We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Let’s Remember
In light of the events in the last few days involving attacks on American diplomats in foreign countries (and the ensuing political conflict), let’s remember one thing: Our fight is not with flesh and blood. As Christians, our real enemy is not Libyans or Egyptians or Muslims or President Obama or Governor Romney. Our enemy is the one who infects our hearts with hatred and violence and seeks to distract us from the cross and divide us against one another by any means necessary. Let’s not play his game. Instead, let’s turn our attention to Jesus and bring him glory by abiding in him and obeying him. (Luke 6:27-36)
Peace,
Greg
Image by Steve Evans. Sourced via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Non-Violence, Politics
Related Reading
Put on the Armor of God
The whole of the Christian life is an act of war against the enemy as we follow Jesus in storming the gates of hell (See post.) No passage better illustrates this than Paul’s metaphor of spiritual armor from Ephesians 6. He writes that Christians are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength…
The Call to a Cruciform Life
Jesus repeatedly taught that following him meant that one had to be willing to “pick up their cross daily and follow [him]” (Lk 9:23; 14:27). Picking up our cross is the centerpiece of following Jesus because this was the centerpiece of what Jesus was all about. The thematic centrality of the cross is also illustrated…
12 Reasons for Keeping the Kingdom of God Separate from Politics, Part 1
Image by the justified sinner via Flickr Jesus came to establish a kingdom that was not of this world. This is why Jesus refused to call on angels to defend himself and why he forbid his followers to use violence to defend themselves or advance their cause. It’s also why neither Jesus nor Paul nor…
God’s Dream for the World
One of the grandest expressions of non-violent nature of God is found in Isaiah 11. Here God is dreaming of a time when his creation would be entirely free of violence. “The wolf will live with the lamb,” Isaiah says, and “the leopard will lie down with the goat.” So it will be with “the…
Revolting Against the Cosmic Hitler
Greg returned last week from Europe where he was able to visit some Nazi death camps. In the following, he reflects on a story of a German teenager who actively resisted the Nazi agenda and what that might mean for us as Christians as we revolt against evil: Sophie Scholl was born in 1920…
Was the Early Church Pacifistic? A Response to Paul Copan (#11)
In Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) I argue that Jesus and Paul instruct Christians to love and bless their enemies and to unconditionally refrain from violence (e.g. Matt 5:39-45; Rom 12:14-21). Moreover, I argue that this was the prevailing attitude of Christians prior to the fourth century when the Church aligned itself with the…