This Guy: Mark Keith Robinson

I would obey the Scripture I quoted from Proverbs and defend my family. I consider love for my family to be a higher love Biblically than love for a wicked intruder who wishes to kill my family. There are heirarchies of love: God, family, neighbor, enemy.

So, if I kill the man, have I sent him to Hell? Absolutely not. He has sent himself there by his choices in life. But I will say, if there is opportunity, I would first witness to him of Christ. The Gospel is powerful, and may penetrate to his heart.

Your position puts a crazed killer to be more worthy of love than your family.

 

If your enemy kills you and your family you go to heaven. But if you kill your enemy he goes to hell. That would be a hard decision for me. Unless I didn't love him.

 

On the contrary, there will come a day when Jesus returns to Earth, and at that time He will physically destroy the Antichrist and all his armies.

My point was that Paul would not have used a metaphor the very meaning of which he opposed (boxing, wrestling) to illustrate a spiritual truth. Using a metaphor of something he opposed would invalidate his very valid meaning.

Sorry, I don't base my theology on the examples of the Bible (parables, stories, etc.). They are only examples illustrating eternal truth, not statements of eternal truth. You have rejected my OT Scriptures categorically--you might as well rip out the OT of your Bible and throw it away if it is so worthless as to provide no guidance.

But please answer my point about heirarchies of love. Do you love your enemy more than your family? Show me where it is Biblical to do so.

 

Christ Himself gave illustrations of being strong enough to defend one's self without condemning such activity. Why would Christ use something sinful (ostensibly, self defense on this thread) to illustrate a spiritual truth? Here are the passages:

Mt 12:29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
Mr 3:27 No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
Lu 11:21 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace:

 

What if members of your family are lost? (Praise the Lord, my immediate family is saved.) If then you allow a criminal to kill them, are you then allowing your family to go to Hell? Should you not prevent the criminal from killing your lost family member? Thus at that point you are using self defense--but a stance against all self defense would mitigate against saving your lost family member from a lost killer. You'd let your family member go to Hell instead of a murderer.

 

Thanks for the reply. I understand what you are saying but I believe the love of enemies needs more than that. I cannot find examples in the NT of any believer using violence to defend themselves. We are never to meet evil with evil. But to overcome it with good. Harmless as doves, taking our own cross, not the sword etc., etc. Thanks for sharing your views.

 

It is no love or protection of one's neighbor not to subdue a violent malefactor.

It is not hatred of one's enemy to end his violence by the means necessary to do so. Loving my enemy means seeking his good. And it is not in his good to give way to his violence. And if the only way I can stop his violence is by killing him, then love demands that I must do that.

 

Thanks Aaron. This makes a lot of sense. But it describes the role of the Civil Magistrate, who takes the sword, and not the Christian, who takes the cross. If we could find examples in the NT of Christians using violence it would solve the problem. But Jesus rebuked Peter for cutting off Malchus' ear and told him (us) to put away the sword..

 

No it doesn't. My loving my neighbor as myself by protecting him from imminent harm is not magisterial at all. Besides, the non-Christian hasn't taken up the cross, so he gets to carry a gun.

But his commandment to his disciples now that He is not physically with us is to buy one.

Luke 22:35-36 And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.​

 

Thanks John for sharing. This makes sense. But if your family isn't saved, perhaps the threat of death would be instrumental in their salvation. And your courage to face the enemy unarmed would reveal Christ to them....It's hard to construct hypothetical situations because only God knows his plans for us in these situations. Thanks, interesting...

 

Thanks for sharing your insights John. I think if we love God more than we do our family and our own self, it will sort out the tangles. We know Jesus tells us to love our enemies and after the first influx of trouble, to commit vengeance into God's hands. So if we react in faith, we are doing the right thing. But faith comes from hearing the word and I do not have NT scripture to support Christians involving themselves in violent exchange.

 

Why would a Christian want a gun? Other than for hunting?

 

Did you ever consider yourself "unequally yoked together with unbelievers"?

 

But we are to love our enemies too. Can you love them as your own self and send them to hell? Maybe if they saw Christ in you they would fall convicted of sin and repent. It takes courage not to own a gun.

I cannot find any example of Christians using a weapon to defend themselves in the NT. But I see many Christian heros who would rather die than kill.

 

I've given you plenty of NT Scriptures. Both Jesus and Paul used fighting and self defense metaphors to illustrate truth, but neither Jesus nor Paul condemned the actions of fighting for sport or self defense. So you are taking a position with no other Scriptural basis, as far as I can tell, than "Love your enemy."

Even then, you have misquoted that verse on this thread. It is not "Love your enemy as yourself," it is simply "Love your enemy," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." (I see no semantic way to get "neighbor" out of "enemy.") These passages, in addition to ones already given, suggest a hierarchy of love with this order: God, my family (I can give plenty of Scripture for this), my neighbor, my enemy. You have not yet answered this hierarchy that I propose. Please, tell me why I should love my enemy more than my family?

 

You are skirting the issue. We're not talking about the threat of death, we are talking about death itself. If a criminal intruder is pointing a gun at your lost loved one and starting to squeeze the trigger, and you are there and capable of stopping the murder of your beloved, yet lost, family member, what do you do? This is not a hypothetical situation, but it happens every day in America.

As far as facing a violent intruder unarmed and having this "reveal Christ to them," that is ridiculous. Read the news. Most of these violent home invasion events happen in the dead of the night in an extremely short time frame. So while you are saying, "Let me tell you about Je...," you have already been shot and are winging your way to Heaven.

I have in my files stories about people sharing Jesus successfully with kidnappers and foiling the crime in that way, but in a kidnapping that is possible. Not in a violent home invasion.