Are we supposed to be pacifists or not? What the Bible says. Father God I pray that I may give a true accounting of Thy Word to the world through the words you give me to speak and write and may my actions show to all Your Glory and the peace that all may have through Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus I pray Amen. To all of my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus may you be blessed and learn from the words I present to you now. The definition of a pacifist is: strongly and actively opposed to conflict and especially war. I will show that no where in the Bible does it say that we are to be pacifists. In Exodus chapter twenty are the ten commandments that God gave to Moses on stone tablets, the one that I am going to reference here is found in verse thirteen, “Thou shalt not kill”, now most people see the word “kill” and think of the English definition of the word which is “cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing)”. What almost people forget is that the languages of the Bible; Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic; arent always interpreted properly. The word kill in Hebrew is (phonetically) harag but the word that is translated as kill is ratzach which in English is actually murder whose definition is “the unlawful PREMEDITATED killing of one human being by another”. This brings us to the theme of our lesson Are we supposed to be pacifists or not?. It says in, Matthew 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. , now when pastors and priests and other teachers of the Word of God teach us to “turn the other cheek” a lot of people are understanding this to mean that we should not defend ourselves or others. I say that way of thinking is inaccurate, and the reasoning behind this is shown in the Bible. For example in Genesis 14:8-24 is one instance that proves that way of thinking wrong (please read all of Genesis 14). Another example is Psalms 144:1 Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:. Those are only two examples from the Old Testament there are many others. Wait thats the Old Testament you say, ok heres one from the New Testament Mark 11:15-17 15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; 16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. 17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. Does that mean we are supposed to fight every one that attacks us, no it doesnt, what it means is that if someone hits you one time and then stops, dont continue the fight, because what if the person that hit you was because you and that person were arguing about something that was insignificant like the baseball team he was rooting for lost the game to the team you were rooting for and with-out meaning to by bragging on your team the two of you get into an argument over which team was better though out the season and in his anger over his team losing struck you? Put your self in the other persons place. What about the criminal that breaks into my home to rob and do harm to me or my family. That is when being a pacifist is not the answer. If you get into an argument and it escalates into a physical confrontation then you are just as much to blame as the person that struck first. If someone brakes into your house and you do nothing to stop them from doing you and or your family harm that is wrong. I am not advocating the killing of someone that has broken into your home just to steal from you, if you can safely stop them from doing it and call the police than you should do so. If they have broken in to steal and to do harm most of those have a weapon of some sort and you have the God given right to defend the life of not only you and your family, you have the duty to do so. The same is true if you happen upon someone trying to harm any one in any way, just remember that the use of deadly force is a LAST resort, you should only use that force that is necessary to stop the attack, meaning if the person attacking has no weapon in hand dont pull out a weapon of your own to stop them. If you see a weapon and you fear that the attacker means to kill the victim and you have the means and ability to stop them you have a moral obligation to do so. Remember the commandment that I mentioned at the beginning, stopping an attacker, that has put the victims life in peril, by shooting and killing the attacker is not breaking the commandment against murder because you did not set out to MURDER that individual, you did it in response to the situation and to save the life of someone that was going to be killed. As always please read the whole chapter(s) that deals with anything I post, so that you may verify the truth of what I am teaching, if you dont have a bible please go to kingjamesbibleonline.org and there you can read any part of the Word of God that I am mentioning in these posts. Also please feel free to ask questions or leave a comment. May Gods Word shine its truth upon you and may God bless you and your family. Here is a link to the website I used to get the Hebrew words mentioned in the first paragraph: doitinhebrew/Translate/Default.aspx?kb=US%20US&l1=en&l2=iw . I found the mistake by looking up the word kill using a Strongs Concordance. I then went online to the site above to find the word kill and murder and found that murder was the actual word that should have been translated instead of the English word kill in the concordance.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 03:16:07 +0000