let peace be the umpire

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. (Colossians 3:15)

I have been thinking about peace and joy for the past week, prompted by listening to Joyce Meyer encourage me not to let others steal my joy or my peace. The question becomes, then, what is joy? and what is peace? I think we know them when we have them, but since we don’t always have them, they can seem rather elusive, hard to pin down.

I’ve decided to tackle peace first. The scripture that most frequently comes to mind is Colossians 3:15, except that I know it best from the Amplified, because I’ve heard Joyce teach so much about letting peace be the umpire. Here’s what the Amplified offers:

And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live].

I don’t like to read extended passages from the Amplified Bible, because all the amplifications get in the way for me. But I love to use it as a study tool. Here we see what “rule in your hearts” looks like. The word umpire brings to my mind the guy behind home plate declaring “You’re out!”–but I discovered it originally had a much broader application. When it entered English back in the 1400s, umpire meant arbitrator, and it comes from an early French word meaning “not equal.” (Please excuse the English teacher geekiness for a moment!)

So what does all this etymology tell me? Well, “not equal” reminds me that this is about something higher, greater, of more authority than myself. It also reminds me that submission is involved–my submission. Back to baseball, having an umpire works only because both teams agree to submit to the umpire’s rulings. So, lesson one in letting peace be the umpire is that I must resolve to submit myself to peace. Or to be more specific, I must resolve to submit my thoughts and my feelings to peace, because they are what is in conflict, in an uproar, causing problems. More on that tomorrow next time.

Tagged as: Amplified Bible, arbitrator, Christ, hearts, joyce_meyer, peace, peace_and_joy, relationships, study_tool, submission, thinking, umpire