The day’s materials
Elections, Civic Participation and Democratic Responsibility
A Peaceful Public Square
Zechariah 8:16-19
Old Testament
These are the things that you shall do: speak every man the truth with his neighbour. Execute the judgement of truth and peace in your gates, and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbour, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate,” says the LORD. The word of the LORD of Armies came to me. The LORD of Armies says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”
Romans 14:19
New Testament
So then, let’s follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up.
Zechariah describes a public square that can hold the weight of real life: speak truth to one another, render judgements of peace in the gates, do not plot evil, love no false oath. Peace is not merely a quiet tone. It is truthfulness, restraint, and a refusal to make a neighbour unsafe. Even fasting days, the prophet says, are meant to become joy when truth and peace are loved.
Paul, with one compact line, gives us a direction for our footsteps: pursue what makes for peace, and what makes for mutual upbuilding. This is active language, not passive drift. The word he uses for upbuilding, οἰκοδομή (oikodome, G3619), is house-building language. It asks a simple question of our speech and our choices: are we helping to make a home, or are we pulling the beams apart?
Romans 14 is about welcome: not despising, not judging, not tearing down the work of God for the sake of winning. A peaceful public square is not one without disagreement. It is one where truth is not traded away, and where people are not treated as disposable.
Lord Jesus, make us peacemakers who love the truth, and builders who refuse to build with lies.
Prayer points
- Make our public life truthful: restrain false oaths, manipulation, and the careless spread of rumours.
- Give us courage to speak honestly, and grace to do so without cruelty.
- Heal communities fractured by contempt, and teach us to pursue what builds rather than what scores points.
- Bless those targeted by hate or mockery, and give them protection and advocates.
- Form your Church to be a place of peaceable truthfulness, for the sake of your witness.