August 9, 2019 • 35 mins
The best resource I can currently recommend on this topic is "Jesus the Pacifist" by Matthew Fleischer. The book will be released early next year. It is a fantastic look that digs into Jesus, his actions, his specific teachings, and the implications of all that he did. The book is particularly helpful for the brand of Christians who love to have verse wars and proof-text everything. Since the Bible doesn't specifically lay out all versions of pacifism (though it leans more that way than the way of allowing violence), proof-texting Christians think they can ignore a call to non-violence. Fleischer does a fantastic job of showing us how nonviolence pervades the teaching and revelation of Christ and digs under the surface of the numerous, explicit teachings and actions.
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- Revelation word study on blood: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JCGWqOo71MYmTuvJ354_JRx6FZVpOndj
- My site listing all the Church Father quotes I could find, focusing mostly on quotes prior to the Edict of Milan: https://drive.google.com/open?id=16bft8PtcyLns1JCrO-QUbBR8QEHOO413
- The Early Church on Killing (book with pertinent quotations on all violence from before 300 AD, including abortion, capital punishment, warfare, self-defense, etc): https://www.amazon.com/Early-Church-Killing-Comprehensive-Sourcebook-ebook/dp/B008846P1I/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+early+church+on+killing&qid=1564648394&s=gateway&sr=8-1
- Tim Mackie's discussion of God's wrath (transcript): https://thebibleproject.com/podcast/day-lord-question-response/transcript/
- Tim Mackie's six part series on God's wrath: https://thebibleproject.simplecast.com/episodes/903c95d5-903c95d5
- Interview with Mackie on God's wrath and nonviolence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWDGYaIjWsM
- Daniel 7:13-14 and the Son of Man ascending on the clouds and being ascribed divine attributes and position: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+7%3A13-14&version=NIV
- Phillip Mast
- patrick H
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:07):
Welcome back to the 4th Way podcast. This is the second
episode in our series, Making aPositive Case for Christian
Nonviolence. So, in the lastepisode, I shared a little bit
about my story, and I told youhow I discovered how I was being
very syncretistic in my life andhow my conservative Christian
(00:28):
community was filled withidolatry and syncretism.
Particularly, we had the issueof consequentialism or this idea
that the ends justify the means.And for something to be moral,
at least in certain aspects, ithad to work.
It had to produce an overallgood result. And, that meant
(00:53):
that in all of my previous looksat issues of Christian
nonviolence as I read the Bible,that I filtered out content or
interpretations against theethic that that violence was
good. I just didn't accept that.Violence was a necessary,
(01:13):
necessary thing. And hopefullythat episode has kind of helped
you to take a look at your ownlife and prepare to hear the
case that we're about to makefor Christian nonviolence.
Because this is something thatyou really need to to come at
with a neutral perspective. Andalso remembering that this is a
(01:34):
cumulative case, and you reallyneed to hear everything out, to
be able to give it a fair fairgo. And you also need to
remember that as a cumulativecase on something that you need
to choose, really myresponsibility is 51% certainty
for you to be more rational tochange your mind. Alright.
(01:56):
Keeping those things in mind,let's go ahead and make the
positive case from the Bible.
So there are plenty of problemsfor the nonviolent case when you
look at the Bible. And, I dowant you to know before we get
into the Old Testament, which iswhere we'll start, that I
(02:16):
understand there are lots ofissues, especially with the Old
Testament, primarily with theOld Testament, and then and then
Revelation. And I am notskipping those. I will come back
to those. We'll do a, counterrebuttal, a number of counter
rebuttal episodes, and we willdefinitely come back to the old
(02:37):
testament problems.
But right now, I want to set upthe positive case for how we can
pull nonviolence out of theBible. And, just know that I'm
not avoiding that, and you cancome back later for future
episodes where we deal with thethe problems. Okay. Old
Testament. So, the Old Testamentis is pretty violent, and there
(03:00):
are a lot of places where itseems like God himself is
violent and where he encouragesviolence from other people.
Like I said, we'll get to totalking about those later, but
we also do get a number ofinklings that, you know what?
Maybe maybe, violence isn'treally something that's that's
great or something that Godwants to keep around or
(03:23):
something that God really likesin general. And today, I wanna
talk about some of thoseinklings because they're they're
really important glimpses,especially as we get to the
ultimate revelation in JesusChrist. It's gonna be helpful to
see how this isn't just, youknow, a a change of gods like,
(03:44):
Marcion and and others kind ofthought was going on. Right?
We're not, like, changing theface of who God is, but it was
there all along. The mostviolent aspect of the Old
Testament is probably theconquest of Canaan. And we we
would focus on a lot of the thekilling and even of of women and
(04:07):
children that goes on there. Butwe get glimpses of God intending
for this sort of thing not tohappen, to be able to keep
people from dying, people frombeing killed, and to keep his
people from killing otherpeople. For example, in Exodus
14, before Israel's ever evengone into Canaan to to get rid
(04:30):
of people, Exodus 14 declaresthat the Lord will fight for
you.
And Exodus 23, God says that hewill send the hornet ahead of
Israel to drive people out.Like, God, if you read certain
aspects of of Exodus as well asother books, it really seems
(04:52):
like God is saying, hey, look, II'll take care of this. I'll
drive them out. You justfaithfully obey me and we'll
drive these people out. We don'tneed to kill them.
I'm not gonna have you killthem. I'm, myself, am not gonna
kill them. I'm gonna send thehornet ahead of you. And we get
a number of glimpses of that,especially in these these two
(05:14):
passages here in Exodus. If youwant to get a lot more of this,
you can get, a lot more examplesfrom Tim Mackey, who is the
creator of The Bible Project.
And he argues that more oftenthan not, that the wrath of God
and the judgment of God and andplaces where it seems like God
kills people, is actually eitherGod withdrawing from people and
(05:38):
allowing natural consequences tohappen to them, or God's use of,
yeah. God's use of naturalconsequences or just his
withdrawal of protection.Anyway, lots of examples. I kind
of wanna talk about some ofthem, but we'll save that for
the counter rebuttals, and youcan look up Tim Mackey. I will I
(06:00):
will, put a link to that here inthe podcast.
So, anyway, the Old Testament islittered with this type of
thing, keeping keeping peoplefrom killing. One other example
really quickly that that'sreally obvious is, take a look
at Gideon or one of the judges.Certainly, a lot of the other
(06:23):
judges make up for, for Gideon'slack of killing in this one
episode. But Gideon is told byGod to basically take some,
like, trumpets and torches andclay pots, get 400 people, and
go and and, surround his enemiesup in the high cliffs and, like,
(06:43):
blow trumpets and yell at themand break jars and all that
stuff. Well, Gideon and Goddon't touch the enemy.
They end up killing each other.And so the fear of God in them,
their fear of the Israelites,their, evil hearts, and and all
of those things kind of combinedto make the situation where when
(07:08):
when they thought they werecoming up against God's army,
God didn't have to lay a fingeron them. They they judged
themselves. And that's the typeof thing that you see all over,
and Mackie Mackie makes that alot clearer in in his, I believe
it was a podcast episode that hehad. Other examples, other
(07:29):
glimpses that we get that thatviolence, even something that
might seem like justifiedviolence or when God commands
it, are not good, or not ideal.
So David, for example, is keptfrom building the temple. In 1
Chronicles 28, we find out why.And it said that he shed blood
(07:52):
as a warrior. Now this isimportant. This this caveat here
is important because, you know,some people would say, well, he
shed blood.
Yeah. He was a murderer. Okay.That's true. But here it
specifically says that the issuewas he shed blood as a warrior.
And now remember, if you justread the story of David and his
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killing of the Philistines andGoliath and all these other
things, you would think that outof all the people to build a
temple, God would love to haveDavid build the temple because
he's a man after God's ownheart. And weren't all of those
killings legitimate and,wonderful things for the kingdom
of God for Israel? But Godapparently didn't really like
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that. He didn't like that Davidhad blood on his hands. And
that's kind of a glimpse of ofGod's, disdain for for blood.
His his, just hatred of ofviolence. We see in Isaiah 2 and
Micah 4, we see that this thisnotion of swords being turned
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into plowshares, in in the end,in the last days. And,
certainly, you could interpretthis in a number of different
ways. You could maybe say, well,this will be when Jesus comes
back and, and establishes hisfinal reign. And, you know, we
could talk about, well, Jesus isactually reigning now and He
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brought His kingdom.
Just read especially Mark, butread any of the Gospels. Right?
The kingdom's here now, andwe're expanding it. We're
ambassadors for it. And we applyother sorts of passages like
Joel, when when individuals werespeaking in tongues, it's
supposed to be a pro a fulfilledprophecy.
So, you know, this idea ofswords being turned into
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plowshares, for a lot of people,is something that is actually
supposed to be taking place now.That was, that was prophetic of
now. And that's not just somecrazy, like, pacifistic
interpretation. You look at theearly church fathers and they
quoted this concept frequently.This idea of, hey, look.
Right now, we've turned ourplows our swords into
(10:05):
plowshares. In the next episode,I'll give you some specific
examples of those quotes fromthe church fathers. But that was
a a very early interpretation inthe early church. I think it's
interesting that, in particular,that Isaiah is one of the
individuals who gives us thisthis glimpse of swords being
(10:28):
turned into plowshares. Becauseit's also Isaiah who gives us
the, I think, the only glimpse Imean, I guess you could count
some of the Psalms.
But, really, the clearestglimpse of the Messiah being a
suffering servant, who wasn'tcoming in in violent conquest.
(10:54):
And so Isaiah seems tounderstand the messianic aspect
of Jesus. He seems to get Jesusthe clearest. And so the fact
that he is also talking aboutthe nonviolence in that era or,
you know, after that establishedkingdom, it kind of goes hand in
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hand. And I think it's it's,something interesting to
consider.
And that makes a lot of sensetoo with if you understand
progressive revelation, and yousay, well, there's a lot of
killing and and those sorts ofthings going on in in the Old
Testament, but you understandthat there are a lot of these
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concepts that that God is notpromoting, but he's dealing
with. Like, take, divorce forexample. Jesus says, look. This
wasn't something God wanted. Hegave you this law because of
your hardness of hearts.
And, essentially, if he didn'tgive you this law, like, you'd
be doomed. Like, this was thiswas his mercy on you to work
with you through this throughthis, misunderstanding, through
(12:00):
this this hardness of yourheart. And so if we understand
progressive revelation, and wethink that, Isaiah has
progressed down this path morein understanding who the Messiah
is, then that's helpful inunderstanding why maybe we see
less violence, in in, this ideaof the suffering servant and
(12:23):
swords to plowshares and all ofthat. Now, the New Testament, of
course, is going to be muchclearer, and I don't think
that's a bad thing. I don'tthink it's, it's fair to say
that that preaching nonviolencediscounts the old testament.
(12:45):
Because if you do understandthis progressive revelation,
that helps to make sense ofthings. But then also, you get
this idea, that we see in anumber of places that Jesus
really is the clear revelation.I mean, a lot of the old
testament doesn't make sense ifyou don't have Jesus, and so
much more is illuminated if youdo have Jesus. Jesus says in
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John 14 that if you have seenme, you've seen the father.
Right?
He is the revelation of God.Hebrews says that he's the full
revelation of God. Right? He'sthe he's the image of of God.
And, we have only seen dimly upto the point of Jesus, but now
in Jesus, we see we see crystalclear, because Jesus is the
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image of God.
He's the pure revelation. And,so some of the things that we
think we might see in the OldTestament that maybe were
progressive revelation or, Godallowing things or working
through systems for due tohardness of heart, really, if we
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see something that's prettyclear in Jesus and isn't very
clear in the Old Testament, thenwe go with Jesus because that's
the clear teaching. And and thisis is something maybe comparable
to, something like the trinity.Right? In the in the Old
Testament, if you were to try tofind the trinity, you could
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find, potentially, someexamples.
The the angels or or the,individuals appearing to
Abraham, the 3 individuals thathe fed. You know, there are a
couple times where where Godsays, like in Genesis, let us
make man in our image. And Iknow there are different
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interpretations of that, butsome people use that to try to
show Trinity. And so you youreally do get at least a bindity
in the Old Testament, like withthe angel of the Lord and God.
You kinda see that there arepotentially 2 people, maybe
maybe more.
But it's not until the NewTestament that we we get this
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idea of a trinity. And eventhen, it takes quite a long time
for them to figure out how tohow to put that into words and
to to make that something that'snot heretical. It takes them a
few centuries to kind of hashthat out and nail that down. So
some of these things that thatwe take to be staples, orthodox
(15:29):
staples for Christianity, Imean, it's not like they are
just clearly seen in the oldtestament and new testament.
There is this progressiverevelation, and there is this
clarification in Jesus Christwho makes a lot of things make
sense.
And even with things like thetrinity, even though it makes
sense to us now, it still wasn'tdidn't make complete sense to
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people as they were trying topiece together everything. And I
think this is this is kind oflike that, and it's not fair to
to judge pacifism for, this ideathat things become much clearer
in the New Testament. Andneedless to say, things become
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much, much clearer in the NewTestament. You really don't get
very much information at allthat's gonna give you give you a
case against nonviolence. Justabout everything is going to be
for Christian nonviolence.
So take a look at Matthew 5.Right? This is Jesus's famous
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teaching on turning the othercheek, on loving our enemies.
And then in Romans 12 and firstPeter 3, they build on this
concept and they say, don't takevengeance. Right?
That's that's a problem. So it'snot just it's not just Jesus in
in Matthew 5, but you've gotother authors saying, don't take
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vengeance on people. Right? Letlet that up to God. And maybe
maybe, and we'll talk about thislater, like I said, maybe God
took vengeance in the OldTestament.
Maybe he did that. Maybe Godused people to take vengeance in
the Old Testament. But now asrevealed through Christ, at
least at this time, God has toldus not to take vengeance. We let
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that up to him. We are in an eraof nonviolence.
If nonviolence has not alwaysbeen, at least it is now, as
seen through through Christ andhis teaching. And supported by
Paul and Peter and probablyothers. You know, Romans 13,
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that's we'll have a wholeepisode on that later as well.
If you're gonna read Romans 13as legitimizing violence, even
if I give that to you, it onlydoes so in the function of a
state, not in the hands of anindividual. And so, even if
you're going to want toincorporate some sort of
violence, Romans 13 at leastlimits that violence to the
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state.
And like I said, we'll talkabout that because I I think
that's even a a stretch. But,anyway. So, Jesus, beyond these
these ideas of turning the othercheek and loving enemies and not
taking vengeance and leavingvengeance up to the government
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beyond those things. Jesus alsoshifts our vision of the kingdom
that he brought when he saidthat his kingdom is not of this
world. Because if it was of thisworld, his followers would fight
for him.
But Jesus says, my kingdom's notof this world. My followers
don't fight. And so Jesus kindof gives us this this, this
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perspective that the kingdomthat we we are to be faithful
towards is a kingdom that isn'tlike the kingdoms on earth. We
don't use power and coercion andforce. We we fight our battle in
a different way.
And you see this too in, inPaul, where he talks about how
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we don't wrestle with flesh andblood, but with principalities
and powers. And the this idea ofspiritual warfare and, and that
that the kingdom is differentthan the earthly powers is quite
clear in the New Testament. Youalso get this, this idea of the
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Son of Man, which I think is isvery interesting. A lot of times
people, I remember one time wehad Jehovah's Witnesses come
over, and they were talkingabout how, well, look. In the
Bible, it even says Jesus is theson of man.
Like, well, great. Thank you forthank you for acknowledging that
because that, more than the sonof God, is a title of divinity.
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We see this in Daniel. In Daniel7, Daniel gives us picture of
the the ancient of days and, howhe's clothed, and he's got this
white hair and and all of thisstuff. And the son of man is
like that and ascends up to sitat the right hand of the throne
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of the Ancient of Days.
Now he gives the son of manqualities that are divine, that
are only true of God, and he hashim sitting at the right hand of
the throne of God. So this sonof man, as seen in Daniel, the
the the place in the oldtestament where we get this
term, is probably the mostdivine term you can come up
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with, because because of all thethings that Daniel says about
who this son of man is. Andwhat's really interesting is
Jesus basically says, you knowthat guy in Daniel? You know
that guy who's God? Yeah.
That's me. Right before hiscrucifixion, Jesus says, in
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Matthew 26, I believe it's alsoin Luke, from now on, you will
see the Son of Man sitting atthe right hand of the mighty one
and coming on the clouds ofheaven. So this idea of coming
on the clouds, a lot of peoplethink that, you know, rapture,
Jesus comes down. But the waythat that coming on the clouds
was used in the Old Testament,when God came against Egypt in
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judgment, he came on the clouds.Or when the son of man goes to
sit at the right hand of thethrone of God, he comes on the
clouds.
So this idea of coming on theclouds, a lot of times can can
mean ascension and a lot oftimes means judgment. So when
Jesus says, hey, look. You'reabout to crucify me, but I want
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you to know something. From nowon, you're gonna see the Son of
Man. You know that guy in Daniel7?
Yeah. He is me, and he's gonnabe sitting at the right hand of
the mighty one and coming on theclouds of heaven. He's saying,
I'm about to go up there. I'mabout to take my seat. My work's
gonna be finished, andjudgment's coming.
So be warned. That's when whenJesus says that his kingdom's
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not of this world in John 18,and then we get this
understanding of what he'stelling the Pharisees that he's
about to do, that's that's apretty big deal. And, it's it's
just something that that a lotof people overlook, about about
this this kingdom. First Peterkind of bolsters that. He talk
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the whole book of first Peter isreally fantastic for for this,
probably more so with governmentand less so with pacifism
directly.
But Peter talks about thisconcept that we're aliens. Like,
we we really do belong toanother kingdom, and we don't
fit into this kingdom here. Ourkingdom, our allegiance is
something different than it ishere. And that means, like Jesus
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said, the way that we we fightfor that kingdom is different,
and like Paul said about fleshand blood, etcetera. Revelation
is is also interesting, becausea lot of people are gonna use
that.
And, again, we'll get to thislater on. But a lot of people
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are gonna use Revelation as anexample of, well, see, the New
Testament's very bloody. Andeven if you wanna say that, it's
fairly clear that we're in anera where we aren't to take
vengeance. And if Jesus decidesto come back in vengeance, so be
it. But what's gonna happen inthe future versus what we're
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supposed to do now are twodifferent things.
But, secondly, I think peoplejust miss what Revelation is
saying. And Tim Mackey, again,is is somebody who's good to
listen to on this, but, if youjust look at what Revelation is
saying and how, how it wouldhave been applicable to the the
early church, it's just abeautiful book. This, there's so
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many offsetting pieces ofimagery, like, the one who
conquers isn't the Lion ofJudah. Right? John sees the
lion, but then when he takes adouble take and he looks again,
it's not the lion, but it's theLamb who was slain.
And this Lamb who was slainconquers. And time and time and
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time and time again, the imagerywe get in Revelation of, when we
get this word, Nica or Nike orwhatever, for conquer, when we
get that, it's in the context ofsubmission and laying down our
lives. And something that wasreally interesting is is after,
I heard Mackie say somethinglike that, I I went and looked
(24:56):
through Revelation. And, youknow, I thought Revelation is
just this gory, bloody book. Andso, I looked up all the times
that the word blood appeared.
And I think it's, like, I thinkit's 18. And I wanna say, I
think it's 6 of those times. Theblood appears in in, like, a
(25:17):
it's it's a metaphoricaljudgment. You see it in the old
testament. You see it in in allsorts of passages.
But, like, the moon turns toblood and and that kind of
stuff. So it's it's nobody'sblood. It's just this symbolic
something's gonna turn to bloodas a judgment. And I think there
are 12 other times that blood isused. And all but one of those
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times, the blood either refersto Jesus or to the martyrs.
And that one time, that that oneremaining time where blood
occurs, it's unclear whose bloodit is. It could be the it could
be the martyrs, and it it mightnot be. So go ahead and and look
(26:03):
that up yourself. If I have thedocument, if I can find it, I'll
I'll post it here, a link to it.But Revelation, if you listen to
somebody like Mackie or or Boyd,expound on it, I mean, it's just
jam packed with this idea ofconquering is submitting and is
(26:29):
is, nonviolence.
It's sacrifice. And just asJesus conquered by being a slain
lamb, so we conquer. We conquerin light fact like fashion. Who
are we to think that we arebetter than our savior? That,
what what is becoming of Him isnot becoming for us.
(26:49):
So, Revelation, great book,interesting. Lots of things that
people think they know about itthat they just don't. Again, we
will get to that later. I hatehaving to keep saying that, but,
I just I really want I'mchomping at the bit to say so
much more about a lot of thesethings. But I just can't for
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time's sake.
Okay. So beyond the the justbiblical case, the the concepts,
the ideas that that are beingtaught, we also have some New
Testament examples. Now, I willadmit right off the bat that
that these examples, I would nothang my hat on it, and and say
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that these are examples of,absolute non violence and they
support the case for nonviolence. I'm just throwing them
out there because, again, thisis a cumulative case, and I'm
going to throw out all thepieces of potential evidence
that I can. And, point is, inthe New Testament, beyond the
teachings, we do get a number ofexamples of people who are put
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in situations where violence isbeing done to them, and we see
how they respond.
And that's important becauseeven though a response of
nonviolence doesn't prove thatthat's how things should always
be, the fact that we never see areturning of violence is also
(28:15):
interesting. In in every case,we never see a returning of
violence condoned, And I don'tthink there's a case where
violence is is even done at all.Maybe the only case you can see
is Peter slicing off a, not acenturion, a high priest servant
(28:37):
ear, Malchus. And what doesJesus do? He puts it back on and
says, Peter, put your swordaway.
And then the early churchfathers used that, in in some of
their quotes and say, hey, look.When Jesus told Peter to to
sheathe his sword, that was acommand for all Christians. Not
that not that the early churchfathers were right about that,
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but, the fact that that theyunderstood the significance of
the one violent act you seeagainst somebody else, a
Christian against somebody else,is reprimanded and and restored.
There's restoration, there'shealing, by Jesus, who refuses
violence in that very samesituation. So, New Testament
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examples.
We've got a couple that I canthink of. The first most
interesting one would be Stephenstoning in Act 7. And, from my
understanding now, I could bewrong about this, so please
correct me if I am but when whenStephen was stoned by the
religious leaders, I don't thinkthat they had the permission to
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actually execute somebody atthat point. And if that's the
case, then Stephen stoning inacts 7, is is particularly
important because hiswillingness to die was not a
submission to authorities. And Ihear this a lot in in, the
United States, especially wherewe are a gun culture that okay.
(30:11):
If if somebody comes into yourhouse, and they're a government
official, and it's illegal to bea Christian, and they try to
take you, you submit because yousubmit to government, except for
that, you know, wholerevolutionary war thing that was
legitimate. But, anyway, this,you know, this idea that we
submit to the government is isis something that's used to
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excuse away a lot of things. Andthey'll say, well, look. All
these New Testament examples aregonna be submissions to
government. I don't thinkStephen stoning applies because
he wasn't submitting, from myunderstanding, to to government
here.
He was submitting to, let's say,mob violence, mob justice, and
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to a group who didn't have theauthority to do what they were
doing, as far as I understand.And so the fact that he did not
retaliate, like, in the UnitedStates, if if there was a group,
a mob, people doing somethingunjust, then a lot of
Christians, conservativeChristians especially, would
(31:20):
say, Yeah, you blast them.Right? Because they don't have
the authority to do what they'redoing. Stephen did not do that.
Another interesting thing, sortof a side note, going back to
one of the things I mentionedearlier, but it is interesting,
if you remember my son of mandiscussion just a few minutes
ago, Stephen, as he's dying,says that he he glimpses up to
(31:45):
heaven and he sees the Son ofMan at the right hand of God.
And so, apparently, what Jesushad said in Matthew 26 that,
hey, Pharisees, I'm about to goto take my seat at the right
hand of the throne of God, andthe kingdom's here. Well,
Stephen sees it and he confirmsthat for us. We also see Jason
(32:10):
and Paul, which, which I thinkis another interesting incident
because maybe I'm wrong aboutStephen stoning. Maybe the
religious leaders did have theauthority to execute him.
But, with Jason and Paul, thisis certainly a mob that that is
out against them. And, Jason andPaul, their response is to lock
(32:33):
themselves in a house. Theydon't do any violence. Now,
there could be a number ofreasons for that. It would
probably be stupid of them to,go slashing a whole mob of
people who could who could takethem down.
People might argue that, well,you know, in the early church,
they had to actually be goodwitnesses, because if they were
killing people, then, you know,what would that do for the
(32:55):
gospel? As if as if killingpeople today changes the effect
that, killing has on the gospel.But, nevertheless, Jason and
Paul, we don't see them useviolence in their situation,
even though the people who wereseeking their harm did not have
the authority to do so. We alsosee many times where Paul and
(33:16):
others submit to to beatingsand, executions by by the
government. And, you know, thatis the government, and a lot of
people will excuse that away.
But we just don't see violencecondoned in the New Testament.
In every New Testament examplewe see of individuals who who
(33:39):
have violence done against them,we never see an ounce of
violence approved of. And thenfinally, the ultimate example,
the cheap example here, is gonnabe Jesus. And he submit to death
despite his authority. So evenif you wanna say, well, look,
(34:00):
Pilate had authority, Rome hadauthority, they could put Jesus
to death.
Yeah. That's true, except thatJesus is given all authority in
heaven and earth, and he is thecreator of the universe, and he
has the authority. And so Jesussubmit to death, despite his
(34:22):
authority and despite theinjustice of the situation. Now
people are gonna excuse thataway as, well, Jesus had to do
that as the messiah. And that'sjust a long discussion to have.
Read John Howard Yoder's book,the politics of Jesus, for a a
good insight into that. And wecan have that discussion later.
(34:46):
Anyway, that is the case, theoverview for the case from the
Bible. And I'm sure there's morethat that could have been said,
but hopefully that gives you ataste of of what there is to
find in the old and newtestament. That gives us both
inklings and clear visions of afaithful life of non violence
(35:10):
and enemy love.
That's all for now. So peacebecause I'm a pacifist. When I
say it, I'm happy.
Welcome back to the 4th Way podcast. This is the second
episode in our series, Making aPositive Case for Christian
Nonviolence. So, in the lastepisode, I shared a little bit
about my story, and I told youhow I discovered how I was being
very syncretistic in my life andhow my conservative Christian
(00:28):
community was filled withidolatry and syncretism.
Particularly, we had the issueof consequentialism or this idea
that the ends justify the means.And for something to be moral,
at least in certain aspects, ithad to work.
It had to produce an overallgood result. And, that meant
(00:53):
that in all of my previous looksat issues of Christian
nonviolence as I read the Bible,that I filtered out content or
interpretations against theethic that that violence was
good. I just didn't accept that.Violence was a necessary,
(01:13):
necessary thing. And hopefullythat episode has kind of helped
you to take a look at your ownlife and prepare to hear the
case that we're about to makefor Christian nonviolence.
Because this is something thatyou really need to to come at
with a neutral perspective. Andalso remembering that this is a
(01:34):
cumulative case, and you reallyneed to hear everything out, to
be able to give it a fair fairgo. And you also need to
remember that as a cumulativecase on something that you need
to choose, really myresponsibility is 51% certainty
for you to be more rational tochange your mind. Alright.
(01:56):
Keeping those things in mind,let's go ahead and make the
positive case from the Bible.
So there are plenty of problemsfor the nonviolent case when you
look at the Bible. And, I dowant you to know before we get
into the Old Testament, which iswhere we'll start, that I
(02:16):
understand there are lots ofissues, especially with the Old
Testament, primarily with theOld Testament, and then and then
Revelation. And I am notskipping those. I will come back
to those. We'll do a, counterrebuttal, a number of counter
rebuttal episodes, and we willdefinitely come back to the old
(02:37):
testament problems.
But right now, I want to set upthe positive case for how we can
pull nonviolence out of theBible. And, just know that I'm
not avoiding that, and you cancome back later for future
episodes where we deal with thethe problems. Okay. Old
Testament. So, the Old Testamentis is pretty violent, and there
(03:00):
are a lot of places where itseems like God himself is
violent and where he encouragesviolence from other people.
Like I said, we'll get to totalking about those later, but
we also do get a number ofinklings that, you know what?
Maybe maybe, violence isn'treally something that's that's
great or something that Godwants to keep around or
(03:23):
something that God really likesin general. And today, I wanna
talk about some of thoseinklings because they're they're
really important glimpses,especially as we get to the
ultimate revelation in JesusChrist. It's gonna be helpful to
see how this isn't just, youknow, a a change of gods like,
(03:44):
Marcion and and others kind ofthought was going on. Right?
We're not, like, changing theface of who God is, but it was
there all along. The mostviolent aspect of the Old
Testament is probably theconquest of Canaan. And we we
would focus on a lot of the thekilling and even of of women and
(04:07):
children that goes on there. Butwe get glimpses of God intending
for this sort of thing not tohappen, to be able to keep
people from dying, people frombeing killed, and to keep his
people from killing otherpeople. For example, in Exodus
14, before Israel's ever evengone into Canaan to to get rid
(04:30):
of people, Exodus 14 declaresthat the Lord will fight for
you.
And Exodus 23, God says that hewill send the hornet ahead of
Israel to drive people out.Like, God, if you read certain
aspects of of Exodus as well asother books, it really seems
(04:52):
like God is saying, hey, look, II'll take care of this. I'll
drive them out. You justfaithfully obey me and we'll
drive these people out. We don'tneed to kill them.
I'm not gonna have you killthem. I'm, myself, am not gonna
kill them. I'm gonna send thehornet ahead of you. And we get
a number of glimpses of that,especially in these these two
(05:14):
passages here in Exodus. If youwant to get a lot more of this,
you can get, a lot more examplesfrom Tim Mackey, who is the
creator of The Bible Project.
And he argues that more oftenthan not, that the wrath of God
and the judgment of God and andplaces where it seems like God
kills people, is actually eitherGod withdrawing from people and
(05:38):
allowing natural consequences tohappen to them, or God's use of,
yeah. God's use of naturalconsequences or just his
withdrawal of protection.Anyway, lots of examples. I kind
of wanna talk about some ofthem, but we'll save that for
the counter rebuttals, and youcan look up Tim Mackey. I will I
(06:00):
will, put a link to that here inthe podcast.
So, anyway, the Old Testament islittered with this type of
thing, keeping keeping peoplefrom killing. One other example
really quickly that that'sreally obvious is, take a look
at Gideon or one of the judges.Certainly, a lot of the other
(06:23):
judges make up for, for Gideon'slack of killing in this one
episode. But Gideon is told byGod to basically take some,
like, trumpets and torches andclay pots, get 400 people, and
go and and, surround his enemiesup in the high cliffs and, like,
(06:43):
blow trumpets and yell at themand break jars and all that
stuff. Well, Gideon and Goddon't touch the enemy.
They end up killing each other.And so the fear of God in them,
their fear of the Israelites,their, evil hearts, and and all
of those things kind of combinedto make the situation where when
(07:08):
when they thought they werecoming up against God's army,
God didn't have to lay a fingeron them. They they judged
themselves. And that's the typeof thing that you see all over,
and Mackie Mackie makes that alot clearer in in his, I believe
it was a podcast episode that hehad. Other examples, other
(07:29):
glimpses that we get that thatviolence, even something that
might seem like justifiedviolence or when God commands
it, are not good, or not ideal.
So David, for example, is keptfrom building the temple. In 1
Chronicles 28, we find out why.And it said that he shed blood
(07:52):
as a warrior. Now this isimportant. This this caveat here
is important because, you know,some people would say, well, he
shed blood.
Yeah. He was a murderer. Okay.That's true. But here it
specifically says that the issuewas he shed blood as a warrior.
And now remember, if you justread the story of David and his
(08:13):
killing of the Philistines andGoliath and all these other
things, you would think that outof all the people to build a
temple, God would love to haveDavid build the temple because
he's a man after God's ownheart. And weren't all of those
killings legitimate and,wonderful things for the kingdom
of God for Israel? But Godapparently didn't really like
(08:37):
that. He didn't like that Davidhad blood on his hands. And
that's kind of a glimpse of ofGod's, disdain for for blood.
His his, just hatred of ofviolence. We see in Isaiah 2 and
Micah 4, we see that this thisnotion of swords being turned
(08:58):
into plowshares, in in the end,in the last days. And,
certainly, you could interpretthis in a number of different
ways. You could maybe say, well,this will be when Jesus comes
back and, and establishes hisfinal reign. And, you know, we
could talk about, well, Jesus isactually reigning now and He
(09:20):
brought His kingdom.
Just read especially Mark, butread any of the Gospels. Right?
The kingdom's here now, andwe're expanding it. We're
ambassadors for it. And we applyother sorts of passages like
Joel, when when individuals werespeaking in tongues, it's
supposed to be a pro a fulfilledprophecy.
So, you know, this idea ofswords being turned into
(09:43):
plowshares, for a lot of people,is something that is actually
supposed to be taking place now.That was, that was prophetic of
now. And that's not just somecrazy, like, pacifistic
interpretation. You look at theearly church fathers and they
quoted this concept frequently.This idea of, hey, look.
Right now, we've turned ourplows our swords into
(10:05):
plowshares. In the next episode,I'll give you some specific
examples of those quotes fromthe church fathers. But that was
a a very early interpretation inthe early church. I think it's
interesting that, in particular,that Isaiah is one of the
individuals who gives us thisthis glimpse of swords being
(10:28):
turned into plowshares. Becauseit's also Isaiah who gives us
the, I think, the only glimpse Imean, I guess you could count
some of the Psalms.
But, really, the clearestglimpse of the Messiah being a
suffering servant, who wasn'tcoming in in violent conquest.
(10:54):
And so Isaiah seems tounderstand the messianic aspect
of Jesus. He seems to get Jesusthe clearest. And so the fact
that he is also talking aboutthe nonviolence in that era or,
you know, after that establishedkingdom, it kind of goes hand in
(11:15):
hand. And I think it's it's,something interesting to
consider.
And that makes a lot of sensetoo with if you understand
progressive revelation, and yousay, well, there's a lot of
killing and and those sorts ofthings going on in in the Old
Testament, but you understandthat there are a lot of these
(11:36):
concepts that that God is notpromoting, but he's dealing
with. Like, take, divorce forexample. Jesus says, look. This
wasn't something God wanted. Hegave you this law because of
your hardness of hearts.
And, essentially, if he didn'tgive you this law, like, you'd
be doomed. Like, this was thiswas his mercy on you to work
with you through this throughthis, misunderstanding, through
(12:00):
this this hardness of yourheart. And so if we understand
progressive revelation, and wethink that, Isaiah has
progressed down this path morein understanding who the Messiah
is, then that's helpful inunderstanding why maybe we see
less violence, in in, this ideaof the suffering servant and
(12:23):
swords to plowshares and all ofthat. Now, the New Testament, of
course, is going to be muchclearer, and I don't think
that's a bad thing. I don'tthink it's, it's fair to say
that that preaching nonviolencediscounts the old testament.
(12:45):
Because if you do understandthis progressive revelation,
that helps to make sense ofthings. But then also, you get
this idea, that we see in anumber of places that Jesus
really is the clear revelation.I mean, a lot of the old
testament doesn't make sense ifyou don't have Jesus, and so
much more is illuminated if youdo have Jesus. Jesus says in
(13:08):
John 14 that if you have seenme, you've seen the father.
Right?
He is the revelation of God.Hebrews says that he's the full
revelation of God. Right? He'sthe he's the image of of God.
And, we have only seen dimly upto the point of Jesus, but now
in Jesus, we see we see crystalclear, because Jesus is the
(13:33):
image of God.
He's the pure revelation. And,so some of the things that we
think we might see in the OldTestament that maybe were
progressive revelation or, Godallowing things or working
through systems for due tohardness of heart, really, if we
(13:54):
see something that's prettyclear in Jesus and isn't very
clear in the Old Testament, thenwe go with Jesus because that's
the clear teaching. And and thisis is something maybe comparable
to, something like the trinity.Right? In the in the Old
Testament, if you were to try tofind the trinity, you could
(14:17):
find, potentially, someexamples.
The the angels or or the,individuals appearing to
Abraham, the 3 individuals thathe fed. You know, there are a
couple times where where Godsays, like in Genesis, let us
make man in our image. And Iknow there are different
(14:39):
interpretations of that, butsome people use that to try to
show Trinity. And so you youreally do get at least a bindity
in the Old Testament, like withthe angel of the Lord and God.
You kinda see that there arepotentially 2 people, maybe
maybe more.
But it's not until the NewTestament that we we get this
(15:02):
idea of a trinity. And eventhen, it takes quite a long time
for them to figure out how tohow to put that into words and
to to make that something that'snot heretical. It takes them a
few centuries to kind of hashthat out and nail that down. So
some of these things that thatwe take to be staples, orthodox
(15:29):
staples for Christianity, Imean, it's not like they are
just clearly seen in the oldtestament and new testament.
There is this progressiverevelation, and there is this
clarification in Jesus Christwho makes a lot of things make
sense.
And even with things like thetrinity, even though it makes
sense to us now, it still wasn'tdidn't make complete sense to
(15:53):
people as they were trying topiece together everything. And I
think this is this is kind oflike that, and it's not fair to
to judge pacifism for, this ideathat things become much clearer
in the New Testament. Andneedless to say, things become
(16:13):
much, much clearer in the NewTestament. You really don't get
very much information at allthat's gonna give you give you a
case against nonviolence. Justabout everything is going to be
for Christian nonviolence.
So take a look at Matthew 5.Right? This is Jesus's famous
(16:35):
teaching on turning the othercheek, on loving our enemies.
And then in Romans 12 and firstPeter 3, they build on this
concept and they say, don't takevengeance. Right?
That's that's a problem. So it'snot just it's not just Jesus in
in Matthew 5, but you've gotother authors saying, don't take
(16:58):
vengeance on people. Right? Letlet that up to God. And maybe
maybe, and we'll talk about thislater, like I said, maybe God
took vengeance in the OldTestament.
Maybe he did that. Maybe Godused people to take vengeance in
the Old Testament. But now asrevealed through Christ, at
least at this time, God has toldus not to take vengeance. We let
(17:22):
that up to him. We are in an eraof nonviolence.
If nonviolence has not alwaysbeen, at least it is now, as
seen through through Christ andhis teaching. And supported by
Paul and Peter and probablyothers. You know, Romans 13,
(17:44):
that's we'll have a wholeepisode on that later as well.
If you're gonna read Romans 13as legitimizing violence, even
if I give that to you, it onlydoes so in the function of a
state, not in the hands of anindividual. And so, even if
you're going to want toincorporate some sort of
violence, Romans 13 at leastlimits that violence to the
(18:07):
state.
And like I said, we'll talkabout that because I I think
that's even a a stretch. But,anyway. So, Jesus, beyond these
these ideas of turning the othercheek and loving enemies and not
taking vengeance and leavingvengeance up to the government
(18:28):
beyond those things. Jesus alsoshifts our vision of the kingdom
that he brought when he saidthat his kingdom is not of this
world. Because if it was of thisworld, his followers would fight
for him.
But Jesus says, my kingdom's notof this world. My followers
don't fight. And so Jesus kindof gives us this this, this
(18:56):
perspective that the kingdomthat we we are to be faithful
towards is a kingdom that isn'tlike the kingdoms on earth. We
don't use power and coercion andforce. We we fight our battle in
a different way.
And you see this too in, inPaul, where he talks about how
(19:18):
we don't wrestle with flesh andblood, but with principalities
and powers. And the this idea ofspiritual warfare and, and that
that the kingdom is differentthan the earthly powers is quite
clear in the New Testament. Youalso get this, this idea of the
(19:41):
Son of Man, which I think is isvery interesting. A lot of times
people, I remember one time wehad Jehovah's Witnesses come
over, and they were talkingabout how, well, look. In the
Bible, it even says Jesus is theson of man.
Like, well, great. Thank you forthank you for acknowledging that
because that, more than the sonof God, is a title of divinity.
(20:05):
We see this in Daniel. In Daniel7, Daniel gives us picture of
the the ancient of days and, howhe's clothed, and he's got this
white hair and and all of thisstuff. And the son of man is
like that and ascends up to sitat the right hand of the throne
(20:26):
of the Ancient of Days.
Now he gives the son of manqualities that are divine, that
are only true of God, and he hashim sitting at the right hand of
the throne of God. So this sonof man, as seen in Daniel, the
the the place in the oldtestament where we get this
term, is probably the mostdivine term you can come up
(20:50):
with, because because of all thethings that Daniel says about
who this son of man is. Andwhat's really interesting is
Jesus basically says, you knowthat guy in Daniel? You know
that guy who's God? Yeah.
That's me. Right before hiscrucifixion, Jesus says, in
(21:10):
Matthew 26, I believe it's alsoin Luke, from now on, you will
see the Son of Man sitting atthe right hand of the mighty one
and coming on the clouds ofheaven. So this idea of coming
on the clouds, a lot of peoplethink that, you know, rapture,
Jesus comes down. But the waythat that coming on the clouds
was used in the Old Testament,when God came against Egypt in
(21:31):
judgment, he came on the clouds.Or when the son of man goes to
sit at the right hand of thethrone of God, he comes on the
clouds.
So this idea of coming on theclouds, a lot of times can can
mean ascension and a lot oftimes means judgment. So when
Jesus says, hey, look. You'reabout to crucify me, but I want
(21:53):
you to know something. From nowon, you're gonna see the Son of
Man. You know that guy in Daniel7?
Yeah. He is me, and he's gonnabe sitting at the right hand of
the mighty one and coming on theclouds of heaven. He's saying,
I'm about to go up there. I'mabout to take my seat. My work's
gonna be finished, andjudgment's coming.
So be warned. That's when whenJesus says that his kingdom's
(22:18):
not of this world in John 18,and then we get this
understanding of what he'stelling the Pharisees that he's
about to do, that's that's apretty big deal. And, it's it's
just something that that a lotof people overlook, about about
this this kingdom. First Peterkind of bolsters that. He talk
(22:43):
the whole book of first Peter isreally fantastic for for this,
probably more so with governmentand less so with pacifism
directly.
But Peter talks about thisconcept that we're aliens. Like,
we we really do belong toanother kingdom, and we don't
fit into this kingdom here. Ourkingdom, our allegiance is
something different than it ishere. And that means, like Jesus
(23:06):
said, the way that we we fightfor that kingdom is different,
and like Paul said about fleshand blood, etcetera. Revelation
is is also interesting, becausea lot of people are gonna use
that.
And, again, we'll get to thislater on. But a lot of people
(23:26):
are gonna use Revelation as anexample of, well, see, the New
Testament's very bloody. Andeven if you wanna say that, it's
fairly clear that we're in anera where we aren't to take
vengeance. And if Jesus decidesto come back in vengeance, so be
it. But what's gonna happen inthe future versus what we're
(23:47):
supposed to do now are twodifferent things.
But, secondly, I think peoplejust miss what Revelation is
saying. And Tim Mackey, again,is is somebody who's good to
listen to on this, but, if youjust look at what Revelation is
saying and how, how it wouldhave been applicable to the the
early church, it's just abeautiful book. This, there's so
(24:12):
many offsetting pieces ofimagery, like, the one who
conquers isn't the Lion ofJudah. Right? John sees the
lion, but then when he takes adouble take and he looks again,
it's not the lion, but it's theLamb who was slain.
And this Lamb who was slainconquers. And time and time and
(24:33):
time and time again, the imagerywe get in Revelation of, when we
get this word, Nica or Nike orwhatever, for conquer, when we
get that, it's in the context ofsubmission and laying down our
lives. And something that wasreally interesting is is after,
I heard Mackie say somethinglike that, I I went and looked
(24:56):
through Revelation. And, youknow, I thought Revelation is
just this gory, bloody book. Andso, I looked up all the times
that the word blood appeared.
And I think it's, like, I thinkit's 18. And I wanna say, I
think it's 6 of those times. Theblood appears in in, like, a
(25:17):
it's it's a metaphoricaljudgment. You see it in the old
testament. You see it in in allsorts of passages.
But, like, the moon turns toblood and and that kind of
stuff. So it's it's nobody'sblood. It's just this symbolic
something's gonna turn to bloodas a judgment. And I think there
are 12 other times that blood isused. And all but one of those
(25:41):
times, the blood either refersto Jesus or to the martyrs.
And that one time, that that oneremaining time where blood
occurs, it's unclear whose bloodit is. It could be the it could
be the martyrs, and it it mightnot be. So go ahead and and look
(26:03):
that up yourself. If I have thedocument, if I can find it, I'll
I'll post it here, a link to it.But Revelation, if you listen to
somebody like Mackie or or Boyd,expound on it, I mean, it's just
jam packed with this idea ofconquering is submitting and is
(26:29):
is, nonviolence.
It's sacrifice. And just asJesus conquered by being a slain
lamb, so we conquer. We conquerin light fact like fashion. Who
are we to think that we arebetter than our savior? That,
what what is becoming of Him isnot becoming for us.
(26:49):
So, Revelation, great book,interesting. Lots of things that
people think they know about itthat they just don't. Again, we
will get to that later. I hatehaving to keep saying that, but,
I just I really want I'mchomping at the bit to say so
much more about a lot of thesethings. But I just can't for
(27:11):
time's sake.
Okay. So beyond the the justbiblical case, the the concepts,
the ideas that that are beingtaught, we also have some New
Testament examples. Now, I willadmit right off the bat that
that these examples, I would nothang my hat on it, and and say
(27:32):
that these are examples of,absolute non violence and they
support the case for nonviolence. I'm just throwing them
out there because, again, thisis a cumulative case, and I'm
going to throw out all thepieces of potential evidence
that I can. And, point is, inthe New Testament, beyond the
teachings, we do get a number ofexamples of people who are put
(27:53):
in situations where violence isbeing done to them, and we see
how they respond.
And that's important becauseeven though a response of
nonviolence doesn't prove thatthat's how things should always
be, the fact that we never see areturning of violence is also
(28:15):
interesting. In in every case,we never see a returning of
violence condoned, And I don'tthink there's a case where
violence is is even done at all.Maybe the only case you can see
is Peter slicing off a, not acenturion, a high priest servant
(28:37):
ear, Malchus. And what doesJesus do? He puts it back on and
says, Peter, put your swordaway.
And then the early churchfathers used that, in in some of
their quotes and say, hey, look.When Jesus told Peter to to
sheathe his sword, that was acommand for all Christians. Not
that not that the early churchfathers were right about that,
(28:59):
but, the fact that that theyunderstood the significance of
the one violent act you seeagainst somebody else, a
Christian against somebody else,is reprimanded and and restored.
There's restoration, there'shealing, by Jesus, who refuses
violence in that very samesituation. So, New Testament
(29:21):
examples.
We've got a couple that I canthink of. The first most
interesting one would be Stephenstoning in Act 7. And, from my
understanding now, I could bewrong about this, so please
correct me if I am but when whenStephen was stoned by the
religious leaders, I don't thinkthat they had the permission to
(29:46):
actually execute somebody atthat point. And if that's the
case, then Stephen stoning inacts 7, is is particularly
important because hiswillingness to die was not a
submission to authorities. And Ihear this a lot in in, the
United States, especially wherewe are a gun culture that okay.
(30:11):
If if somebody comes into yourhouse, and they're a government
official, and it's illegal to bea Christian, and they try to
take you, you submit because yousubmit to government, except for
that, you know, wholerevolutionary war thing that was
legitimate. But, anyway, this,you know, this idea that we
submit to the government is isis something that's used to
(30:37):
excuse away a lot of things. Andthey'll say, well, look. All
these New Testament examples aregonna be submissions to
government. I don't thinkStephen stoning applies because
he wasn't submitting, from myunderstanding, to to government
here.
He was submitting to, let's say,mob violence, mob justice, and
(30:59):
to a group who didn't have theauthority to do what they were
doing, as far as I understand.And so the fact that he did not
retaliate, like, in the UnitedStates, if if there was a group,
a mob, people doing somethingunjust, then a lot of
Christians, conservativeChristians especially, would
(31:20):
say, Yeah, you blast them.Right? Because they don't have
the authority to do what they'redoing. Stephen did not do that.
Another interesting thing, sortof a side note, going back to
one of the things I mentionedearlier, but it is interesting,
if you remember my son of mandiscussion just a few minutes
ago, Stephen, as he's dying,says that he he glimpses up to
(31:45):
heaven and he sees the Son ofMan at the right hand of God.
And so, apparently, what Jesushad said in Matthew 26 that,
hey, Pharisees, I'm about to goto take my seat at the right
hand of the throne of God, andthe kingdom's here. Well,
Stephen sees it and he confirmsthat for us. We also see Jason
(32:10):
and Paul, which, which I thinkis another interesting incident
because maybe I'm wrong aboutStephen stoning. Maybe the
religious leaders did have theauthority to execute him.
But, with Jason and Paul, thisis certainly a mob that that is
out against them. And, Jason andPaul, their response is to lock
(32:33):
themselves in a house. Theydon't do any violence. Now,
there could be a number ofreasons for that. It would
probably be stupid of them to,go slashing a whole mob of
people who could who could takethem down.
People might argue that, well,you know, in the early church,
they had to actually be goodwitnesses, because if they were
killing people, then, you know,what would that do for the
(32:55):
gospel? As if as if killingpeople today changes the effect
that, killing has on the gospel.But, nevertheless, Jason and
Paul, we don't see them useviolence in their situation,
even though the people who wereseeking their harm did not have
the authority to do so. We alsosee many times where Paul and
(33:16):
others submit to to beatingsand, executions by by the
government. And, you know, thatis the government, and a lot of
people will excuse that away.
But we just don't see violencecondoned in the New Testament.
In every New Testament examplewe see of individuals who who
(33:39):
have violence done against them,we never see an ounce of
violence approved of. And thenfinally, the ultimate example,
the cheap example here, is gonnabe Jesus. And he submit to death
despite his authority. So evenif you wanna say, well, look,
(34:00):
Pilate had authority, Rome hadauthority, they could put Jesus
to death.
Yeah. That's true, except thatJesus is given all authority in
heaven and earth, and he is thecreator of the universe, and he
has the authority. And so Jesussubmit to death, despite his
(34:22):
authority and despite theinjustice of the situation. Now
people are gonna excuse thataway as, well, Jesus had to do
that as the messiah. And that'sjust a long discussion to have.
Read John Howard Yoder's book,the politics of Jesus, for a a
good insight into that. And wecan have that discussion later.
(34:46):
Anyway, that is the case, theoverview for the case from the
Bible. And I'm sure there's morethat that could have been said,
but hopefully that gives you ataste of of what there is to
find in the old and newtestament. That gives us both
inklings and clear visions of afaithful life of non violence
(35:10):
and enemy love.
That's all for now. So peacebecause I'm a pacifist. When I
say it, I'm happy.
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