well in eternity there won't be someone threatening to kill your family so the scenario would be moot...
I believe killing someone will hurt the person doing the killing more than the one being killed. therefore all force should be use to prevent someone from committing such a crime. the intent, motives, etc. would be to save a life and a soul more than to take one. A gun can be used for preventative measures. you see it every day in the hands of the police.
however, this isn't really about guns anymore.
As I went on to explain. You're right in what you say.
It's understandable to feel that way, but again, like you say, in eternal life, the whole scenario is moot. This life is part of eternal life, in the bigger picture. This one ends, and another, immortal life, begins.
the distinction I tried to make is that in this one, for some reason, it is thought of differently. Perhaps mortality scares people. The consequences of decision and the cause and effect we have in a mortal life, is a scary, and sometimes, seemingly permanent thing.
But the point I tried to make is, if none of this is prevalent in eternal life, and all that exists is then faith, hope, joy and love, in the prescence of God, each person being shown intentions of the heart, willfully dismissive of any sinful intent, then why not cultivate that kind of presence of mind within the life we currently inhabit?
I believe that abstaining from hateful desire, malicious or harmful desire, from fear, from expectation, is not just a mindset of the future life, but one that man can bring ourselves to inhabit in this one.
I think Jesus had it.
I think Jesus did what he did for the glory of God. Throughout his whole life.
Because to me, the point of this life is to show God's glory to him, so people will see. it saves from the consequences of sin if a person disengages from it. Do you know what I mean?
It is like the man who realises life's pointlessness, as the author of Ecclesiasties did. And this is like being in the tundra or the desert. Then we see God's eternal life that he gives us, like a fire in the tundra, or a well in the desert. And we drink from the well, or feel the fire's warmth.
Then a person comes along, and that moment for me was like this;
'Ahh, friend, this life is pointless, just a chasing after the wind.But now you are here. I do not know you, stranger, but you have given me purpose. If I can love you, I love my father'
I found that the person mattered more than the well that I showed him to.
He himself is what gave me purpose. To love Him, who I cannot see, is to love my father, who I can see. So the well is what I can give him, but himself, to love, is what he can give me. Simply his 'being there' has brought me purpose for God.
Do you know what I mean?
I pray that each person receives the peace in these realisations, that I have received.