Grace and Peace Is Commonly Used
Grace and peace are common greetings or closings in New Testament Epistles. Whether the writer is Paul, John or Peter, you can see them use it here. Let’s consider this.
I have written in a different post that Jesus was filled with grace and truth. I might be prone if ending with a summary like the apostles did, to say, “grace and truth” to you.
To me, the New Testament is written with grace and truth. They speak truth to us with more or less grace.
However, they end or begin with the phrase grace and peace commonly.
Why Did They Write Grace and Peace?
It is a mild way to speak, It is comforting. There is no hard edge. What can we gain from this?
They are not afraid to speak hard truths in what they write. Could we say that the written word can be felt harder than when they spoke it face to face? Do we experience the same thing when we write? Sure, it can happen.
We can read the same passage tough or soft, but we as people may hear the tough more, and not see their kind face.
They came from a rules bound Jewish world and certainly did not want the church to live in fear and chains. Jesus had helped us see everything including the feeling of it in a much more mature way.
The written word may need some softening or encouragement to give the sense of grace and truth.
As people, we can make the faith a bunch of rules without even thinking about it.
We see the epistles explicitly adding the phrase grace and peace in the vast majority of letters.
If I ask Chinese Christians (who are mostly 1st generation believers) which of the 9 fruit of the Spirit they experience the most, peace is the most common answer.
Joy is harder to grasp. We need all the fruit, but seems we often get peace foremost. We do need it.
I have written before that we believers throw grace around haphazardly. Contrarily, rules grow without any apparent intent.
In Writing, We Must Be Careful
The Apostles saw that they needed to add grace and peace even like when Paul personally wrote Philemon very carefully. We do not know if they added the phrase in face to face talks. The book of Acts does not show them speaking it. Jesus did not.
Hmm, when people meet me they often find I am kind. However, one person told me they were intimidated by my writing though I was easy to talk to. Writing about Truth is naturally intimidating somehow. Speaking face to face, kindness can soften the topic though never spoken.
I do not think the phrase grace and peace is magic, but the Apostles found it quite useful.
We all do well to commonly take explicit pains to soften what we write as it gets tough without our intending it to be that way. I need to hear this a lot. God, bless us, as we seek to represent you well.
