The Ask Pastor John podcast inbox now gets about 60 emails every day, so you can imagine

we are grateful for questions that come in that are sharp and brief, and to the point

like this one from podcast listener, Aliza, who asks this, Pastor John, what is the difference

between peace and joy?

I love this question because it is so simple and so profound.

It's the kind of of question or the kind of thinking that is so neglected, and I mean

by me as well as others.

We use words, don't we, we use words often without pausing to give the slightest thought to

the precise, deep meaning that they have and how they relate to other similar words.

So thank you for the question, I'm going to assume that what I'm trying to answer

here is the difference between Christian peace and Christian joy, okay?

The kind talked about in the Bible, not just any kind of peace or any kind of joy.

So let's start with one clear difference.

Of course, there are ambiguities and there are overlaps who get to that, but this clear

difference, peace can be a subjective feeling in the heart or an objective state of affairs

between two formerly hostile parties, joy, on the other hand, only refers to a subjective

feeling in the heart.

There is no such thing as an objective joy outside of the experience of joy in the heart.

So for example, Jesus talks about two armies coming against each other and one sends a delegation

and asks for terms of peace.

That is, the objective state of affairs of our not, our army is not killing each other.

Those armies still may hate each other, but I've only got 10,000 people.

...