Yes, you are right about that Henry; it was Caesar’s image on the coin (we just had a study on that) after all. Hey, I said I was only taking a whack at it.

However, Caesar does not own the people, nor does any other earthly ruler. So again, since evil can’t come from God, and the only thing Satan wants to do is corrupt, accuse and destroy, it seems to me, evil should be resisted. Resist the devil and he will flee. Don’t give the devil a foothold, and so on.

Also, the Bible does not say we should let ourselves be abused to gratify someone’s god complex. Taxing someone to the point they can no longer afford to eat can’t be supported in the NT either.

Whether it be the Canaanites, the French or the British, I’m sure none of them had to see their defeats as perhaps a manifestation of God on the move.

I’m not willing to throw out the OT in this and work only with the NT. It is, after all the prophetic beginning, and I’d have to ignore how God interacted with us prior to Christ. And there would be no verification of the identity of Christ without all those OT prophecies being mentioned in the NT. And there are OT prophecies yet to be fulfilled, and may not be in this present age.

Again, my point is that doing the right thing may not always be the Christian thing. We need to be careful not to get too indignant about people’s past deeds, given we’re not willing to give up what was gained. In like manner, we should avoid over romanticizing the “good ol’ days” because they probably weren’t good for everyone.

And lastly, if the Bible were black & white on everything, we would not be having this discussion. Since it is gray and silent on a number things, we all need to take care to not exceed what is written.

Have a good one!

As far the whole pacifism thing goes, I would say I’m kind leaning more and more toward a view that holds to non-violence. It just seems to me that there is no evidence in the NT of Christians taking up arms against their enemies. The only incident I can think of is in Luke 22 when Peter cuts off the servants ear, and Jesus heals the guy. That’s kind of weird incident, for other things too. Right before that as Jesus and disciples are leaving from the last supper Jesus tells them to sell their cloaks to buy swords. Perhaps this put the thought in the disciples’ minds that they were going to fight back, but Jesus then put the kibosh on that. I’m sure the disciples were befuddled by the whole thing.

I can see that there is some place for self-defense or defending your loved ones in the NT, but there are few wars that really seem to based purely on self-defense or defending others. I guess things like serving in the military and such are issues that each believer needs to really seek God’s will about.

In the case of the Revolutionary War, it was supremely over taxes. Even Washington did not desire to pull away from England, but his hand was forced at Lexington and Concord. Nowhere in the New Testament are we even to consider ourselves part of the government. So if America is attacked and they defend themselves, so be it. The church has no Scriptural unction in such a case.

But the Revolutionary War was over taxes not self defense. The main problem is that we so often consider ourselves Americans over being members of Christ’s body. No one can discern God’s will for war, so all the support for wars such as the Iraq war are conjecture at best but the church as a Spiritual body should have no position. Our calling is the gospel exculsively.

Thanks, Sandman, for the discussion.

I don’t know if I can pull direct quotes, Henry, but I’ll take a whack at it. Some general principles from the Bible just come to mind.

Luke 22:35-37 seems to allow Christians to defend themselves.

Turning the other cheek refers to slights, offenses and insults, not subjecting oneself to physical abuse or harm. Even Jesus didn’t stick around when they tried to stone him.

Then, I try to look at what the Bible consistently does not say in conjunction with what it consistently does say. In that regard, Caesar has a right to what is Caesar’s, but no more. Anything more than that is stealing and I have a right to protect myself and my property. Tax collectors were hated for that reason in the first century. And then there was the French Revolution. And now there’s Kim Jong Il living large and building nukes while his people die of starvation.

We are subject to the government (higher powers). If the country is attacked, which it has been, we may be called upon to defend it. I think it’s up to the conscience of the individual to fight or not. You can do the right thing by obeying the gov’t and going to war, but just recognize you may have to do some things that are, while right, not Christian. Now, I’m not calling you a pacifist or anything because you’ve given me no reason to think that, but I believe it’s morally wrong for pacifists and others who just don’t want to get their hands dirty to demand we commit suicide by proxy. Violence gained us our independence from Britain, kept the Union together and ended slavery, and kept Hitler from killing the rest of Europe’s Jews. If not, we’d have to ask ourselves why we let that continue. When dealing with evil (the spirits behind the movements), the moment you compromise with evil, evil wins.

Some will often say Lutherans killed Lutherans in this or that war, but forget they wouldn’t perhaps have the freedoms they enjoy today if Christians didn’t kill other Christians.

Also, since we are more at (or coming up on) a Joel 3:9-11 point in time, and not a Micah 4:2-4 setting, I think it would be unwise to act in a way that would make one more likely to be a victim of one’s own foolhardiness.

I mean, there are people who use the last part of Mark to validate the practice of snake handling. They overlook the line separating that passage and the footnote that say the earliest manuscripts don’t have that passage.

Sorry to the board for being so wordy. Thanks, Henry, for making me think about this.