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NOTES for Rom 14:19

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19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
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It sounds a little boring, it doesn’t inspire, isn’t it? It would have been better: "we shall look for what serves our self-affirmation and to the mutual pleasure ". The word "peace" reminds us of old slogans of fight for peace, and the word "edify" - the most disgusting professors at school.

Why is it so? How come that these magnificent words were so pervert in our perception? Indeed, "peace" is not just an absence of war and even nor the absence of hostilities. In the biblical language, "shalom" is a state of the Creation in the seventh day, when God, having achieved everything, rests, when everything is "very good". Such are " the new heaven and the new earth", of which are said to prophets and in the book of Revelation, the new world, which can be compared with the initial meaning of the Greek word "cosmos", word from which derives "cosmetic", because the Cosmos is the Universe filled with beauties. “Peace" - genuine integrity, harmony, order and beauty. And it is exactly what the apostle Paul invites us to look for, such a peace in us and in our relationships one with another, which is created only by God.

And the word "edify" describes not a notation, but the "cultuvation", the increase of good, what is well. There is also a wonderful thing here related to God. God is Good Himself, and He is infinite, that is why the common conservation laws as "if something was added somewhere, then so much decreased somewhere else" do not work in all that is bound to the notion of good. When we share something nice with another (love, consolation, knowledge etc.), it arrives to the another then, and it doesn’t not only decrease in us, but in an unexpected way increases rather, takes place a mutual edification, a mutual growth in good, a joint movement towards the true Good, towards God.

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