New Commandment Men’s Ministries Blog
Must We Live? Guns Vs. the Mind of Christ
John Piper’s challenge to armed self-protection prompts a careful distinction between random violence and persecution for faith. This post argues that Christians may defend themselves against ordinary crime, yet Scripture repeatedly calls believers to endure suffering for Christ without retaliation, even when faithful obedience carries the real possibility of death.
Read the full post: Must We Live? Guns Vs. the Mind of Christ
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
3 thoughts on “Must We Live? Guns Vs. the Mind of Christ”
Thanks for distinguishing between protecting your family from violence and being persecuted for being a Christian. 1Tim 5:8 If a man does not provide for his family (in my opinion this includes protection), he is worse than an unbeliever.
You are a brave man tackling this tough subject – esp in the context of USA.
Christians are currently being persecuted and slaughtered in Nigeria and many other countries. It is not academic for them.
In 2018 Open Doors reported “Another relevant fact that the Index of Christian Persecution 2019 reveals, is the number of people killed because they are Christians: 4305, an increase of 40% over the previous year. Here Nigeria is highlighted where 3731 deaths of people practicing the Christian religion were counted.” They estimated that more than 245 million Christians were victims of serious persecution. https://www.plataformamedia.com/en-uk/news/society/more-than-4000-christians-killed-in-2018-10455603.html
Thank you, Pastor Reese. I’ve been waiting for you to make that distinction.
Another thing to consider is when we may be called to defend the lives or safety of the innocent– friends, neighbors– who may come under attack. We have no right to make the “Must we live?” choice for them.