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by Gloria Copeland
God has made thousands of wonderful
promises to us in the Bible. All of them
belong to us in Christ, and the blessings
they make available to us are too
numerous to count. But after studying
them for more than five decades now, if
I had to sum them all up in a single word,
I know exactly the one I would choose.
SHALOM.
The Hebrew word for peace, shalom is among
the most powerful words in the Bible. Absolutely
packed with meaning, it's used in the Old Testament
to describe the new covenant. It's the word God used
in Isaiah when He called the coming Messiah the
"Prince of Peace." Prophesying about the new day
He would usher in, God said to His people that after
the Messiah comes, "With everlasting kindness will
I have mercy on thee…for as I have sworn that the
waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so
have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor
rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the
hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace
[shalom] be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy
on thee" (Isaiah 54:8-10).
I learned from my friend Billye Brim, who spent
time years ago studying the Hebrew language in
Israel, shalom means "to be made sound, to be whole,
perfect, with nothing missing, and nothing broken." It
speaks of a condition of completeness that includes
health, well-being, safety, tranquility, material
abundance, fullness, rest, harmony, and the absence
of agitation or discord.
Go In
Peace and
BeWhole
Think of it: Every one of those things (and more)
are promised to us, as New Testament believers. God
included them all in the "covenant of His peace."
Many times, you'll find in your Bible that where the
word peace is used, in the margin it says prosperity.
Those two words go together because you can't
truly be whole without having your financial needs
met. Some people claim us modern-day "prosperity
preachers" came up with that idea. But really, it's
God's idea. He knows better than anyone what it
means to be at peace, or to have shalom, and He says
that financial abundance—having plenty to meet
your own needs and plenty to give and be a blessing to
others—is an indispensable part of it.
One of my favorite definitions of peace comes from
W.E. Vine's expository dictionary. It says peace is
"everything that makes for man's highest good."
That's what God has always desired for His
people. Even under the Old Covenant, He didn't
want His people to be subject to the evil results of
the curse that got into the earth through sin. He
wanted His people to walk in THE BLESSING, so
He told them to hearken diligently to His voice and
do what He commanded.
