should christians fight justifiable war i posted this a couple of weeks ago and it doesn t seem to have appeared on the newsgroup and i haven t had a reply from the moderator we were having intermittent problems with our mail at the time please excuse me if you have seen this before should christians fight last week alastair posted some questions about fighting and whether there are such things as justifiable wars i have started looking into these things and have jotted down my findings as i go i haven t answered all his questions yet and i know what i have here is on a slightly different tack but possibly i ll be able to get into it more deeply later and post some more info soon our duty to our neighbour do good to all men gal love our neighbour as ourselves matt act the part of the good samaritan luke toward any who may be in trouble we will therefore render every possible assistance to an injured man and therefore should not be part of any organisation which causes people harm even medical corps of the army etc christians are by faith citizens of the commonwealth of israel ephesians and also recognise that god rules in the kingdoms of men and therefore we should not be taking part in any of the struggles of those nations which we are not part of due to our faith we are to be strangers and pilgrims amongst the nations so we are just passing through and not part of any nation or any national aspirations this can also be applied to politics etc but that s another story we are not supposed to strive or resist evil even suffer yourselves to be defrauded it is therefore incosistent for us to strive to assist in preserving a state which christ will destroy when he returns to set up god s kingdom our duty to the state render therefore unto caesar the things which be caesar s and unto god the things which be god s luke let every soul be subject unto the higher powers for there is no power but of god the powers that be are ordained of god whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of god rom submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord s sake whether it be to king as supreme for so is the will of god that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men pet these scriptures make it clear that submission to the powers that be is a divine command but it is equally clear from acts that when any ordinance of man runs counter to god s law we must refuse submission to it the reason for this is that we are god s bond servants and his service is our life s task an example of the type of thing is in col where bondservants were to work heartily as unto the lord so also we should work as if our boss was god i e pressed down shaken together and running over oops a bit of a side track there in the contests between the nations we are on god s side a side that is not fighting in the battle but is testifying to the truth when we believe in god and embrace his promises we become fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of god and are no longer interested in associations of the world think of this in relation to unions etc as well paul tells us to lay aside every weight that we may run the race that is set before us and if we are wise we will discard any association which would retard our progress thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of jesus christ no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier tim one of these entanglements he warns about is be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers one of the obvious applications of this is marriage with unbelievers but it also covers things like business partnerships and any other position where we may form a close association with any person or persons not believing the truth about god in this case the army the principle comes from deut remember that as well as them being different animals of different strengths one was clean and one unclean under the law these ideas are strongly stressed in cor i suggest you read this the yoking also has another aspect that of servitude and jesus says take my yoke upon you so we are then yoked with christ and cannot be yoked with unbelievers we have already seen that we are bondservants of christ and paul says become not ye the bondservants of men cor rv an example from the old testament the question is asked in chr shouldest thou help the ungodly the situation here is a good example of what happens when you are yoked together with unbelievers jehoshaphat was lucky to escape with his life here are the facts he had made an affinity with ahab who had sold himself to work wickedness before the lord kings when asked by ahab to form a military alliance he had agreed and said i am as thou art my people as thy people kings an unequal yoking he sttod firm in refusing the advice of the false prophets and insisted on hearing the prophet of the lord trying to do the right thing he found that he was yoked and therefore couldn t break away from the evil association he had made god says to us come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing and i will receive you and ye shall be my sons and daughters cor this is more or less what i have found out so far i m still looking into it as i don t think i ve answered all the questions raised by alastair yet heres a summary and a few things to think about the christian in under command obedience to this command is an essential factor in his relationship with christ john total dedication to this course of action is required romans disobedience compromises the close relationship between christ and his followers pet we are to be separated to god rom this involves a master servant relationship rom no man can serve two masters matt all that is in the kosmos is lust and pride quite opposed to gos john christs kingdom is not of this world i e not worldly in nature if it was his servants would fight to deliver him if christ is our master and he was not delivered by his servants because his kingdom was not of this world then his servants cannot possibly fight for another master strangers and pilgrims have no rights and we cannot swear allegiance to anyone but god the servant of the lord must not war but be gentle to all tim this does not just apply to war but also to avoiding strife throughout our lives there is a war to be waged not with man s weapons cor but with god s armour eph i ll probably post some more when i ve had time to look into things a bit further gideon king phone university of otago fax department of computer science e mail gideon farli otago ac nz p o box dunedin next mail preferred new zealand
