September 20, 2019 • 18 mins
- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- For a GREAT, but deep read on how a non-violent God is not necessary for a nonviolent position, check out DARRIN W. SNYDER BELOUSEK's work entitled " God and Nonviolence: Creedal Theology and Christian Ethics:" https://www.academia.edu/5671308/God_and_Nonviolence_Creedal_Theology_and_Christian_Ethics
- Representative Matt Shea following Chritistianity and war to its logical conclusion, arguing for non-Christian male combatants to be executed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Shea#Political_career
- Shea's "The Biblical Basis for War:" https://media.spokesman.com/documents/2018/10/Biblical_Basis_for_War.pdf
- 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 (00:05):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This
episode, we are going to take alook at the first of 2
perspectives for interpretingviolence in the Bible. As I said
back to the beginning of, thispodcast, we completely
understand that there are a lotof issues in the Bible. There is
violence galore. And I told you,I promised you, that I was not
(00:29):
going to skip over thatviolence, but I was going to
provide a framework, anexplanation for how the
nonviolent position deals withthat.
So we're gonna take 2 episodesto do that, and then we are
going to also take anotherepisode to look at Revelation
specifically, and talk about howthe nonviolent individual can
(00:52):
deal with with all of theviolence in the Bible. So let's
jump right in with the firstview. And the first view for
interpreting Biblical violence,I'm going to call the
authoritative view. And, on theauthoritative view, killing is
not viewed as absolutelyimmoral, provided that 1 has the
authority take life. Since Godis the author and sustainer of
(01:15):
life, he alone has the right totake life or to decree killing.
This view then would takekilling as not something that is
absolutely immoral. Like, let'ssay lying. We know that God
cannot lie because as a part ofhis character, he cannot lie.
That's just who he is. It is itis him.
(01:36):
To not lie is that. God is notanything but love. So something,
God cannot perform an act thatis not loving, because love is
who God is. But on this view,killing is not really a a
character trait, or the lack ofkilling, is not a character
trait of God. For him to do thatis not to deny his own self, to
(02:01):
deny who he is.
And we recognize this type ofmorality all the time. Take
parents, for example. And werecognize that parents have
certain capacities that, let'ssay, their kids don't have. So
for instance, my daughter shouldnot punish my son when he does
something wrong. What we tellour daughter to do is to speak
(02:24):
to our son first, then come andtalk to us and we'll take care
of it.
We will, She will not disciplinehim, but she will talk to him
and confront him. And if he doesnot comply, then she will talk
to us, and we take care of thedisciplinary aspect, and we will
intervene. She does not have theright to do that. So I have some
rights that she doesn't becauseof my my position of authority.
(02:46):
But, also, there are commandsthat I can give that are not,
are not universal or or true forall time.
So, for example, we might tellour daughter, do not use the
stove. We do not want you to dothat. It is dangerous. You can
hurt yourself. You can start afire.
Don't use the stove. Don't touchthat. But she's learning how to
(03:09):
make eggs, and we're trying tohelp her to be independent. And
there might be a day where weare at the kitchen table in the
other room, right next to ourkitchen, and we say, you know
what? Go ahead, and you give ita shot to make some eggs today.
You go ahead and you use thatstove. The use of the stove is
not something that is inherentlymoral or immoral. Stoves are
(03:32):
amoral. They there's nothingthere's no morality about them.
Morality comes by being infusedwith what the authority gives to
it.
So since I have authority overmy daughter, and I have
authority over the stove, I say,don't use the stove, and she
should comply. But I can use thestove, and I can let her use the
(03:52):
stove if I feel like it iswarranted and safe and all of
that. That's essentially whatthis view is going to say about
killing. God has the authorityover life. God can choose to
take life if He so desires, andGod can choose to allow other
people to take life if He sodesires.
But, that's the only way itworks. I cannot choose to take
(04:13):
life apart from God's authorityover that. This view then will
take the Bible at its word whenattributing violence or
permission of violence to God.When it says that God killed
somebody, God killed them. Whenit says that God told Joshua to
slaughter some, some people,some soldiers, some citizens,
some children, whatever, then,no.
(04:36):
God told him to do that. And Godhas the right to do that because
he has the right of life. Andfor him to kill or tell others
to kill is not a directcontradiction of his character.
However, we run into a problem.The the nonviolent individual
says that we run into a problemwhen we get to the New Testament
(04:56):
in terms of violence because allof a sudden, our directive is to
leave vengeance to God.
God does not direct us or permitus to use violence today. He, we
don't wage holy wars. Goddoesn't say, hey, United States
President, go ahead and andattack this other country as an
(05:16):
arm of my judgment, and I wantyou to destroy them. That we
don't think that that happenstoday. God we are to leave
vengeance to God.
And even if you take Romans 13,that has a limited application,
in in terms of who is able to doviolence. That would not apply
to me on the streets, or mewitnessing a crime or anything
(05:39):
like that. And there's a limitedapplication to government, and
that's gonna apply to allnations equally, even nations
like, say, Iran or North Korea.So, essentially, what we are
saying is that, yeah, God didsome killing. Maybe he still
does.
I don't know. Bible's closed.God can do what he wants with
(06:00):
life. But as far as permissionfor us, for his his people go,
he doesn't give that permissionanymore. We are not waging holy
wars, and he does not tellpeople to go kill other people.
We leave vengeance in God'shands, and we live as Christ
showed us we should live in thiskingdom age until he returns.
And that's also going to takecare of revelation for us
(06:22):
because if Jesus comes back andstarts, whacking some people,
well, that's kind of hisprerogative. He can he controls
life. He's the author of life.He's the sustainer of life.
By him, all things were made,and through him, all things are
sustained. So if he decides torevoke that life, then that's
(06:43):
his authority. The non violencethen was not something that that
always was, but it's more of adispensation that we are to have
at this time with the example ofChrist, under his teachings, and
through His Spirit, by Hisgrace. As you can see, that
position is actually prettysimple in terms of of what it
(07:07):
espouses. It does not have to,really work around anything.
It doesn't have to changeanything in the Old Testament,
any any of our commonunderstandings of it. It just
kind of takes everything atpurely face value and just goes
with it. Since that is is such ashort explanation, I wanna use
(07:29):
the the rest of this episode topush back. And, if you're gonna
argue that violence is fortoday, if you if you wanna say,
okay. Well, I can see howsomebody would would claim that
view of nonviolence.
But, no, I think violencecarries over from the Old
Testament. I I think that, youknow, just as people were right
(07:52):
to defend their their nation or,to enforce capital punishment or
whatever else, people could dothat back then, and that carries
over today. I don't think godhas revoked that. So let's talk
about the the opposite of theview I just kind of laid out
today, and let's talk about theproblems that you're gonna have
(08:13):
if you don't take on this view,if you think that violence does
carry over. So here are just afew questions.
Alright. In the Old Testament,you've got God prescribing
killing. God tells Joshua to togo kill people. God tells Moses.
God tells judges.
God tells David to kill people.Okay. Who gives that permission
(08:35):
today? Who prescribes killingtoday? Are you really
comfortable saying that, thatGod is prescribing killing for
for any individual or grouptoday?
If you think that the governmenthas the legitimate authority to,
legitimate killing, then whichgovernment is ordained by God in
(08:57):
war? I live in The UnitedStates. That's a government.
Some people live in North Korea.That's a government.
They're both governments. Theyboth bear the sword. And if
you're gonna use Romans 13 tolegitimate violence, then North
Korea and The United States arekind of on the same same field.
If you really wanna take the thewords there in Romans 13 as
(09:20):
God's ordination, or, that thatthese governments are his
ministers, and you wanna takethat in a specific reading, then
which government's ordained byGod? All of them?
Well, then how can anygovernment go to war against
another government if both areministers of God? How could I,
as The United States, in TheUnited States, wage war with
(09:43):
another minister of God? Anotherquestion. In in any war, you can
pick any war, but let's takeWorld War one as a good example.
Who was right in fighting fortheir country?
Which soldiers were morallyjustified? You had a lot of
European countries historicallyChristian, whether that's
nominally or or actually.Nevertheless, they identified as
(10:06):
Christian. Was the GermanChristian, true Christian,
immoral to fight for hiscountry? His country, his
government, who, according tothis view, is a minister of God
and has legitimate authority towage war.
If you fought for Great Britain,the opposite side, and you're a
(10:26):
Christian, were you moral fordoing that, To submit to your
government, God's minister ofviolence. It doesn't seem to
make sense that both Christianswere moral for fighting for
their country. But at the sametime, I don't know how you
really escape that if you'regoing to kind of give this
(10:47):
blanket authority to governmentscoming from Romans 13,
especially considering thatRomans 13 was written when it
was written during, around thetime of of Nero and and
persecutions. It just doesn'tmake sense that that you can say
1 group was moral while theother wasn't. But it also makes
(11:09):
no sense to say that both aremoral.
Like, two two Christians can goto war on 2 different sides and
kill each other, and they bothkill each other morally. That
just doesn't make sense to me.Alright. Another question. So we
see how God wages war in the OldTestament.
We see that when God permitsviolence, he permits barbarism.
(11:30):
He did some pretty terriblethings to people. David chopped
off Goliath's head. They hung itup and, like, waved it around.
There's some really graphicthings in the Old Testament, in
particular, and Revelation.
And they kill women. They killchildren as judgment. And if
(11:50):
you're really going to say thatwe have carryover violence from
the Old Testament, that, youknow, God God showed us that
violence can be used. Now, we webelieve that it has to be used
justly, but violence can be usedagainst groups of people as
judgment. Then why in the worlddon't we carry over the
(12:11):
slaughter of civilians, or thebarbarism, like we see in the
Old Testament?
And, what you will hear most ofthe time when you bring
something like that up is peoplewill say, well, when when people
slaughtered civilians andbabies, that was a judgment on
Canaan, who was was justextremely sinful. And, you know,
(12:33):
they had direct permission fromGod to do that kind of thing, to
to exact that kind of violence.Well, that seems a bit ironic to
me that you wanna say that youdon't need God's permission to
engage in violence because youknow that somebody is immoral
enough to warrant your your useof violence. But then, you wanna
(12:57):
say that you can't use violenceto the same extent as you did in
the Old Testament because you'renot sure of of who is, who is
worthy of having that violencewaged against them. It's kind of
a double standard.
You say it says 1 thing andfollows that line of reasoning,
but then because everybodyrecognizes that it's ridiculous
(13:20):
to say that we're gonna go killwomen and children, or or behead
people and put their heads onpikes, people know that that's
ridiculous, and so they have tocompletely reverse that line of
reasoning, say we need God'spermission. So either you know a
group is just, or or, a group isevil and worthy of violence
(13:41):
without God, or you need God.You need God, and God doesn't
really do that thing today. So,that's non violence. If you
don't need God, and you knowthat a group is unjust, then
kill the women and children.
Alright. Next question. If theOld Testament violence
justifies, violence in the NewTestament. Why don't we have the
(14:03):
same punishments for civilcrimes? Like, take adultery or
or disobedient children who usedto be, who used to be executed.
Why, like, the my group, theconservative Christians, we want
to make certain things illegal,like gay marriage or, abortion.
(14:24):
But we don't want to make thingslike adultery or disobedience,
disobedient children, we don'twanna make that civil crime a
civil crime. And we really don'twanna make those things
punishable by death. But whynot? If if the Old Testament, if
the New Testament is really justkind of a carryover of the Old
(14:45):
Testament system of of whatwe're allowed to do to people,
then and and if morality isobjective, and so adultery was
wrong and still is wrong,disobedience was wrong and still
is wrong, that the moralityhasn't changed.
This is not a, sacrificialturnover. This isn't this isn't
ceremonial law that we'retalking about. This is objective
(15:08):
moral law. So if you've got noproblem with governments bearing
the sword on on God's behalf, ifthey're his ministers, and if we
know what objective morality is,and God even showed us the types
of things that he really doesn'tlike in the Old Testament, like
adultery, and he showed us howhe wants those things dealt
(15:30):
with, and he's still forviolence today and for
governments using violence, thenwhy aren't we all for things
like adultery being, you know,being used by our our gov our
government punishing adultery?So it seems like the carryover
of violence to the New Testamentreally runs individuals who
believe in objective moralityinto into some problems.
(15:53):
Some particularly some problemsof consistency or inconsistency,
I should say. Alright. Nextquestion. What do you do with
God's New Testament charge thatwe are to leave vengeance to
him? That's a pretty simplequestion.
Straightforward. What do you dowith that? If you are trying to,
dissolve it in Romans 13, and Ilook forward to getting to the
(16:15):
episode on Romans 13, because wewon't just be reading the first
few verses there in Romans 13.We'll take a look at 12 and, the
section in 13 following the thesection on government. But,
yeah.
What what do you do withvengeance? And final question.
And this 1 isn't really reallyas as big as the others, but,
(16:35):
yeah, David was not allowed tobuild a temple because of the
blood that was on his hands. Andthe text specifically says that
was on his hands as a warrior.So we're not referring to blood
on his hands, and I don't reallyknow the timing of this, whether
it was before or after hemurdered Uriah.
But, nevertheless, the text saysthere's blood on his hands as a
(16:57):
warrior. And, presumably, thatwas legitimate. Right? God
wanted David to fight hisenemies. But David couldn't
build the temple because of thatlegitimate killing.
Right? Well, if God has issueswith people who have blood on
their hands building his temple,what do you do in the New
Testament when we are the templeof God? Do Do you think God is
(17:18):
any more okay with us havingblood on our hands today than
than he was before with David, aman after God's own heart? He
couldn't have blood on his handsfrom from legitimate killing.
What about us who reside, whothe temple of God resides within
us?
We are at the temple. That seemsto be a little problematic.
Anyway, I really hope that, thiskinda gets you thinking a little
(17:43):
bit about how pacifists can dealwith with some of the Old
Testament violence, as well assome of the the big problems and
consistency issues thatindividuals have if they don't
take on non violence in the NewTestament, if they want to have
that carryover of the OldTestament violence, there's some
issues to deal with and somereally problematic questions to
(18:04):
answer. Well, hopefully that gotyou thinking. And that's all for
now, so peace, and since I'm apacifist, when I say it, I mean
it.
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This
episode, we are going to take alook at the first of 2
perspectives for interpretingviolence in the Bible. As I said
back to the beginning of, thispodcast, we completely
understand that there are a lotof issues in the Bible. There is
violence galore. And I told you,I promised you, that I was not
(00:29):
going to skip over thatviolence, but I was going to
provide a framework, anexplanation for how the
nonviolent position deals withthat.
So we're gonna take 2 episodesto do that, and then we are
going to also take anotherepisode to look at Revelation
specifically, and talk about howthe nonviolent individual can
(00:52):
deal with with all of theviolence in the Bible. So let's
jump right in with the firstview. And the first view for
interpreting Biblical violence,I'm going to call the
authoritative view. And, on theauthoritative view, killing is
not viewed as absolutelyimmoral, provided that 1 has the
authority take life. Since Godis the author and sustainer of
(01:15):
life, he alone has the right totake life or to decree killing.
This view then would takekilling as not something that is
absolutely immoral. Like, let'ssay lying. We know that God
cannot lie because as a part ofhis character, he cannot lie.
That's just who he is. It is itis him.
(01:36):
To not lie is that. God is notanything but love. So something,
God cannot perform an act thatis not loving, because love is
who God is. But on this view,killing is not really a a
character trait, or the lack ofkilling, is not a character
trait of God. For him to do thatis not to deny his own self, to
(02:01):
deny who he is.
And we recognize this type ofmorality all the time. Take
parents, for example. And werecognize that parents have
certain capacities that, let'ssay, their kids don't have. So
for instance, my daughter shouldnot punish my son when he does
something wrong. What we tellour daughter to do is to speak
(02:24):
to our son first, then come andtalk to us and we'll take care
of it.
We will, She will not disciplinehim, but she will talk to him
and confront him. And if he doesnot comply, then she will talk
to us, and we take care of thedisciplinary aspect, and we will
intervene. She does not have theright to do that. So I have some
rights that she doesn't becauseof my my position of authority.
(02:46):
But, also, there are commandsthat I can give that are not,
are not universal or or true forall time.
So, for example, we might tellour daughter, do not use the
stove. We do not want you to dothat. It is dangerous. You can
hurt yourself. You can start afire.
Don't use the stove. Don't touchthat. But she's learning how to
(03:09):
make eggs, and we're trying tohelp her to be independent. And
there might be a day where weare at the kitchen table in the
other room, right next to ourkitchen, and we say, you know
what? Go ahead, and you give ita shot to make some eggs today.
You go ahead and you use thatstove. The use of the stove is
not something that is inherentlymoral or immoral. Stoves are
(03:32):
amoral. They there's nothingthere's no morality about them.
Morality comes by being infusedwith what the authority gives to
it.
So since I have authority overmy daughter, and I have
authority over the stove, I say,don't use the stove, and she
should comply. But I can use thestove, and I can let her use the
(03:52):
stove if I feel like it iswarranted and safe and all of
that. That's essentially whatthis view is going to say about
killing. God has the authorityover life. God can choose to
take life if He so desires, andGod can choose to allow other
people to take life if He sodesires.
But, that's the only way itworks. I cannot choose to take
(04:13):
life apart from God's authorityover that. This view then will
take the Bible at its word whenattributing violence or
permission of violence to God.When it says that God killed
somebody, God killed them. Whenit says that God told Joshua to
slaughter some, some people,some soldiers, some citizens,
some children, whatever, then,no.
(04:36):
God told him to do that. And Godhas the right to do that because
he has the right of life. Andfor him to kill or tell others
to kill is not a directcontradiction of his character.
However, we run into a problem.The the nonviolent individual
says that we run into a problemwhen we get to the New Testament
(04:56):
in terms of violence because allof a sudden, our directive is to
leave vengeance to God.
God does not direct us or permitus to use violence today. He, we
don't wage holy wars. Goddoesn't say, hey, United States
President, go ahead and andattack this other country as an
(05:16):
arm of my judgment, and I wantyou to destroy them. That we
don't think that that happenstoday. God we are to leave
vengeance to God.
And even if you take Romans 13,that has a limited application,
in in terms of who is able to doviolence. That would not apply
to me on the streets, or mewitnessing a crime or anything
(05:39):
like that. And there's a limitedapplication to government, and
that's gonna apply to allnations equally, even nations
like, say, Iran or North Korea.So, essentially, what we are
saying is that, yeah, God didsome killing. Maybe he still
does.
I don't know. Bible's closed.God can do what he wants with
(06:00):
life. But as far as permissionfor us, for his his people go,
he doesn't give that permissionanymore. We are not waging holy
wars, and he does not tellpeople to go kill other people.
We leave vengeance in God'shands, and we live as Christ
showed us we should live in thiskingdom age until he returns.
And that's also going to takecare of revelation for us
(06:22):
because if Jesus comes back andstarts, whacking some people,
well, that's kind of hisprerogative. He can he controls
life. He's the author of life.He's the sustainer of life.
By him, all things were made,and through him, all things are
sustained. So if he decides torevoke that life, then that's
(06:43):
his authority. The non violencethen was not something that that
always was, but it's more of adispensation that we are to have
at this time with the example ofChrist, under his teachings, and
through His Spirit, by Hisgrace. As you can see, that
position is actually prettysimple in terms of of what it
(07:07):
espouses. It does not have to,really work around anything.
It doesn't have to changeanything in the Old Testament,
any any of our commonunderstandings of it. It just
kind of takes everything atpurely face value and just goes
with it. Since that is is such ashort explanation, I wanna use
(07:29):
the the rest of this episode topush back. And, if you're gonna
argue that violence is fortoday, if you if you wanna say,
okay. Well, I can see howsomebody would would claim that
view of nonviolence.
But, no, I think violencecarries over from the Old
Testament. I I think that, youknow, just as people were right
(07:52):
to defend their their nation or,to enforce capital punishment or
whatever else, people could dothat back then, and that carries
over today. I don't think godhas revoked that. So let's talk
about the the opposite of theview I just kind of laid out
today, and let's talk about theproblems that you're gonna have
(08:13):
if you don't take on this view,if you think that violence does
carry over. So here are just afew questions.
Alright. In the Old Testament,you've got God prescribing
killing. God tells Joshua to togo kill people. God tells Moses.
God tells judges.
God tells David to kill people.Okay. Who gives that permission
(08:35):
today? Who prescribes killingtoday? Are you really
comfortable saying that, thatGod is prescribing killing for
for any individual or grouptoday?
If you think that the governmenthas the legitimate authority to,
legitimate killing, then whichgovernment is ordained by God in
(08:57):
war? I live in The UnitedStates. That's a government.
Some people live in North Korea.That's a government.
They're both governments. Theyboth bear the sword. And if
you're gonna use Romans 13 tolegitimate violence, then North
Korea and The United States arekind of on the same same field.
If you really wanna take the thewords there in Romans 13 as
(09:20):
God's ordination, or, that thatthese governments are his
ministers, and you wanna takethat in a specific reading, then
which government's ordained byGod? All of them?
Well, then how can anygovernment go to war against
another government if both areministers of God? How could I,
as The United States, in TheUnited States, wage war with
(09:43):
another minister of God? Anotherquestion. In in any war, you can
pick any war, but let's takeWorld War one as a good example.
Who was right in fighting fortheir country?
Which soldiers were morallyjustified? You had a lot of
European countries historicallyChristian, whether that's
nominally or or actually.Nevertheless, they identified as
(10:06):
Christian. Was the GermanChristian, true Christian,
immoral to fight for hiscountry? His country, his
government, who, according tothis view, is a minister of God
and has legitimate authority towage war.
If you fought for Great Britain,the opposite side, and you're a
(10:26):
Christian, were you moral fordoing that, To submit to your
government, God's minister ofviolence. It doesn't seem to
make sense that both Christianswere moral for fighting for
their country. But at the sametime, I don't know how you
really escape that if you'regoing to kind of give this
(10:47):
blanket authority to governmentscoming from Romans 13,
especially considering thatRomans 13 was written when it
was written during, around thetime of of Nero and and
persecutions. It just doesn'tmake sense that that you can say
1 group was moral while theother wasn't. But it also makes
(11:09):
no sense to say that both aremoral.
Like, two two Christians can goto war on 2 different sides and
kill each other, and they bothkill each other morally. That
just doesn't make sense to me.Alright. Another question. So we
see how God wages war in the OldTestament.
We see that when God permitsviolence, he permits barbarism.
(11:30):
He did some pretty terriblethings to people. David chopped
off Goliath's head. They hung itup and, like, waved it around.
There's some really graphicthings in the Old Testament, in
particular, and Revelation.
And they kill women. They killchildren as judgment. And if
(11:50):
you're really going to say thatwe have carryover violence from
the Old Testament, that, youknow, God God showed us that
violence can be used. Now, we webelieve that it has to be used
justly, but violence can be usedagainst groups of people as
judgment. Then why in the worlddon't we carry over the
(12:11):
slaughter of civilians, or thebarbarism, like we see in the
Old Testament?
And, what you will hear most ofthe time when you bring
something like that up is peoplewill say, well, when when people
slaughtered civilians andbabies, that was a judgment on
Canaan, who was was justextremely sinful. And, you know,
(12:33):
they had direct permission fromGod to do that kind of thing, to
to exact that kind of violence.Well, that seems a bit ironic to
me that you wanna say that youdon't need God's permission to
engage in violence because youknow that somebody is immoral
enough to warrant your your useof violence. But then, you wanna
(12:57):
say that you can't use violenceto the same extent as you did in
the Old Testament because you'renot sure of of who is, who is
worthy of having that violencewaged against them. It's kind of
a double standard.
You say it says 1 thing andfollows that line of reasoning,
but then because everybodyrecognizes that it's ridiculous
(13:20):
to say that we're gonna go killwomen and children, or or behead
people and put their heads onpikes, people know that that's
ridiculous, and so they have tocompletely reverse that line of
reasoning, say we need God'spermission. So either you know a
group is just, or or, a group isevil and worthy of violence
(13:41):
without God, or you need God.You need God, and God doesn't
really do that thing today. So,that's non violence. If you
don't need God, and you knowthat a group is unjust, then
kill the women and children.
Alright. Next question. If theOld Testament violence
justifies, violence in the NewTestament. Why don't we have the
(14:03):
same punishments for civilcrimes? Like, take adultery or
or disobedient children who usedto be, who used to be executed.
Why, like, the my group, theconservative Christians, we want
to make certain things illegal,like gay marriage or, abortion.
(14:24):
But we don't want to make thingslike adultery or disobedience,
disobedient children, we don'twanna make that civil crime a
civil crime. And we really don'twanna make those things
punishable by death. But whynot? If if the Old Testament, if
the New Testament is really justkind of a carryover of the Old
(14:45):
Testament system of of whatwe're allowed to do to people,
then and and if morality isobjective, and so adultery was
wrong and still is wrong,disobedience was wrong and still
is wrong, that the moralityhasn't changed.
This is not a, sacrificialturnover. This isn't this isn't
ceremonial law that we'retalking about. This is objective
(15:08):
moral law. So if you've got noproblem with governments bearing
the sword on on God's behalf, ifthey're his ministers, and if we
know what objective morality is,and God even showed us the types
of things that he really doesn'tlike in the Old Testament, like
adultery, and he showed us howhe wants those things dealt
(15:30):
with, and he's still forviolence today and for
governments using violence, thenwhy aren't we all for things
like adultery being, you know,being used by our our gov our
government punishing adultery?So it seems like the carryover
of violence to the New Testamentreally runs individuals who
believe in objective moralityinto into some problems.
(15:53):
Some particularly some problemsof consistency or inconsistency,
I should say. Alright. Nextquestion. What do you do with
God's New Testament charge thatwe are to leave vengeance to
him? That's a pretty simplequestion.
Straightforward. What do you dowith that? If you are trying to,
dissolve it in Romans 13, and Ilook forward to getting to the
(16:15):
episode on Romans 13, because wewon't just be reading the first
few verses there in Romans 13.We'll take a look at 12 and, the
section in 13 following the thesection on government. But,
yeah.
What what do you do withvengeance? And final question.
And this 1 isn't really reallyas as big as the others, but,
(16:35):
yeah, David was not allowed tobuild a temple because of the
blood that was on his hands. Andthe text specifically says that
was on his hands as a warrior.So we're not referring to blood
on his hands, and I don't reallyknow the timing of this, whether
it was before or after hemurdered Uriah.
But, nevertheless, the text saysthere's blood on his hands as a
(16:57):
warrior. And, presumably, thatwas legitimate. Right? God
wanted David to fight hisenemies. But David couldn't
build the temple because of thatlegitimate killing.
Right? Well, if God has issueswith people who have blood on
their hands building his temple,what do you do in the New
Testament when we are the templeof God? Do Do you think God is
(17:18):
any more okay with us havingblood on our hands today than
than he was before with David, aman after God's own heart? He
couldn't have blood on his handsfrom from legitimate killing.
What about us who reside, whothe temple of God resides within
us?
We are at the temple. That seemsto be a little problematic.
Anyway, I really hope that, thiskinda gets you thinking a little
(17:43):
bit about how pacifists can dealwith with some of the Old
Testament violence, as well assome of the the big problems and
consistency issues thatindividuals have if they don't
take on non violence in the NewTestament, if they want to have
that carryover of the OldTestament violence, there's some
issues to deal with and somereally problematic questions to
(18:04):
answer. Well, hopefully that gotyou thinking. And that's all for
now, so peace, and since I'm apacifist, when I say it, I mean
it.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.