The Person of Peace

Every fourth Saturday of the month, a group of Jesus’ disciples gather in Sioux Falls South Dakota for what we call Sent Saturdays.  We spend some time training through Luke 10, do a little role play, pray together and then head out into the city to knock on doors, offering to pray for people.  After about an hour in the harvest, we return for a time of debrief.

We are not wanting to do door to door evangelism with Sent Saturdays.

​We are looking for persons of peace.  

At the heart of Jesus’ ministry was the conviction that, since the Father is Lord of the harvest, he will provide the workers.  God alone initiates the mission. So in each location the disciples’ assignment was to find the people that God had prepared. In this way Jesus laid the foundation for a missionary movement that would reach the world.”
                                                                                             --Steve Addison, What Jesus Started

A person of peace is a God prepared person.  Troy Cooper, in the video below, defines a person of peace as someone who:

1. Receives the messenger
2. Receives the message
3. Receives the mission

The woman at the well (John 4), the demoniac (Mark 5), Zacchaeus (Luke 19), Cornelius (Acts 10), Lydia at the river’s bank and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16 ), Jason in Thessalonica (Acts 17) and Crispus the synagogue leader (Acts 18) are all examples of people in the Bible - persons of peace - who received the messenger, the message and the mission.

God had prepared them to encounter the gospel witness and when they did, they became the conduits of the good news in their families and communities.  They, not the apostles who shared with them, become the main vehicle for the spread of the gospel in their regions. 

The person of peace is not the only strategy that God uses to expand his kingdom in families, cities, nations and people groups but it was one strategy that we see Jesus training his disciples to use.

​Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.  He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.  Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.  Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’  If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.  Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
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“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you.  Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’  But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’

                                                                                                      -Luke 10:1-11

Jesus sent the “seventy two others” out on mission.  These aren’t even his closest disciples but “others” who’ve been hanging around, learning, growing, observing.  And Jesus sends them out on mission.  They are to go into the villages of the region, sent as sheep among wolves. They’re not to take anything with them but rather to depend on the hospitality of strangers.  They are to find the peaceful person who will accept them and feed them and listen to them. They are to heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom. If they don’t find the peaceful person, they are instructed to brush the dust off their feet and leave.

Who does ministry this way?  . . .  Jesus does.

Think of it this way.  You may be the person of peace in your neighborhood, the person through whom God will work to introduce your friends and neighbors to the life of faith in Christ.  You know these people.  You have regular chances for interaction. You understand their culture, language and history.

But you probably won’t be the one to reach the apartment complex on the other side of town.  The harvesters are in the harvest. The person of peace living in that apartment complex, who knows the culture, language and history of those living there is better positioned to naturally share the good news of Jesus with everyone in the apartment complex.  

Jesus commands his disciples to pray for harvesters as they are going into the harvest.  Why? Because the harvesters are in the harvest. And so when we go into neighborhoods and apartment complexes and new communities, we are not looking to evangelize the whole area.  We are looking for the person of peace and, when we find them, we don’t leave. We invest there. We cast vision. We train them to be disciples of Jesus so that they can disciple their friends and neighbors.
​
This is the basic idea behind the idea of the person or house of peace.  Again, it’s not the only way that God works to expand his kingdom but it is an important principle that we see again and again in scripture.
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I want to encourage you to explore this principle more. First, study Matthew 10:5-14 and Luke 10:1-11.  Read the book of Acts as well. Look for how and where the person of peace principle shows up. Take notes and ask what it would look like to apply the principle in your context.  

Next, take some time to look through the resources in the links below.  I’ve added approximate times to read or watch each.  In it all, be like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-12) and examine the scriptures to see if what we’re talking about here is true.

Learn it   -   Apply it   -   Share it   -   Today.

​RESOURCES FOR FURTHER LEARNING

The Person of Peace by Jerry Trousdale and Glenn Sunshine
(article -5 minutes)

Kingdom Kernels by Steve Smith and Nathan Shank
(article - 15 minutes)

Testimony of a person of peace at Movements
(article - 3 minutes)

Searching for a House of Peace in the U.K. at Movements Podcast
(podcast - 30 minutes)

House of Peace by Jeff Sundell
(youtube training - 12 minutes)

Four Fields of Kingdom Growth by Nathan and Kari Shank
(training manual - 2-3 weeks)

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