I'll be honest, I think Christians lack a back-bone these days, since when did defending honor and standing for righteousness and justice become something that we frown upon??? Common courtesy and fake smiles, peace and tolerance, you really think that is the message that Jesus preached???
So many Christians these days aren't even Christians, they are more like buddhist monks who practice peace, balance and harmony with a world that is in DIRECT opposition with the God they "serve".
I'm not going to fight someone just because of something he said. I will warn him first. And if he wants to continue to act like a predator, I will ask him if he wants to settle this like men. The state I live in is a mutual agreement fight state that means BY LAW I can fight this guy if he agrees to it, and I have done nothing wrong. I'm so sick of this sissy, pretense of a watered-down form of Christianity that I'm sure makes God want to vomit. Since when did speaking the truth and calling it like it is become a sin? Love always protects. Do not get in a battle over God's word with me, you will lose.
OK I'm going to address this one, fighting someone takes some courage yes, but you always have a fair chance of winning, and again since when will ever beating this guy, or anyone else, make the light-bulb go off in their minds 'ah, I see the love of God now' O_O . The Church has tried is, if different ways, and in different times, and it never worked, and never will, parts of the inquisition, certain crusades, the Protestant persecutions, the simplistic sentiments that people get into in dualism, this nation good, that is bad, so it's ok to attack and bomb them (whether it's certain evangelicals who endorsed the 'war on terror' - how do you wage a war on terror with physical weapons? - and this isn't anti-American, Britain was and is fully in this to - or jihadists that decree America and Israel as the great and little Satans, but at least the last are deceived, for the Christians that kind of simplistic dualism of people into those good and bad group is dangerous and unbiblical - we are all of us sinners, whose hearts are desperately wicked and in need of healing). So lets look at a confrontation in the NT, oh yes, confrontation is vital to Christianity, in fact it goes far beyond what much of the Church is the West is comfortable with. Jesus and His church confronted the fallen and corrupt priesthood of his day, of the Pharisess who sort a form of holiness that was not in their attempts to keep Israel holy so God would bring His Kingdom and set the Jews free and put the King of Israel as the ruler of the world (as per Psalm 2 etc, Isaiah etc), and He confronted Rome. He brought judgement where the gospel was announced, a judgement was positive, and freed people warned Israel of the path many were on, seeking to oppose with violence, that it would result in Empires doing what Empires always do when challenged (what they do today), send in the armies and wipe out the opposite, see Jerusalem AD 70 and Bar-Kokhba's final rebellion in that ended when he died in AD 135 and Hadrian wiped Judea of the map. But Jesus told His disciples how it would be when James and John, the sons of Thunder asked to sit at his left and right, just how it is in Jesus Kingdom (or had their mother ask
): Mark 10:37-43:
'They said to Him, 'Grant that we may sit, one at Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. They said to Him, ;We are able.' And Jesus said to them, 'The cup that I drink you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized. But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those whom it has been prepared.'
Hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John. Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, 'You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whosoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many.'
And He was right when they had no idea what they were asking, when He was crowned King of the Jews the ones at His right and His left were the two thieves, this is how confrontation is in the Kingdom of God. This isn't just your atonement theology, this is Kingdom life, this is how the Kingdom is brought and lived. Jesus brought the Kingdom, our salvation, the new world, and gained victory over the forces of darkness, evil, over all the pagan empires and corrupt aspects of Israel and became King through the cross. He confronted and judged the corrupt leadership the Temple had become, of Herod, and final with Pilate He confronted Ceasar himself, and behind them, He confronted and judged Satan who works within the fallen aspects of the world. And in the cross He draw all the sin and evil that mares us, that damages and ravages God's creation onto Himself, He exhausted it, in the cross the very symbol of Rome, which said in a language everyone then understood, you oppose Rome, you oppose tyranny, you die a terrible, humiliating and public death, but in the paradox of ages, the very foolishness of God that confounded the wisdom of the Greeks, this was the means God's Kingdom came, of how God became King in and through Jesus Christ, and how the new creation dawned through the resurrection from the tomb. All power on heaven and earth belong to Jesus, and He not Caesar, not the Accuser, not any empire is Lord of the world, of the whole of the universe. And this is what calls us to the above, to carry our cross through self-sacrificial love, and the apostles did it, not by violence, not the methods of this age, but by bring His Kingdom in healing, love, in standing for justice through self-sacrifice, as Jesus did, announcing He is Lord now, but by serve no matter what the cost, turning the cheek not as a weakness but a challenge to the weak impotence of the bully and violent, exhaust your evil on me if you dare. And all the time, announcing His saving and freeing power, the forgiveness and freedom in Him, bring light into the dark places, going into the plague-ridden towns when no one else would, healing the sick, caring for the poor, leaper and outcasts, even if it made you considered an outcast. Denying the total authority of governments such as Caesar's cult, but rather their authority is of God, not tyrannise their people but to serve them, and denying their absurd claims to pretentious glory, and never bowing, even if it mean torture and death. Loving your enemy even if helping them mean death, in all ways bringing the restorative life of God, of serving all in courage and faithfulness to death as it often was, and has always been, and is everywhere outside our comfortable West. Bringing the gospel to all that hurt, bring the restoring justice of God no matter the cost, no matter how difficult, living a life true holiness before the world, no matter what is said or done, that takes courage.
And that is the courage and life, and yes that is confrontation, oh man is it, and when you get your zeal behind that, then you will be a force for God. Now, all you will ever show to this man, or anyone else, is hate, fear, all the things in this evil age everyone sees when they turn their TV on, all that destroys and doesn't build. It doesn't take anything to destroy, and Satan is the thief, killer and murderer, but Jesus brings life and freedom, don't be as the kingdoms and ways world that destroy, instead serve and confront as the Jesus does, as is the way and life the Kingdom, in hard, tough and costly (it might cost you everything in this life) self-sacrificial service and love. To that high calling you are called, not this lowly and vain path of destruction that is the way of the Gentiles in this fallen world, confront to save and heal, not destroy.
And so I pray again, consider who you serve in this, and choice the harder, and braver path.
