80sU2isBest
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2000
- Messages
- 4,970
BonoVoxSupastar said:
The subject of war is never addressed in the New Testament. But Christ does speak against violence and attacking in word and action. Matthew 5:39 Whosoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. This verse teaches to suffer an injustice rather than to demand our rights and perputrate a fight. Christ would want us to live unselfish lives, and not to seek to vindicate our own petty dignity, but return good for evil.
In the garden right before his trial he returned good for evil by healing the servant whose ear had been cut off by Peter's sword. He did not want violence to be inflicted in defending him.
But when Christ talked about "turn the other cheek", he was not talking about war or anything like that. It was on a personal level. The idea was that in your personal life, you are not to take "an eye for an eye". He never said anything either implicitly or directly about war. It's just not in there.
And the reason he din't want violence to be inflicted in his defense wasn't because he didn't think violence was never justified to defend oneself; he rebuked Peter for the same reason he rebuked him when Peter said that he wouldn't let Jesus die - because Peter was standing in the way of God's will and plan for salvation.
And also, you said that war is not of God. Tell that to all the nations that God told David to conquer.