The hammer and the wedge

"Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called ..."  1 Peter 3:9

A wedge is a tool forged for the purpose of division.  Together with the aiding and abetting hammer, it separates into two that which once was one.

I think of a wedge as the implement of choice in the devil's figurative tool box.  Hell-bent on division and destruction, he seeks out the freshly wounded, those of us who have been hurt, cheated, slandered, betrayed ... severed by a piercing blow of the wedge and hammer in the hands of another.  Finding new victims, Satan then offers to lend his favored tool to us, sometimes as an overt challenge, perhaps in a subtle whisper in the ear of the soul, or by imperceptibly nudging it over so that it quietly appears at our feet.  The hammer is always thrown in for free.

The allure then is to tightly wrap one hand around the wedge and, with the hammer firmly in the grip of the other, strike back with a blow that severs our assailants even further.  If the distance between us is lengthened, great!  If they are wounded in the process, so be it.

Of course, we don't stop at retaliation.  No longer trusting, we take indiscriminate swings that cause other divisions, as well.  Our victims, in turn, stoop down to pick up the wedge and hammer we left behind.  And so it goes "in the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2)."  And so it goes with our sin nature.  

But in effect, Peter races to the scene in today's text like a policeman, saying, "Drop the hammer!  Put the wedge down!"  He reminds us who we are: called to be a blessing.  

But how?  If our sin nature is inclined only to sin, how do we refrain from repaying evil with evil, and how do we bless those who hurt us?  These three scriptures speak truth, power, light and life to the situation ... 

"Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness (Romans 6:13)."  Herein lies our directive: to yield every facet of our being as means of righteousness.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20)." Herein lies our power to choose: we have a new nature – Christ in us – that is not enslaved to sin.

"... we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)."  Herein lies our means:  the discipline to live in our new nature and to subject our thoughts and actions to the lordship of Christ in us.

Blessing those who wield the wedge and the hammer:  to this, we were called; to this, we are empowered.