“While the Council of Nicaea did not specifically address the matter of military service, it nonetheless marks a critical transition point. After Nicaea, Christians were no longer simply tolerated within the empire but were instead increasingly integrated….The long-standing ambivalence about military service that marked the ante-Nicene period began to fade.” - Providence
“This partnership with God through Jesus Christ who came into this world not to destroy men’s lives but to save them causes Seventh-day Adventists to advocate a noncombatant position….
From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved. Read Part 1.
Luke 22:35, 36, and 38 are the only direct New Testament statements about self-defense. Jesus had previously sent His followers on various missions with instructions regarding what provisions and equipment they were allowed to take with them. In sending out the Twelve, He permitted no staff, bag, bread, money, or extra shirt (Luke 9:3). When He sent out the Seventy, He disallowed purse, bag, and sandals (Luke 10:4). These were not, however, intended as permanent, normative commands for all believers for all time. That is clear since Jesus contrasts these earlier restrictions with what would be necessary after the Crucifixion.
In Luke 22:35, 36, and 38 Jesus explicitly commands His followers to take the sort of provisions they were previously asked to leave at home: “He who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack” (v. 36a). But now a new item is added to the list. They are told to buy a sword (machaira), even if they have to sell their cloak to do so (v. 36b). This was not a butter knife for their bread or a paring knife for peeling apples. The machaira was, as BDAG (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament) defines it, “a relatively short sword or other instrument, sword, dagger,” which is most commonly referenced in the New Testament as an instrument for killing (e.g., Mark 14:43; Luke 21:24; Acts 12:2; 16:27; Heb. 11:37; Rev. 13:10).
From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved.
“And our belief in the basic sinfulness of humankind should make us skeptical of the NRA’s slogan, ‘the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.’” Rob Schenck
“[S]tudents at another Christian university—Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.—say Falwell’s position does not represent Christian ideals. In an open letter to evangelical leaders, a coalition of Wheaton students condemned Falwell’s remarks, saying they were responding to ‘religious oppression or violence’ with fear instead of love.” WORLD
Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at [email protected].
Under OT law, it was expressly permitted to the inhabitant of a dwelling to defend hearth and home if necessary by lethal (death-causing) force against an intruder, without penalty: “If a thief is caught in the act of breaking in, and he is beaten to death, no one is guilty of bloodshed,” (HCSB, Exodus 22:2). But does the NT believer, under grace, have this same right? Some would affirm, and strongly, that we do not. Pacifism and non-resistance has been a professed doctrine of a number of Christian groups over the centuries. One thinks immediately of the Anabaptists, Amish, Mennonites, Grace Brethren, and Quakers. But are they correct in embracing this understanding of NT teaching?
James, a son of Mary and Joseph, was the leader of the congregation in Jerusalem, indeed a veritable “pillar” in the church (Galatians 2:9), and wrote what is by consensus the earliest book in the New Testament, the epistle of James, credibly assigned a date before 50 A.D. James 5:7 characterizes the victimized righteous man who suffers wrong at the hand of a wealthy man as one who “does not resist you.” Is this merely descriptive of how the individual acted in this specific case (that is, giving no cause for the violent man to act as he did), or is it exemplary, even prescriptive as a guide for our conduct, that is, presenting us with an example we are obliged to emulate?
