A
You are making false assertions. I'll presume it's because you are ignorant and this is not deliberate for "like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked." -Proverbs 25:26
As the eminent Biblical scholar and theologian Gleason L. Archer PhD wrote in the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:
"How could God be called 'good' if He forbade His people to protect their wives from ravishment and strangulation by drunken marauders, or to resist invaders who have come to pick up their children and dash out their brains against the wall? No policy would give freer rein to wickedness and crime than a complete surrender of the right of self-defense on the part of the law-abiding members of society.
No more effective way of promoting the cause of Satan and the powers of hell could be devised than depriving law-abiding citizens of all right of self-defense. It is hard to imagine how any deity could be thought 'good' who would ordain such a policy of supine surrender to evil as that advocated by pacifism.
All possibility of an ordered society would be removed on the abolition of any sort of police force. No nation could retain its liberty or preserve the lives of its citizens if it were prevented from maintaining any sort of army for its defense. It is therefore incumbent on a 'good God' to include the right of self-defense as the prerogative of His people. He would not be good at all if He were to turn the world over to the horrors of unbridled cruelty perpetrated by violent and bloody criminals or the unchecked aggression of invading armies.
Not only is a proper and responsible policy of self-defense taught by Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but there were occasions when God even commissioned His people to carry out judgment on corrupt and degenerate heathen nations and the complete extermination of cities like Jericho (cf. the article on "Was Joshua justified in exterminating the population of Jericho?" in connection with Joshua 6:21). The rules of war laid down in Deuteronomy 20 represented a control of justice, fairness, and kindness in the use of the sword, and, as such, they truly did reflect the goodness of God."
Self-defense against evil is legitimized in scripture and natural law. Now you don't know whether Jesus ever owned a sword or not. It's possible that he did not for as God, Jesus could call down twelve legions of angels meaning that he had no need for a sword. But his disciples owned them and he never commanded Christians not to own a sword or not use it in legitimate self-defense when desirable (e.g. necessary).
In fact, and pay attention now, as Jesus was being arrested he spoke with the supernatural power of God. His voice so totally overwhelmed the soldiers that they swayed backward and fell to the ground (John 18:6). This accomplished several things but primarily it created a situation in which the soldiers were so put off by this demonstration of supernatural power that His disciples could leave the garden unharmed with their weapons in hand to use in legitimate self-defense against highway men, etc... if the need arose (and maybe it did) as Jesus was now physically separating from them to fulfill his prophesied cosmic mission at Golgotha.
What you're doing is confusing legitimate self-defense with revenge here while misrepresenting this scripture. Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition.
Why the right cheek? A blow by the right fist in that right-handed world would land on the left cheek of the opponent. To strike the right cheek with the fist would require using the left hand, but in that society the left hand was used only for unclean tasks. As the Dead Sea Scrolls specify, even to gesture with the left hand at Qumran carried the penalty of ten days penance and to strike someone with it was an exorbitant fine. What's being communicated here is not the threat of bodily injury but rather of insult.
The intention is not to injure but to humiliate, to put someone in his or her place. One normally did not strike a peer in this way, and if one did the fine was exorbitant in that place and time. A backhand slap was the normal way of admonishing inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; men, women; Romans, Jews.
Of course, we don't want to start a fight to death or blood feud because someone insulted us. That; however, does not translate to Jesus ordering us to allow ourselves, our loved ones, and every innocent person on the planet to be victimized, robbed, assaulted, raped, enslaved and murdered by wicked people. Grow up. The Bible teaches the opposite.
God permits life taking in self-defense ( Exod. 22:2 ), in capital punishment ( Gen. 9:6 ), and in just war (cf. Gen. 14:14–20 ). And when there is a theocratic command to do so, as in the case of Israel and the Canaanites, its moral justification is vouchsafed by God’s sovereignty.
In the New Testameent, Jesus Himself nowhere circumvents the responsibility of the Christian to kill if necessary in the legitimate protection of his own life or family. In fact Jesus clarifies this in his Matthew 5:21 teaching has he chose a distinctive word (phoneuo) which means to murder not kill. Thayer (p. 657) states, it means "to commit murder." W.E. Vine (p. 291) states, "Pheneuo, to murder, akin tophoneus, a murderer." Etc... universal agreement on word usage.
As the eminent Biblical scholar and theologian Gleason L. Archer PhD wrote in the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:
"How could God be called 'good' if He forbade His people to protect their wives from ravishment and strangulation by drunken marauders, or to resist invaders who have come to pick up their children and dash out their brains against the wall? No policy would give freer rein to wickedness and crime than a complete surrender of the right of self-defense on the part of the law-abiding members of society.
No more effective way of promoting the cause of Satan and the powers of hell could be devised than depriving law-abiding citizens of all right of self-defense. It is hard to imagine how any deity could be thought 'good' who would ordain such a policy of supine surrender to evil as that advocated by pacifism.
All possibility of an ordered society would be removed on the abolition of any sort of police force. No nation could retain its liberty or preserve the lives of its citizens if it were prevented from maintaining any sort of army for its defense. It is therefore incumbent on a 'good God' to include the right of self-defense as the prerogative of His people. He would not be good at all if He were to turn the world over to the horrors of unbridled cruelty perpetrated by violent and bloody criminals or the unchecked aggression of invading armies.
Not only is a proper and responsible policy of self-defense taught by Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but there were occasions when God even commissioned His people to carry out judgment on corrupt and degenerate heathen nations and the complete extermination of cities like Jericho (cf. the article on "Was Joshua justified in exterminating the population of Jericho?" in connection with Joshua 6:21). The rules of war laid down in Deuteronomy 20 represented a control of justice, fairness, and kindness in the use of the sword, and, as such, they truly did reflect the goodness of God."
Self-defense against evil is legitimized in scripture and natural law. Now you don't know whether Jesus ever owned a sword or not. It's possible that he did not for as God, Jesus could call down twelve legions of angels meaning that he had no need for a sword. But his disciples owned them and he never commanded Christians not to own a sword or not use it in legitimate self-defense when desirable (e.g. necessary).
In fact, and pay attention now, as Jesus was being arrested he spoke with the supernatural power of God. His voice so totally overwhelmed the soldiers that they swayed backward and fell to the ground (John 18:6). This accomplished several things but primarily it created a situation in which the soldiers were so put off by this demonstration of supernatural power that His disciples could leave the garden unharmed with their weapons in hand to use in legitimate self-defense against highway men, etc... if the need arose (and maybe it did) as Jesus was now physically separating from them to fulfill his prophesied cosmic mission at Golgotha.
What you're doing is confusing legitimate self-defense with revenge here while misrepresenting this scripture. Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition.
Why the right cheek? A blow by the right fist in that right-handed world would land on the left cheek of the opponent. To strike the right cheek with the fist would require using the left hand, but in that society the left hand was used only for unclean tasks. As the Dead Sea Scrolls specify, even to gesture with the left hand at Qumran carried the penalty of ten days penance and to strike someone with it was an exorbitant fine. What's being communicated here is not the threat of bodily injury but rather of insult.
The intention is not to injure but to humiliate, to put someone in his or her place. One normally did not strike a peer in this way, and if one did the fine was exorbitant in that place and time. A backhand slap was the normal way of admonishing inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; men, women; Romans, Jews.
Of course, we don't want to start a fight to death or blood feud because someone insulted us. That; however, does not translate to Jesus ordering us to allow ourselves, our loved ones, and every innocent person on the planet to be victimized, robbed, assaulted, raped, enslaved and murdered by wicked people. Grow up. The Bible teaches the opposite.
God permits life taking in self-defense ( Exod. 22:2 ), in capital punishment ( Gen. 9:6 ), and in just war (cf. Gen. 14:14–20 ). And when there is a theocratic command to do so, as in the case of Israel and the Canaanites, its moral justification is vouchsafed by God’s sovereignty.
In the New Testameent, Jesus Himself nowhere circumvents the responsibility of the Christian to kill if necessary in the legitimate protection of his own life or family. In fact Jesus clarifies this in his Matthew 5:21 teaching has he chose a distinctive word (phoneuo) which means to murder not kill. Thayer (p. 657) states, it means "to commit murder." W.E. Vine (p. 291) states, "Pheneuo, to murder, akin tophoneus, a murderer." Etc... universal agreement on word usage.
