Stand your ground, but don't retaliate. Don't seek revenge.
Bear witness and give glory to God.
If you end up sweeping sidewalks or running a cash register,
count it all joy and rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven. If you lose
your house because of a loss in income, then count yourself blessed and reckon
yourself to be rich.
This terminated employee will be assailed by Evangelical
legal organisations which will encourage him to file lawsuits, to go down to
Egypt and seek help, to call on Babylon for justice, to call on the
institutions of Rome to wield the sword of revenge.
Forget it. Instead, stand your ground and press on. Let the
dead bury their dead.
Maybe some other brave company will step forward and offer
him a job. Maybe, maybe not.
Either way, he has rightly denounced the pro-Sodomy movement's
sinful 'pride'.
Don't commit a sin for the sake of your own pride. Don't seek
vengeance because of some bogus extra-Scriptural narrative about 'rights'.
Leave it in God's hands. He will repay for the wrong done. He may do it through
the American state or some other entity. Maybe his vengeance will come someday
by fragmenting and destroying this country. Who are we to hope to understand
His plan?
In the meantime we bear witness and sound the warning.
Berger did what was right. I hope and pray he will continue
in that path. He seems thus far to have the right attitude. May God's Name be glorified in this. Time will tell.
While I agree that Berger should not seek to retaliate but should bear witness and give glory to God, by “bogus extra-Scriptural narrative about 'rights'”, you aren't suggestion he give up all rights as a U.S. citizen are you?
ReplyDeleteDidn't Paul invoke his rights as a Roman citizen to challenge the magistrates in Acts 16:37, to avoid being beaten in Acts 22:25, and to appeal to Caesar instead of being sent to Jerusalem and tried by Jews in Acts 25:11?
Thank you.
Thank you for writing.
ReplyDeleteI have addressed these issues at various points throughout my writings and I do not believe the conventional Christian Right narrative matches up with the testimony of Scripture.
Paul did not retaliate in Acts 16 but rather shamed the magistrates which had broken their own laws. He did not pursue the matter. Had he done so those men would have likely been removed and perhaps even incarcerated themselves. He let it go.
So actually the passage proves my point.
In Acts 22 you have already answered the salient question. He appealed to the law in order to prevent torture. Taking up the cross does not entail some form of masochism (used here in a generic sense). Some in Church history have perhaps erred and have actively sought persecution and martyrdom. One even sees a hint of this in Ignatius of Antioch.
But again, was Paul seeking justice from Rome? No. Would he have pursued legal action against the Roman soldier had he beaten him? No. It's an argument from silence but one I feel comfortable making.
Finally, with regard to the appeal to Caesar the answer (I think) is two-fold and in neither case was his appeal on the basis of any notion of 'rights', due process, concern for civil order or anything like that.
First it was pre-eminently practical. He was trying to avoid being a political pawn and end up being handed over to the Jews. He did not want to fall into their clutches and die at their hands.
Two, Paul was clearly on a Rome-ward trajectory and based on his statements in Acts and the epistles I think he thought it somehow glorious that the pre-eminent messenger of the Gospel would arrive in the world capital.... in chains. It was the perfect picture of the Kingdom vs. the World. He was destined to visit Rome and he seems to have acquiesced that this was the way. Paul could almost be accused of having a wee bit of that martyr complex I just mentioned a few paragraphs back. If that's the case, maybe there's something more to it.
The New Testament never tells us to seek justice from the state, quite the opposite. The division between Romans 12 and 13 is misleading here. We tend to lose the flow with the chapter break. It's a seamless argument in which Paul is specifically contrasting the conduct of Christians with that of the God-ordained but wholly non-Christian state. Neronic Rome was a minister just as Assyria and Persia were. Even Beast powers serve a providential and at least temporarily restraining purpose.
I am glad you did not make the argument that America is a 'Christian' nation, a category foreign to the New Testament and an argument that convolutes and ultimately negates the whole point Paul is trying to make. 1 Corinthians 5 is also very instructive on these points.
Great questions by the way. I'm not sure you'll like my answers but there it is. (smile)
Thank you for your considerate reply.
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point that "The New Testament never tells us to seek justice from the state, quite the opposite." God, through His common grace, has mercifully ordained even non-Christian states (like the U.S.) as you say for "restraining purpose" and nothing more. Concerning this, your point about whether Paul would have sought justice from Rome is especially insightful.
I like your answers if they conform to the Word of God and they do (smile).
Thanks again.
On a related tangent to the above discussion, I've been thinking about how we should relate to law enforcement in terms of reporting things to the police, whether things that happen to ourselves or others. I think it could be said that it would be honouring the rulers to report crimes because they want them to be reported, and it could be done in that spirit rather than out of desire for vengeance, leaving the rest up to God. Of course, there may be various exceptions, depending on the country you're in.
ReplyDeleteAs for vengeance on non-Christians, 1 Peter 2 couldn't be clearer about the need to suffer unjustly. I've yet to hear a sermon on it.