Seek Peace and Pursue It

On the route I run, there is a sign posted in the front yard of one of my neighbors that quotes the second half of Psalm 34:14, Seek peace and pursue it. Every time I pass this sign, given liberal nature of the area in which I live, and given the fluffy substanceless nature of liberalism, I wonder if the person who posted the sign has ever read the first half of the verse--Depart from evil and do good. And if they have, I wonder if they understand that the first half informs our understanding of the second, and that it is necessary to understand evil and good as defined by Scripture as opposed to by man. This enables one to know what it is that he must depart from and what he should pursue.

The verses straddling verse 14 further inform our understanding of the verse. Verse 13 commands us to keep our tongues from evil and to not speak deceitfully, and verses 15 and 16 tell us, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and the face of the Lord is against evildoers. Again, we must look to God's Word to know, as Job asks in 9:2, "How can a man be righteous before God?"

Taking in the entire chapter, we see that everything about Psalm 34 is focused on God and is in the context of how we should relate to Him. It is Him we are to magnify and in whom we are to boast; it is Him we are to seek; it is Him to whom we are to cry out; it is in Him we are to find our refuge, and it is by Him that we are saved. We then see the nature of this peace in the context of the whole chapter, and that informed by the entirety of Scripture, so that we understand the peace we are to seek and pursue, and to what and to Whom it relates.

Seek peace and pursue it.