04 August 2024
Let's make some distinctions.
In general, the New Testament is neutral on self-defense. If you feel led by your convictions to defend yourself from various forms of physical attack, it's no sin. When the attack is simply criminal or political/social in nature, you are quite free to choose that route. I've already made it clear I would regard forced vaxxing as an act of war, and I would fight back. Of course, you realize that this not so simple when the reason for the attack is quite clearly a matter of persecution for your faith. It's not a hard and fast rule, but the burden of conviction should weigh heavily in favor of enduring faith persecution in most cases.
Is there a context in which physical defense is actually favored? If your dependents, and those under your spiritual covering, are under attack, you should have a strong instinct to defend them. Again, no hard and fast rules, but shepherds with a flock should protect the sheep unless there is a compelling reason to avoid it.
I've said this before: The one context in which a violent defense might be actually required is when you have a formally agreed covenant community. And the larger the community, the greater the urgency. There is a sense in which your formal covenant community is a nation. While we can in no wise claim everything Israel had under Moses, we are obliged to read between the lines and consider just how much does apply to us.
Some time ago I wrote about this from a slightly different angle. My point then was to get a sense of the privileges God grants, what kind of blessings you should expect in the Kingdom of the Messiah. I failed then to note one critical necessity: You must be in active fellowship with that community. You can't be a silent member on the fringes; you must take an active role, investing yourself in their lives, and receiving them into yours. Without that, you have no authority to appeal to God for covenant privileges.
If you have taken that path, even in a virtual community, you then have an expectation of God's leadership regarding protection of that community. Anything and everything that affects them becomes a matter of prayer. For example, we can do nothing about the crazy defiling tranny movement as long as it does not threaten our covenant community. It's a filthy defiling stink of Hell, but the world at large belongs to the Devil.
You might have read how a Swiss family had a teenage child seized and taken from their custody because they refused to permit the state to transition their girl into a boy. That's not our problem. Nobody in that country is under our covenant covering. When it starts touching our covenant family here in the US, then you have standing to take action according to your convictions. When they start coming after our children, it's an act of war.
There are no basic principles for what kind of threat to a covenant community justifies a reaction. We have examples aplenty, but they may not apply directly to us. What happened under the Roman Empire may not fit our situation. We would need a word from the Lord, and a covenant community has every reason to expect Him to grant prophetic guidance in our context. You can query His will and query what you should expect Him to prosper.
Miracles belong to the Covenant. God promises to be directly involved in a covenant community in ways He is not for individuals alone. If He brings a covenant community into existence, He intends to use it. We won't know the full context of what He's doing in Heaven, but we have a broad record of how He acts in this world. His Word teaches us to expect a much stronger standing in His courts for a covenant community.
More things will happen for a covenant community, either by His hand or at His command.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
We'd be foolish to not seek God's opinion on self defense, maybe a little bit before the need for it could arise, because there's so much context involved. Unless you have a specific role in security for the community, it's hard to pin down a one-size-fits-all approach to it.
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