Swords into Plowshares?

When I was in high school, I went on a Christian retreat, and they taught us the Bible says to beat your swords into plowshares.  I immediately noted that the Bible also says they we should beat our plowshares into swords.

Further, only Joel above commands us to make swords.  All three seem to point to a place in time rather than general.

I am not here to talk about plowshares actually. Insightful readers might see I was headed at a young age to writing a blog about the main thing in our life in God.

Years later, I learned that we cannot read the Bible objectively. That was a disturbing discovery. We all have our own personality, history, and context. No one is in a vacuum.

Also, we are all being brainwashed all the time. Just ask any marketer.  We do best to choose how we are being brainwashed. For example, I read news from very specific newsfeeds as others bother me. I am clearly brainwashing myself and hearing what I want to hear.

I have read the whole Bible countless times, and even in high school knew what the Bible said about plowshares and swords.

Swords Into Plowshares is Just An Example- We all Do It

I still read the Bible almost every day or more than once a day. I find that the world and my own heart lean away from God. Therefore, I see I need to feel the culture of the kingdom as shown in the Bible every day to bring me back to God’s kingdom in a daily invisible action.

We are talking with a few guys who are interested in faith, and we believe they are close. We told both of them to go read the gospel of John.  Our saying to read John shows some of our bias. We tend to share Genesis 1-3 and Romans and John to seekers. There are 66 books, but we choose these.

Choosing to read John could cause both to come to faith. However, faith lies in God’s hands. However, you could agree that these guys are agreeing to be brainwashed. They trust us and agree.  Reading the Koran or Haggai could get you a different result than John.

Don’t Tell Me You Are Not Biased

We could argue that our sovereign God chooses to give faith to those He chooses. We could also say they are making a conscious choice to look at Christian faith as proposed by us. Seek the Lord while he may be found. They are seeking.

Bias exists everywhere. The people we meet have bias. We have bias. The childhood retreat had bias.

Some people look at Genesis and walk away. Other people draw near. Some people may decide for God next week. Others may decide 50 years from now.

We are glad, amidst all these biases, that God is in charge.  In the meantime, we need to be careful about thinking the Bible definitely says one thing when it might not be so specific as we think – like the plowshares issue.  We also need to think about how we want to be biased as we cannot be not biased. We must do all with humility though.