antelope_sniper:
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope that this second Saturday of 2020 finds you well, warm and dry.
Honestly I'm not an excellent Biblical scholar by any definition, but I did honestly study this particular subject a fair bit because the church I was raised in had pacifistic teachings. Perhaps better said the congregation did or that was how I understood it.
It became a sticking point with me and for years it was a wedge between my late father and myself as I rejected a lot of what I'd been taught - in large part because of the inclination towards pacifism.
For instance, the one quote often used was after the aforementioned incident where Peter cuts off the servant's ear - "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword"
If we take that as a stand alone verse, it does seem to indicate we shouldn't "live by the sword" - but... there was the nettlesome interaction with the centurion in Matthew 8:5-13 that always came immediately to my mind.
Here it is:
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
From your posts, I know you to be an educated and erudite individual, so you and I both well know what a centurion was, how he got that job and how he kept it on the Galilean frontier.
He would be a straight up "bad dude" a force to be reckoned with and carried not only a sword, but a dagger as well, right? Both of which he would have used with deadly effect on a number of occasions as they were the tools of his chosen trade.
What struck me was that Christ didn't say to him, "Listen, I'd maybe consider doing this for you if you would quit your job. It's really distasteful and you do way too many nasty things for me to even consider it".
As a kid I pondered that a lot and as an adult have come to the conclusion that for some of us - like the other thread we conversed on - dying by the sword isn't necessarily a bad thing. If we live by the sword, surely we may die by it - but if we're truly servants then this is just a stop over anyway, correct? That and we're all going to die some way at some point in our lives - the end being the final part of the journey here.
Anyway for me, Christ's response to the centurion was a key to rejecting pacifistic doctrine as taught by some churches.
As always, I would never say I'm right - I have faith that I am - but again I'm not trying to convert anyone else to believe the way I do. Many roads to Mecca and all that, right?
Thanks for making me think again as I tried to articulate why I've come to believe what I do.
All the best to you once again.
Dwayne
