REAL PEACE
Author ANDY FARMER
Publisher CROSSWAY
ISBN 1-4335-3529-1
The author is a pastor/counsellor from the USA. This is reflected in the way he approaches the vital doctrine of peace. First peace with God, though little about the peace with ourselves that ensues but plenty about finding peace in depression, anxiety and in church and thus out into the world. In most of these chapters there is a concentration on a particular scripture the central theme of which is peace. The book is not heavily doctrinal but is helpfully so. The author is not wandering around in the shallow notions based on popular techniques as to finding some elusive ‘shalom’. He solidly grounds all in God’s will as unfolded in the beginning of scripture and obtained through the Lord Jesus and His death and resurrection and brought to us by the present work of the Holy Spirit. The book is also pastoral, there are personal anecdotes and stories of others and their struggle to find peace in personal life, family life and church life and how to be peacemakers in the world. There is an appendix section added in which the author sets forth the parameters of peace in the world and to what extent the church can be an agent of God’s peace in community and in their country. There are helpful observations here. Although those who gave recommendations for this book are all counsellors of some sort or other, thankfully it is not heavy into the schema and methodology so predominant in much counselling but unfolds in a very readable way where peace is rooted, how enmity and conflict is dealt with and the richness of a life of shalom is to be found. There are not too many books around, written in the last few years, that concentrate on “peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” It will help the reader to focus on peace and rest and also point out ways of how we can experience these much more in the midst of a world filled with anger and conflict and the stress and the pressure of undue and ever-present temptations to busyness. A helpful read.
