Swords Into Plowshares > Guns Into Gardening Tools
Every year advent kicks off with a prophetic voice and this year was no different:
"they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." -Isaiah 2:4
No sooner can we hear the prophetic voice of the past year for a turn from violence that we experience it in the present. Stabbings in London and a Shooting in New Orleans all happened within hours of reading and preaching on these texts. It seems as though sometimes it's easier to learn than to "unlearn", at least when it comes to matters of violence. We have lit the candle of hope on the first Sunday of Advent and I invite you to be inspired to take hope-filled action in response to all of those things that lead to death instead of life. Check out RAWtools.org to see the way that the prophets of the past have inspired hope in the present.
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” -Isaiah 2:3