way out 10 grams. Exactly right. So, Deutriami, 2513, don't have in your bag differing weights, one large, one small. In order to be deceptive. Yeah, cheating people.

That's right. Yeah, like, I have a little bag, and it says it has five grams of stones in it. Yeah. And I'll use that on the balance. Right. but actually it has like six grams or three or whatever. Okay.

Don't have a bag of differing weights. Don't have in your house differing measures large and small, once again to like trick people. You shall have a shalame and a just or fair weight, and you shall have a shalame and just measure so that you can live long days in the land. Okay. so just meaning like fair fair in terms of like relational equity okay and then shalem yeah so you could have

maybe like three stones in your bag and be like yeah it makes up five grams or you could just have a shalem weight which is just one one block oh is that what it's referring to shalem a oneness to it yeah if you just have one stone that's three grams how you can alter it exactly yeah yeah so if you have a shalem weighing stone it's like one big complete piece that's what that means here one complete piece yeah a shalame weight and a shalame measure

yeah okay such a rad image you've got the one weight the weight corresponds to the thing that it fairly represents and it's just you don't alter it it's just the one thing yeah yep shalame okay here's a little twist this is a metaphorical

usage of shalame second king's chapter 20 He got a king of Judah in Jerusalem named Hezekiah, he gets really sick. He gets super sick. And so Isaiah, the son of Amoots, the prophet, came to him and said, this is what Yahweh says, man, you better get your house in order

because you're going to die. You're not going to recover. And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and he began praying to Yahweh. saying, Yahweh, please remember how I went about before you in faithfulness and with a Shalame heart. And heart, we're talking about the whole inner life of a person. Yeah, yeah.

It's my inner life, who I am, things I desire. Yeah, purpose, desire, plan, all that. With my heart, I've been Shalim. I mean, that's a really good image of just someone's. inside, unaltered. My whole heart has been devoted to you. Okay. Is the idea underneath here.

I see. A wholeness of heart, a completeness of heart. Okay. That matches a trustworthiness in how I live before you. It's interesting use. Yeah. So we've got a shalaim stone.

It's whole, unaltered, complete. We've got shalame and just. weights and measures, which is a similar kind of a physical description. But then it speaks to integrity. There's something interesting about if you're not altering something, then it is what it is. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yes. That's the through line here.

Okay. Yeah, it's what it's supposed to be. Right. And... Oh, it is what it's supposed to be. It's what it's supposed to be. Yeah. And that can be true of a rock.

It can be true of a measuring stone. It can be true of a human heart, this is Shalem. Okay. So that is for something to exist in a state of Shalom, as these examples. Okay. However, you can use this word Shalame in an active sense, like causing something to be in a state of Shalom. Okay.

And here's some examples of that. Solomon, the last line describing of how his making of the temple of Yahweh, It's famous Solomon's temple. First Kings chapter 9, verse 25. He offered sacrifices three times a year, burnt offerings, fellowship offerings on the altar that he built for Yahweh. He offered incense with it, and so he, and I'm just going to use the English phrase,

Maid Shalem, the house, that is the temple. Okay. This is about the inaugural year of the temple. Is it because there's three big offering periods? Oh, this is the three pilgrimage feasts. Okay. Yeah, Passover, Pentecost, and then. Tzcote.

Tabernacles. Yep. Okay. So, did all three. Mm-hmm. And then he did all the other offerings, too. Mm-hmm. And he did all the incense offerings.

Mm-hmm. So he did all the offerings that were meant to happen in the temple. Yeah, he completed all of them. The whole liturgy, annual liturgy. Mm-hmm. And so he, she lamed the house. Okay. Made complete.

Mm-hmm. Made it enter into a state of Shalom. Hmm. That's to its purpose. If you made something for a purpose, But the thing hasn't done its purpose yet. And you run it through its paces, and you see, like, yep, it can do it, it does do it, it's now complete. Okay, so King James has finished the house.

He finished the house. So does a new American standard finished? New Revise has completed the house. Ooh, NIV, it gets a little fancy. he fulfilled the temple obligations fulfilled because I think what they're noting is that this isn't about like the actual physical material completion that happened earlier in the story this is the moment where he's done now the full annual liturgy and all the rituals in the temple and this is described as him making shalim the house by doing all the things that that the house was designed to be for. Yeah, using the thing for its purpose to make Shalem. Yeah.

There's two examples in Isaiah, chapter 44, where God says that he's announced a plan through his messengers, which I think refers to like the prophets, the biblical prophets. And God's talking about how he keeps his promises, he does what he says he's going to do through the prophets. And so you have this phrase, God is the one who keeps... the word of his servant and who, and here's our word, shelams, the plan of his messengers. So God has servants and messengers that he speaks through, like, I'm going to do this. And then when God brings about in history the things that the prophet said, it's God keeping his word and shalemming the plan.

Yeah, completing. Yeah, complete. Yeah. So there's some plan and it sets out a thing, but yet it's yet to be realized, yet to be fulfilled. Yeah. And so Shalim is the realization of the thing you were pointing at. Oh, here's a great example.

This is in a case law from the laws in the book of Exodus. Let's say you and I are like farmers and we have like two fields that are next to each other. And let's say I'm doing a controlled burn over one of them. my sections of my field and let's say some embers float up over onto your field and this is what says if a fire breaks out and spreads to some thorn bushes or some stacked grain or standing grain and the field is consumed the one who started that fire will surely shillam okay and you would think what's the word we would use here repay Repay?

Provide compensation. Yeah, compensate. Or if you came after me looking for compensation, isn't that there, we would use our word recompense, get recompense. Okay. So the ideal state is for you and I to be cool with each other. It's like neighboring farmers. But you just burnt my field. I know.

Right. So what's interesting is just the mere fact of you and I existing in a state of relational inequality where I did something and now I owe you to make it right just existing in that state is no shalom opposite of shalom

we're not fighting yet it's just that I owe you and I haven't shalamed you yet our relationship isn't whole yes yeah yeah there isn't a completion to our relationship it's fragmented exactly so you can have

a physical object that can be, you know, in a state of being whole or complete. And now here it is with relational fullness as the ideal. So these are our uses of Shalom as a verb. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. The wholeness and the completeness and the authenticity of what the thing is or should be. Yeah.

That's the focus of the word. There's some sense of an ideal. Yeah. There's like what a thing is for. and when it's in that state that's the shalom state and if it is not existing in that state then you need to do some shalaming

to like make it be in that state make the relationship right make the house the temple finally work for the purpose that was purpose to work so you get the idea you have two states of being you could say partial unfulfilled unfair

unequal and then you have the opposite state. Whole, complete, fulfilled, equal. Now you've got Shalame. There you go. So all the way back, Shalom is how you say hello in modern Hebrew. Shalom. Shalom. It's different than hello, which is just like, hi, I'm acknowledging it. It says straight up acknowledgement. You exist.

Yeah. And I exist. Shalom is different. It's different to say shalom. Shalom is, what is this day for? And I hope that's what's happening for you. What do you exist for, my friend? I wish wholeness and completeness upon you.

Shalom. Shalom, yes. That's cool. Yes. So that's modern Hebrew. It seems to derive from an ancient Hebrew turn of phrase. And I'll just show you some examples. So in Book of Genesis, Jacob gives Joseph the special coat.

He has some dreams about ruling the world and his family. And then his brothers hate him. Okay. Some time after all that blows over. kind of. Jacob says to Joseph, hey, you know, your brothers have been out for a while, taking the flock, like on this kind of seasonal migration pattern. I haven't seen him for a while. So he says, Genesis 37, verse 13, hey, aren't your brothers pasturing the flock now in Shkem, near this town? Okay.

Look, I'm going to send you to them, and Joseph said, cool, I'll go. Then he said to him, Yeah, so go see about the shalom of your brothers and about the shalom of the flock and then bring word back to me. And so he sent him out. Okay. See about the shalom of your brothers and of the flock. It's a great turn of phrase.

Yeah. So what he is interested in is, are they safe? Right. Is the flock getting enough? Are they grazing enough each day? Is everyone got enough food? Is there any quarrels with any neighboring shepherd? Is there any wolves around, lions, giving them trouble?

Yeah, so one layer would be about, you know, are they free from danger? Right. Are they free from conflict? But it's more than that. More than that. There's a purpose for this migratory loop that they're going on. Feed the flock, come back healthy. Is that happening?

Yeah, that's right. This is very similar to a moment in the book of Exodus, where after, after Moses has led the Israelites, boy, out of Egypt, through that crazy night at the sea, months through the desert, eating manna and drinking from springs. That was pretty intense season. And they make to Mount Sinai, and who meets him there? His father-in-law, Jethro.

Exodus chapter 18, verse 6. Jethro sent word to Moses saying, it's me, your father-in-law, Jethro. Hey, I'm going to come to you, and I've got, you know, your wife and your two. sons here. So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law. He bowed down, he kissed him, and they asked each other about their shalom. And then they went into the tent to like hang out and have a meal. They asked about their shalom. They asked each other about your shalom. Like, hey, man,

how's your shalom? Isn't that great? Yeah. How's your shalom today? How would we translate that? How are you doing? Yeah, but it's more than how are you doing? How's your shalom? Mm-hmm. Are you fulfilling your life purpose? Tell me about your vocational goals. Yeah, I like just the figure of speech. I'd ask about your shalom. Yeah, how's your shalom doing? By using the word shalom, you're putting the ideal goal as like the measure.

And you're saying like, hey, man, you are made for shalom. How's your shalom today? That's so fascinating. It's asking someone like, are you flourishing? Are you attaining the thing that you know if you're meant for? for how's your shalom doing how's your shalom why i'm laughing no it's cool it's a really cool way to greet someone yeah so let's try and summarize shalom in biblical thought isn't just the absence of some negative state of affairs like conflict yeah or being in danger it is that

but it's also the positive presence of all of these great conditions fulfilling your purpose you have plenty. Yeah. Relationships are complete and whole. There's nothing broken, no unresolved tensions. Mm-hmm. So the presence of the positive is just as important as the absence of the negative. Right. Or almost even more important. It's the focus. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. The focus is on what is the purpose? What is the meaning of this? Are we attaining that? Right. Not are the frustrating things out of the way? That's not the focus. Yes. Okay. So actually here's a great example, Leviticus 26 verse 3. If you all walk in my statutes and keep my commands and do them, I'm going to give you rain in its time. So this is also a group of farmers. So we're describing

an ideal set of conditions for farmers. This isn't someone looking to do a soccer tournament. No. So I'll give you rain in its time. The land will give its produce. The trees of the field will give their fruit. The threshing season will overtake the grape harvest. And the grape harvest will overtake the time for sowing seed. So normally these things that are separate in your calendar, the ground's producing so much. You're going to overflow on each other. Yeah. That's like there's so much to harvest that you're still harvesting in the previous crop or you're starting to plant the next one.

You will eat your food to the fill. You will live securely in the land. I'll give you shalom. So right there, you're just like, wow. That's shalom. That's shalom. but then flip it over. You shall lie down, and there'll be no one who makes you afraid.

I'll remove harmful animals from the land. No sword, that is no invading armies, will pass through your land. I will turn to you and make you fruitful and numerous and keep my covenant with you. So this is a great example. We're the word shalom's at the center of this paragraph. Yeah.

And you go from the presence of all these positive conditions, a short description of the absence of the negative and then you go back to the positive and Shalom is the thing in the center. Yeah. What does it look like for life to be full and complete? And that's what I want to give you. That's Shalom.

Yes. Okay. So there's one prophet among the Hebrew prophets that Shalom vocabulary is just off the charts. And that's the prophet Isaiah. The scrolls of the prophet Isaiah is just packed with Shalom vocabulary. And in fact, one of the most, speaking of Advent, one of the most famous kind of Advent,

scripture readings that gets read in churches and whatever, Christmas plays, is the hope for a new king from the line of David who will fulfill all of the failures of the line of David up to that point. Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 or 7

It's such a cool passage And it's a celebration song And it reads For a child has been born for us And a son Has been given to us Dominion will be on his shoulder That's a cool image

He will bear the weight of rule Yeah, yeah, that's it It's a heavy burden Yeah Being in charge of a bunch of people and their living situation, and it's heavy. It's complicated. So Dominion will be on his shoulder,

and his name will be called, and then he has four names. There's a whole rabbit hole here of like the ancient practice of naming kings and giving them lots of different symbolic names. Oh. These are throne names. Throne names.

I haven't looked this up in a while. My memory from it is that our oldest evidence from it is in Egyptian enthronement ritual text. where the new king would just be given all of these, all these names. So it's probably not like what people called him, you know, walking up in the street or in the court, but it's saying this is who you are, what you're made for, what you're destined for as king. So his name will be called counselor of wonders. It often is translated as wonderful counselor, but counselor, not in terms of like a therapist,

but like a planner, strategist. A strategist of wonders. A strategist whose plans accomplish things that will blow your mind. A counselor of wonders. He's the architect of really amazing plans. Yeah. Yeah, he makes plans, and you've never seen anything like it when they come to pass. That's his first name.

Isn't that a rad name? Yeah. Counselor of wonders. El Gibor, God the mighty warrior. Like, whoa. Yeah, it's a tough name. That's his WWE name. Yeah.

Yeah. This is what the Israelites call God in their song of praise after he rescued them in the night through the sea, defeating Pharaoh. Okay. God defeats the snake, defeats the sea dragon. He's El-Gabor. Yeah. This is the ring, the ring champion, the fighter. Yeah.

Okay. So the king is being called El-Gibor, God, the warrior, meaning that. What this king does for us is God, you know, protecting and finding us. He is also called Father of Perpetual Ongoingness, or translated typically Everlasting Father. Aviyad. Mm-hmm. And this is interesting, but he was also just called a son.

Okay. When we encounter this son, we encounter the father of ongoingness, never stopping this. Perpetually existing father. Yeah. Such a rad image. That's the third name. And then the fourth one is why I'm bringing this up in the first place is

Sarr Shalom, the ruler of Shalom, or the Prince of Peace, is what King James went for. Prince of Peace. That's a nice alliteration, the double P. But Saar just means ruler. It can be used of kings, but can also be used of like the group of leaders that rules right underneath a king. but a ruler of shalom

a ruler of shalom yeah so what's great is it could be referring to his own personal qualities that he has shalom he rules with shalom like King Hezekiah

I've had a Shalame heart so could be he himself is like exists in a shalom state but if he's a ruler then you also hope that he's like sharing the shalom Yeah the dominions on his shoulders his purpose is to bear the way of ruling in such a way

that things are good. The things are good, which it goes on. Verse 7, his dominion, it's the same word as dominion on his shoulder, his dominion will grow continually and there will be shalom with no end. Yeah, completeness with no end. You went to this ruler, and he said,

how's your shalom? You'd be like, hmm, there's no end. Oh, okay. So it could be, when you say the shalom, there's no end. The first thing that I think of is saying it will never stop. Yeah, the shalom will stop. There will be nothing that will ever compromise it, meaning no danger, but also no lack, no inequity. It's just pure shalom all the time.

24-7 shalom. 24-7 shalom. That's the meme. So if you just say, yeah, how are you doing? I'm good. How's your shalom? There's no end. that's great yeah my shalom's rocking yeah so what's cool is in this passage notice how eternity language is also brought or like an everlasting father of ongoingness his dominion will grow just more and more and there's no cutoff point to the shalom that he brings about yeah wow so that's cool emphasis but then also the ambiguity of this phrase ruler of shalom could mean like he

He himself is in a state of Shalom, but the whole point of a ruler is that he brings it about for others, which is what the second use of Shalom in the passage is. So he himself is Shalom, and then he brings about Shalom for others. He'll sit on the throne of David over his kingdom, establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness. Now and forever, he brings about right relationships. It's a rad little picture.

Yeah. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts. will do this. Yeah, you're always passionate to make this happen. Oh, okay. This is really on the heart of God to make this happen. There's a short list of things in the Bible that God's really passionate about and bringing about this state of affairs is one of them.

That's cool. Yeah. It's a Shalom. The ruler of Shalom. Yeah. Prince of Peace has a ring to it. I think that was a good move. Yeah.

Ruler of Shalom. There's a couple of places in the New Testament where Jesus, where one of the apostles picks up this close connection between Jesus and peace. And one of them is in Ephesians, Chapter 2, which is a dense, complex passage. So I'm approaching it with fear and trembling, because there's many rabbit holes that we could fall into. I just want to draw attention to one thing. In Ephesians 2.14, Paul is talking about how non-Israelites and Israelites have been brought together on equal standing, equal status together in the family of God.

And even though those are two groups that typically have been at odds with each other, throughout biblical history and in Paul's time, he said Messiah brought them together. And then Ephesians 2.14, he has this rad little line where he says, he himself is our peace. Jesus. Jesus. Messiah himself is our peace. And the R is Israelite and non-Israelite in the context of the passage.

He is. our peace. He's our peace, Prince of Peace. Yeah. And then it goes on to say he is our peace because he was an Israelite who allowed himself to be killed by Israelites and non-Israelites. He's thinking about the role of the Roman officials and the role of the Israel's priests in executing Jesus. And he says by allowing them to exhaust their own tension and rivalry. Oh. Because it was an uneasy piece that the Sadducees and chief priests were brokering with Pilate and Rome, and it erupted into conflict many times. And so Jesus put himself as the Israelite in between a bunch of Israelites and the Roman officials. He allowed their plans to kill him. And what he says is he, in verse 15, he exhausted the enmity between them.

Enmity meaning hostility. Hostility. Yeah. So that, and he assumes here, the whole backstory, that in his death and resurrection from the dead, that he within himself might create the two into one new human, thus making peace, he says. So it's this dual nature of he is our peace

because he himself is the one standing in the middle of these two warring parties. And then he did something that then accomplished peace. for others so the purpose of humanity is to be one yeah to exist in the right relationships with each other no matter what your ethnic or national heritage or your tribal allegiance any of this stuff yeah there's this kind of oneness to humanity like within our differences we're also then united and that's shalom that's a completeness and jesus is that for us and he's making that happen Oh, yeah. So it's interesting is the king in Isaiah 9, he is just a strategic planner, and he's a great fighter, right? The mighty warrior God. He is Shalom, and he brings about Shalom. But you kind of think of a king like ruling and making decisions and getting forceful when he needs to. In Ephesians, the way that Jesus brings peace is to say, hey, here's you group of people and you group of people. I belong to one of your groups. And you're constantly fighting trying to kill each other

So I'll put myself in the middle And you guys kill me Exhaust yourself on me Kill me instead of each other Because I can do this thing where I can overcome death And then I'll stand there in between you Having faced the exhaustion of your violence And then I'll ask you, how's your shalom?

Then I'll ask you like, yeah, how's your shalom? Come sit at my table and let's eat together and that's the idea of it's what Paul goes on to say he reconciled both groups together so he accomplishes peace not through forceful coercion

yeah but actually letting them exhaust their violence on him and then inviting them to sit at the same table again after he's overcome their violence it's very surprised twist in the story

yeah that's what it means exhausting the end and Matty and his flesh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in his body, in his actual physical flesh body, hanging on the cross, it's like he's taking the violent hostility of both Israelite and the Roman powers. It's a very bold interpretation of the execution of a Jewish prophet peacemaker from the line of David, you know. There were thousands of Jews who were crucified in the reign of Pilate.

Yeah. But this one, Paul says, was divine peace become human to invite these two groups into each other. Peace. Notice also, I guess, the presence. It's both the absence of violence. Like, I'm going to help you stop killing each other. Yeah. But the point is to become one.

To become one. Yeah. That's the shalom. The shalom. The oneness. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That's the good news.

Peace. Yeah. the good news of peace. Yeah, so there you go. There you go. We just took our tour through the concept of Shalom as being a state of fullness, completeness. Metaphorically, literally,

it's the presence of all these positive things that are part of fulfilling someone's purpose, but also the absence of negative things. And then the way Isaiah thinks of a king, being Shalom and bringing Shalom, the Jesus story picks up that, but then with a surprise twist of how Jesus is peace and accomplishes peace through his death and resurrection. There you go. It's like the biblical story in a nutshell using just the word peace as the outline.

Hey, everyone, this is Tyler with the podcast team. And before we go, we'd like to do something a little different today. we're going to hear from one of our own team members about their thoughts on the word peace. I have Allison here in the studio. Allison, would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, this is Allison Stain, and I work on the localization team at Battle Project. And so, Allison, I gave you the option to pick one of the four words associated with Advent. Why did you choose this word?

Peace, that word just jumped out. It's really important to me to be in a state of peace, and that's not just an absence of conflict. It's like a deep, seated, grounded. Yeah. Peace is when you can breathe like that. I'm thinking of the verse, the peace of God will guard your heart and mind in Christ, Jesus. Something I'm learning more and more

is just the power of my thinking and how, as I have something in life that is challenging, causing me some anxiousness, I can either choose to dwell on that and feel more fear and overwhelmed by it, or, as this verse says, I can capture my thinking and say, okay, but how can I dwell on what is good and right and pure? It's about offering that up, then receiving his peace. That's great.

So, Alison, are there any things you do during the day that help you experience peace in daily life? I do. Yeah. I mean, I think gratitude, like there's so much all throughout the Bible about the importance of the practice of being thankful, you know, to offer our concerns to God. but alongside Thanksgiving, and I think that helps to give me a more grounded perspective in the goodness that is in my life. And I've practiced of singing the blessing from Numbers 26 over my baby at night. She's a year and a half now. And from early on, I realized, oh, I need to pick a lullaby or something. And they say routine is key. So what am I going to sing every night? And I realize

there's really no words I would rather say than a blessing over her. That's beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing with this. Allison, and if you don't mind, would you be willing to close us out with the blessing? Yeah. The Lord bless you and keep you. May you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. I turn his face towards you and give you shalom. Well, that's it for the episode.

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