Should Christians take up arms ?

Bluelion said:

You are very mistaken Jesus did not rebuke Peter"for his love" as you put it, it was not love at all Jesus said why satan was speaking through peter, Jesus rebuked satan not Peter at all.

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So Satan can use weak people. Peter was weak. Satan continues to use weak people that included Eve.

Righttruth said:

So Satan can use weak people. Peter was weak. Satan continues to use weak people that included Eve.

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Peter means Rock, you don't get a name like that from Jesus for being weak. What is wrong with you? Was Peter weak hanging from the cross. i don't care believe what you want enslave yourself, does hurt me one bit. the truth is strong is weak and weak is strong. but you don't understand, as for me i will follow the Lord and protect because that is what love does.

Bluelion said:

Peter means Rock, you don't get a name like that from Jesus for being weak. What is wrong with you? Was Peter weak hanging from the cross. i don't care believe what you want enslave yourself, does hurt me one bit. the truth is strong is weak and weak is strong. but you don't understand, as for me i will follow the Lord and protect because that is what love does.

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So you want to follow the Lord with a swinging sword? What kind of a love is this?

If you're an abusive drunk who every time you get drunk you beat your wife and harm your children, should you kill yourself?

98cwitr said:

If you're an abusive drunk who every time you get drunk you beat your wife and harm your children, should you kill yourself?

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Or should they kill you?

Righttruth said:

Or should they kill you?

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If they are Christians, they have no merit to kill me unless the Lord wills them to. Remember how Judas went out?

Or should have Peter run a sword through him for being a traitor?

Jeffwhosoever said:

If you saw a ISIS person who strapped on a bomb and walked into a shopping mall, and you had both the weapon and ability to use that weapon to stop him or her even if that meant killing, would you do so?

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The very fact that you admit of having a weapon for killing makes you a transgressor.

Righttruth said:

The very fact that you admit of having a weapon for killing makes you a transgressor.

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You realize all people are transgressors?

You continue to ignore this was to fulfill prophecy?

Jeffwhosoever said:

If you saw a ISIS person who strapped on a bomb and walked into a shopping mall, and you had both the weapon and ability to use that weapon to stop him or her even if that meant killing, would you do so?

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You're trying to dehumanize the assailant and boil it down to an us vs them scenario. Doesn't leave a lot of room for actual love there. To answer your question; yes, I think I would...and that's the big, bad, non-Christian, fallen part of me talking.

Question is...what are you doing with a weapon in a shopping mall?

98cwitr said:

Question is...what are you doing with a weapon in a shopping mall?

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I think the whole ISIS scare is nothing but conspiracy theories right now but we have our own local thugs and thieves walking around in our malls. I do not believe it is an issue carrying a weapon in a mall as long as it has been legally purchased and you have a carry license. The malls in our area allow licensed gun carry. Contrary to what many people think the great majority of legal gun owners are very responsible.
You may ask why go to a mall if you feel you need to carry a gun. Well I for one am not going to let the hoodlums and thugs control my life or dictate where I can or cannot go. Do I feel I may need to use it? At this point in time probably not but it is my choice to legally carry a weapon or not.
I would like to add that if a person is mentally ill or has a history of mental illness they should not be allowed to own a weapon. Over the past few years we have all seen to many mentally unstable people show up in the news after having murdered people. We do need better background checks to keep these people and from owning guns.

DawnStar said:

I think the whole ISIS scare is nothing but conspiracy theories right now but we have our own local thugs and thieves walking around in our malls. I do not believe it is an issue carrying a weapon in a mall as long as it has been legally purchased and you have a carry license. The malls in our area allow licensed gun carry. Contrary to what many people think the great majority of legal gun owners are very responsible.
You may ask why go to a mall if you feel you need to carry a gun. Well I for one am not going to let the hoodlums and thugs control my life or dictate where I can or cannot go. Do I feel I may need to use it? At this point in time probably not but it is my choice to legally carry a weapon or not.
I would like to add that if a person is mentally ill or has a history of mental illness they should not be allowed to own a weapon. Over the past few years we have all seen to many mentally unstable people show up in the news after having murdered people. We do need better background checks to keep these people and from owning guns.

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Can you tie all of that in, personally, to Christ's teachings about loving your enemies and neighbors?

Jeffwhosoever said:

If you saw a ISIS person who strapped on a bomb and walked into a shopping mall, and you had both the weapon and ability to use that weapon to stop him or her even if that meant killing, would you do so?

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If we mentally prepare for doing things like this, this can have us focusing on what is not God. We need to have our minds on "things above" > Colossians 3:2. Are you loving the way Jesus wants us to love any and all people? Are we first about praying for any and all evil people, with hope for them, like Jesus on the cross had hope for all of us??

Paul says what to do "first of all" > 1 Timothy 2:1-4.

So, if we train ourselves more in the direction of being ready to kill and be unforgiving, this could have us connected into the spirit of Satan's kingdom so we are connected to and helping to attract these things.

"Make sure the person you are shooting is not someone else who is shooting at the terrorists."

"And the mass killer could be white, and a Muslim or an Afro person or a Hispanic could be shooting at the killer; so don't shoot someone just because he or she looks Arab or Afro or Hispanic; make sure of your target."

And it appears that the United States was not right to be in a number of her wars; so if I know a combat is wrong, I would be right not to fight; and, if I were to be forced to take up a weapon, then, I could just shoot it into the ground and lay my life down like Jesus did for us, rather than help to kill for a wrong reason.

By the way, I'm not sure how a nation can have a justified war in order to defend freedom and human rights, while she herself is not defending her own unborn.

However, God is able to use an evil nation for His purposes, to resist other evil people. A war can be God "in mysterious ways" using each nation to resist the other. Or, a nation which kills her own unborn can be fighting with terrorists - - so that both the killer nation and the terrorists are being resisted.

"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (in James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5).

We see what happened to the Jews in a military action against Ai > Joshua chapter seven >

They had a military disaster, it turned out because one soldier had stashed forbidden things in his tent. Because of that sin, the Jews suffered not having God with them for them to succeed. "All" he did was keep a few material items; he did not kill a bunch of unborn babies; yet, they suffered a major defeat with loss of thousands of lives.

So, if a nation disobeys how God would care for that nation, even killing her own unborn unconvicted babies . . . the results of war can be what happens because of not obeying God. But we have Christians in different nations where babies are killed before they are born; and our prayer can help to resist all that could come upon such nations, so their evil does not help to produce all the harm it could. This is because we now are under the New Covenant of God's mercy and love and forgiveness, with hope for any evil person, at all, to trust in Jesus and become a new person not guilty of what he or she did as an evil person; so we first are about hope of all that is possible with God, not hope of how killing can help!!!!

"Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

So, this is the perfect revenge, the perfect resistance against evil . . . how an evil doer becomes new in Jesus so he or she is no longer available to Satan's kingdom, plus now is also loving and doing what is good and helping to stop the evil.

However . . . to me, Romans 13:1-5 means that God does use secular people to fight and punish evil; so He could use people of secular authority to fight a war. But, if they are killers of their own unborn, while fighting others, they themselves could get in trouble. "And the real trouble is within us, if we do not obey God." Romans 3:16-17 "It can be worse than death, within us."

"'Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" (Matthew 11:29)

Jesus will give us "rest for your souls" while we do what He really means for us to do.

"No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

We are specialists in love and mercy and forgiveness. The perfect revenge is how God changes an evil person into a child of His love; then is when Satan can not use that person to do his evil. And the person not only stops doing evil but does what is loving and . . . what really works

I dont recall getting an answer to my question the first go around so I will post it again: Why are we valuing physical life over spiritual life?

98cwitr said:

You're trying to dehumanize the assailant and boil it down to an us vs them scenario. Doesn't leave a lot of room for actual love there. To answer your question; yes, I think I would...and that's the big, bad, non-Christian, fallen part of me talking.

Question is...what are you doing with a weapon in a shopping mall?

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Why wouldn't it be loving?

John Robie said:

Why wouldn't it be loving?

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It's hard to reconcile "I love you" with "I'm going to kill you." By all means, please try though....

98cwitr said:

It's hard to reconcile "I love you" with "I'm going to kill you." By all means, please try though....

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What about loving those who will be killed by your inaction?

John Robie said:

What about loving those who will be killed by your inaction?

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Who said anything about inaction? Feel free to step in and try and apprehend the situation. 1 Cor 13 shows us what love is...and there's nothing about "inaction" there.

98cwitr said:

Who said anything about inaction? Feel free to step in and try and apprehend the situation. 1 Cor 13 shows us what love is...and there's nothing about "inaction" there.

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So it would be loving, then, to use force to protect the innocent.