How is the Christian supposed to encounter those who injure him? 1 Peter 2:18-25
Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good you suffer for it and endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, for Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins bodily on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Just a few preliminary comments; Paul is not here legitimizing slavery, at least not anymore than he is legitimizing evil governments by writing in Romans 13 that every government is given its authority by God. Paul is here telling the slave what to do in the case of slavery, not that slavery is just. In fact, he even notes that there will be especially unjust masters, but the slave is to endure this unjust treatment. He does mention as well that there are good and gentle masters. This does not legitimize slavery either, it merely states that there are some masters who treat their slaves with goodness and justice. As I have read of some slave owners in the southern U.S. there were many owners who treated their slaves well to the point that they were like family. Nevertheless, Paul’s point is that we should endure even unjust treatment like this. Why?
The primary reason is that it is an imitation of Christ. As the Christ-hymn in Philippians 2 teaches us, Christ did not “grab hold of” His deity in such a way that it worked to His advantage. For instance, He could have justly rained fire upon His captors and decimated the Roman soldiers and Jewish priests, but He did not. He chose to suffer to accomplish something greater, to display the glory of God in His grand plan of redemption. He asked forgiveness for His captors and displayed mercy. The disposition of mercy is that it withholds due judgment from the guilty party. How does this apply to us? It means that we should display a similar disposition toward those who have genuinely wronged us. It means that we sometimes must suffer to show people the same mercy that God showed us. It means that Christians should release their pursuit of justice with reference to their own hurts just as Christ released His grip on using His deity for His advantage. Does this mean that Christians should let people take advantage of them? I don’t see any greater example of someone being taken advantage of than Christ Jesus. Now, this doesn’t mean that we abandon wisdom. For instance, giving money to addicts, or caring for someone without reference to their repentance. It does mean however, that we do things that are often uncomfortable, and things that would make the world say “why would you do that for them?”
This is a very different attitude than we see in the mainstream evangelical church in America. A primary way I see this attitude opposed is in our “war against terrorism.” How should Christians respond to Islamic fascism? What would Paul say? I am sure he would point to the example of Christ and say “when He suffered, He did not threaten.” How should a Christian respond to a group of militants who bomb them? I just don’t see how tracking them down and killing them would be a Christian response. If we respond that way, we employ the same ethic they employ. How should a Christian respond to a foreign government seeking nuclear weapons? I think it would be impossible for a Christian on biblical grounds to defend the bombing of such a nation. Why do I bring up these political issues? Because I believe it is one of the biggest failures of the church to apply this principle of late. I’m not saying we shouldn’t defend our land, or that we should let murderous people kill again and again, I’m speaking to our disposition that is often far from that of Christ. There is a way to defend our nation in a humble and just manner without employing the same war mongering and threatening attitude of our enemies. I think if Christ’s attitude were employed many nations around the world would have more respect for us. Surely some militants would still want to kill us, but there is nothing we can do about this. It remains our responsibility to imitate Christ and to show the kind of mercy He showed. Christian leaders would do well to apply this principle to their support of political leaders.
The painting above is of Peter being crucified upside down. Peter’s argument as he finishes these thoughts is that we have all been offenders, that we have all gone astray. Therefore, rather than claiming injustice in the face of our captors we should follow the path of Christ. Consider the irony, if we were to yell “injustice” in the face of our captors, think of what God could yell in our face. He could yell, “Injustice, My Son died in your place even though you didn’t deserve it.” That is the point, that by emulating Christ’s acceptance of injustice on our behalf, we can be a small picture to others of what Christ did for us. This is why Peter is crucified upside down, because he didn’t consider himself worthy to die in the same manner as His Lord Jesus died for him.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackHow it is a Christian response to defend your nation…it is the RESPONSIBLITY of a nation to defend its citizenry and the duty to protect us from foreign aggression.
If there is a nest of snakes under your house, you do not wait until they have harmed your family to attack ( kill ) them. If we do not hunt down terrorist where-ever they may be it will not be long before we do not have to hunt them as they will be in our back yard killing our families.
How many times did the Lord send Christians into battle to remove the “ungodly” from their land.
WOW !
With your first point, I agree. It is the responsibility of a nation to defend its citizens and protect us from foreign aggression. The question is what does this mean. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t mean that we attack anyone who threatens us. Especially when the threats are responses to our meddling in the region. You have to understand that we cannot simply kill radical Muslims because they think the Koran says to kill us. Even if they say they are going to kill us, where in the Bible are we told we can kill people who threaten us. Also, we have deposed leaders, trained forces, given weapons and money, and then deposed the very leaders we supported both in Iran and Iraq. The rise of anti-American sentiment is largely our fault. This doesn’t mean they are justified in attacking us, and if they were to send a force against our soil I would say we should defend our nation. But to bomb them in their homeland when they were no real threat to us? We have killed over 500,000 civilians!
With your snake illustration, it is good, to a point. Where it breaks down is that Muslims are not snakes, they are humans made in the image of God. God has people He is saving from the radical Muslims. We must not kill them, this is the mentality of the crusades, and it is unbiblical. Also, they are not under our house, they are thousands of miles away.
The statement about God sending Christians into battle is just wrong. Christ never sent anyone to kill anyone. God sent the Israelites under the theocracy into Canaan with specific instructions to kill them. We are not Israel, and God has not given us specific instructions to kill that I am aware of.
It seems that many of us feel that Iraq and Iran are a threat to the U.S., but I don’t buy it. A majority of the threat language you hear in the media is war-mongering propaganda, something Christians should see right through. Besides, even if they are a threat, what biblical principle do we have that allows us to kill those who threaten us. As a nation I would say we should defend against attacks from other nations, and from rogue groups, but we are doing neither right now. All we are doing now is sticking our nose where it doesn’t belong, creating worse anti-American sentiment, increasing the number of terror groups, and threatening to bomb a nation that is no danger to us. These are severely anti-Christian ideas, even though many Christians have been taught that we should think this way. The only way to defeat terrorism is with the gospel! The only way to spread peace and democracy is by exemplifying peace and democracy, not with guns and secret prisons where we torture our enemies.
Thank you for your comments, I am glad for the discussion. Not long ago I thought exactly the same way, and I bought into all the arguments the media present for war in the Middle east. But as I tried to reconcile my position with Scripture, I realized that I couldn’t do it.
I do not know where you live but our nation has been attacked on mutiple occasions but more importantly they are living here among us. You may not what to acknowledge the fact but I have personal experience and information that “cells” do exist and you are very naive to think otherwise.
Look at what they have done in Europe. The Jews are still God’s chosen but Europe has become a hotbed of anti-Semitism as Muslim’s have gained more control.
You make the mistake of assuming that both groups are playing by the same rules and that we can solve this by being a better Christian. However, the terrorists will use our Christianity against us to gain any advantage.
Again you are kidding yourself if you think this is reacting to some threat. The terrorist have killed Americans for no other reason than that they were Americans. If you think that the stability of the Middle East is not important enough for te U. S. to not be proactive, then just turn of the electricity in your town and do not crank up your cars for a one month and see how the world changes …
First, if you think I am naive because I don’t acknowledge the existence of terror groups, you are wrong, I know there are people who want to kill us, and I know they are spread all over the world. But why do they want to kill us? If you read our CIA reports, the 9/11 report, and Bin Laden’s own words, you will realize that they are attacking us not because they hate us, rather, they are attacking us because we have been meddling over there. We have committed atrocities in the middle east that you really should study - for instance, we trained SAVAK, a secret Iranian guard, how to use our torture techniques. If you study the history of what our nation has done there, you will start to wonder who the evil ones are! If they had done here what we have done there, the tables would be turned. But this is beside the point, as I was saying about naievete, if you think I am naive because I don’t want to kill these people, then I admit, I am naive. We are not called as Christians to base our actions on what other people do to us, but upon what Christ called us to do. “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”
You wrote, “you make the mistake of assuming that both groups are playing by the same rules and that we can solve this by being a better Christian.” Actually, I know this can be solved by the gospel. First, I know this because the Bible tells me. Second, I know this because I know a man who walked into a prison filled with Muslims to share the gospel with a man who murdered other Christians. This Muslim man who once murdered Christians because he believed his god wanted him to is now our brother in Christ. The only way to defeat Islam is with the gospel!
Of course, there is another option, the one you stated. We could wipe them out. We could kill every single militant Muslim in the world. However, there is no biblical justification for this, and you still haven’t provided any biblical rationale. Your rationale is for our safety. I agree, safety is important, and I am all for tightening our borders and increasing our defenses HERE. Much of your rationale also seems to be based on fear, and this is exactly what we should not do. Fear motivates us to do irrational things, things we will regret later. It was exactly because we did not let fear control us that we prevailed in the missile crisis without blowing up the world.
More importantly, if we utilize the option of killing all of them, notice what that says about our theology. At that moment our theology is NO DIFFERENT from militant Muslim theology. To say that unless they change we are going to kill them is exactly what sharia law advocates. We are becoming just like our enemy. A Muslim theology which states that unbelievers or dissenters must die cannot be defeated by a Christian theology that says these Muslims must die (not only because this would be a false Christian theology) because they would both be employing the same ethic. We need a better weapon, and we need to obey the Bible. We need a weapon that doesn’t kill the flesh, but kills the sin that motivates the flesh. We need the gospel.
Again, I’m all for better security, better national defense, better military here in the states. But interestingly, we are less safe here with all our troops there, this is why all empires must fall, they stretch their borders too far, and in the process they instigate and anger more enemies. If we go after any other nations, or if we continue what we are doing, we are making our nation less safe. We need to come home and defend our soil. And more importantly we need to love our enemies.
How can we defend our soil if we allow the terrorists control the world’s oil supply. No gas, no electricity…we destroy ourselves
I understand your concern, but I think that it is unfounded for several reasons.
First, the free market is powerful. The oil in Iraq belongs to them, they have a right to do with it as they please. If they want to sell it for ridiculous prices, let them, they will be harming only themselves. There is other oil in the world, there are other markets in the world which would regulate the prices. Interestingly, all the Iraq war has done is drive oil prices UP. If left alone, the price would be much lower. Also, much evil has been done in the name of oil, we installed the Shah and trained SAVAK in Iran, why? Because Moshadeq was going to nationalize the oil enterprise. Our interests in oil were our justification for removing a leader we had no business removing, and for training people in unethical torture. It is no wonder these people think little of Americans. All I have to say here is that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Second, the U.S. can be extremely resourceful when needs be. How did we get to the moon? How did we mechanize and retaliate after Pearl Harbor? Are you telling me that we couldn’t find ways to develop and channel energy? If we were in a situation where we HAD to, we would utilize fuel cells, ethanol, solar, nuclear, etc…. and we would be fine. With the billions we have spent on war, we could have been light years ahead of the world with energy development.
Third, even if we ran out of gas and electricity, this does not make murder and torture right. That is an “ends justifies the means” argument. This argument and ethical reasoning is dangerous. Our motivation should be to do what is right. I would rather fail as a nation doing what is right that try to survive as a nation doing what is wrong. Preemptive wars are wrong, they fail to meet the age old criteria developed throughout Christianity (see Augustine).
Click here to read an interesting article concerning these issues.
Overseer…have fun in your pretend world…
I think that if you research it, you will realize that it is closer to reality than you now think. That is all we can do, share our opinions and strive to get at the truth. I think this ethical issue is of utmost importance for the church right now. As I study the Scriptures and try to make sense of the world, I see a great discrepancy between an evangelical right that supports preemptive war and the Scriptures that the same evangelical right purports as the inspired word of God. As a church we must get this right, but I think we have failed to think well about war as Christians. Why is this? I think one of the main reasons is that we are misinformed. Until I started researching the middle east on my own, I believed everything the media said about it. If all we listen to is the major media corporations, we will be misinformed.
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