Dear Friends,
In the 8th century BCE, the Prophet Isaiah espoused the following words which remain a primary call for peace in the world today:
Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord [where]. . . God shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.—Isaiah 2:3–4
Isaiah’s words are words of hope that tools used for the sole purpose of destruction might one day be transformed into tools to help feed the world and serve human kind in a positive way. While nothing prophetic may have come out of the summit in Singapore, echoes of Isaiah were certainly present.
As it is with all efforts towards peace, we must proceed with extreme caution, but we must proceed nonetheless. The denuclearization of our world today has far more profound implications for the future of humanity than spears and pruning hooks did in the 8th century BCE. Therefore, as we reflect on the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un (even if the details of any agreement are yet to be articulated), it must be seen in light of Isaiah’s vision of a world liberated from the shackles of human destruction.
L’Shalom-Steve