He is an active member of a congregation in Queensland, Australia, and his name is Pax Young. We often encounter the surname Young, but his first name is not one you hear every day. How did he get the name Pax? The answer is that he was born on the very day World War I ended. The midwife who took care of the delivery asked the privilege of naming him. She named him Pax, which means peace. Often in Slavic lands one encounters the name Vladimir, which means peace. And sometimes one hears the name Olivera, which means peace. Put the only person whose name and very life meant peace was Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. Only He can give “the peace that passes understanding.”

-Robert Shannon, Preaching May/June 1998

 


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On the twelfth of September 1683, the Turkish army was finally turned away from
the city of Vienna. Among the things they left behind were the cannons with
which they had bombarded the city through the long siege. The people of Vienna
decided that those cannons could be put to a better use. So they melted them
down and used the metal to cast a great bell. Then they mounted that enormous
bell in the tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the heart of the city.

It rang for more than two hundred years calling people to the worship of God.
The cannons of war became a bell of peace. It was a unique and dramatic way of
beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.


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