That is don’t return insult for insult, now sometimes you can turn the other cheek in a such a way that it becomes an insult. It’s tricky to do, and it’s easy for others to misjudge the outward appearance of it because the offender is now offended. This is especially the case when other people think the best thing to do is be passive and do nothing or to agree or to look at the offense on the bright side
I am fascinated that a discussion about atheists being resistant to condescening and insulting apologetics and apologists has turned to a discussion of the Principle of Proportional Consequences.
It’s interesting to consider who might be the “wronged party” in such an encounter. The atheist for having been treated condescendingly and having been insulted? The apologist for having been reacted to?
Who gets to claim the greater righteousness and tell the story about having “turned the other cheek” just like Jesus taught and did?
Maybe both will claim it as they rework the memory in their own preferred style.
But what was the point of the encounter in the first place? Can the apologist’s stated goal be achieved by the method of insult and condecension? Jesus saved those tools for the ultra religious, who knew how to get to heaven, because after all they had earned it!
What would happen if we had more prophets who addressed “the people” in ways that woke them from their religious stupor and ripped away their satisfaction? Who called out the church for its sins and misdeeds, for not obeying Jesus? What if christians lived like they believed what they say and called out LEADERS IN THE CHURCHES who clearly don’t.
The atheists might feel they have more reason to at least listen to the apologetics, and maybe still not be convinced. That is, not convinced today.
5 Likes
Thank you.
Hmmm… Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I never said don’t call the police or seek justice afterwards. But I think what is happening in the moment matters. The examples he provides are illustrative, not exhaustive, I would argue. And there is nothing in the passage that says it only applies to those who can’t defend themselves. One of Jesus’ disciples, after all, Simon the Zealot, was a revolutionary against Rome. I’m sure he’d have been more than happy to resist the one trying to make him go the extra mile.
I’m afraid you’ll have to give me a source from someone who’s studied the cultural background. Are you perhaps thinking of Matthew 5:43?
I humbly disagree. Punishment in this context is about justice and righteousness. Revenge is about anger and saving face. I agree that a corpse can’t come back and kill the murderer, but their family or kin group sure can, and the murderer’s wife, kids, and servants to boot. When we take justice into our own hands we’re seeking revenge, and when humans seek revenge they rarely stop at what is proportional.
Respectfully, I find it hard to justify that position from the passage or anywhere in the New Testament for that matter:
But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. Matt 5:39
You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. Hebrew 10:34
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:17-21
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. Matthew 5:21-22
Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 1 Peter 3:9
Again I humbly disagree. Jesus asks them if they have a sword, and then later he says to the sword wielder:
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” Matthew 26:52-54
The context here is not only that Peter is getting in the way of Jesus’ mission, but also a ‘this is not how we do things’ in the kingdom.
Again, I think it does matter. It forms the basis of Peter’s advice in 1 Peter 2:
For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 1 Peter 2:19-21
Peter says that not only were we called to endure suffering, but that Jesus’ suffering is an example of how to endure injustice well.
3 Likes
Eventually I’ll respond in depth.
But if Jesus’s response was to watch a rape happen and just beg them to stop, and not defend yourself, I would say Jesus is evil. Which would be his position if he did not support self defense.
But again…… not once in the entire Bible is self defense called a sin. Not once anywhere. None of the verses you showed says anything about self defense. Not one of them.
What we do see is that soldiers are never condemned by Jesus or the apostles. We don’t ever see guards condemned anywhere.
The only times it really comes up, is when Jesus says hey…. That rule “ eye for an eye “ which was a law…. It was about their court system…… not self defense…… it’s about punishment/revenge after the event is over…… don’t seek it out but forgive them.
No where…… does Jesus or an apostle say just let them kill you or kill your loved ones and don’t defend yourself. That’s what cowards do. Cowards watch others harm innocent people. It’s cowards that watch others get beaten for no reason.
Jesus, specifically does not want anyone to stop him from getting killed because his goal, was to die. Same for anyone on a suicide mission. Someone on a suicide mission for the greater good does not want others to stop them, and allow evil to continue. They are willing to die to win.
Jesus told them all to be armed. Not as a paramilitary. Just basic self defense. He only specifically stopped Peter who was getting in the way of his specific mission.
We see Jesus solely addressing the legal system. Never see him addressing soldiers, guards, or self defense.
If Paul saw a man choking a kid to death, Paul would not just stand there and preach. Paul would most likely do what any decent person would do and that would be to protect the kid, even if that means kicking the dude in the face and knocking him out. After it was over, if Paul saw that man, he would not seek revenge. ThRs why turning the cheek and self defense are 100% compatible because they are not about the same issue.
Maybe a better approach is this.
If you saw a man trying to kill a kid with a knife what would you think is your responsibility as a Christian man? Let’s say you do have a gun and you are a good shot, and you’ve fired s warning shot and the guy does not care. You are 25 feet away and he’s 10 feet away from the kid. Do you think it’s better to allow him to attack the kid or is it better to shoot him in the leg and stop him? In without a doubt know it’s better to shot the guy and stop him from harming the kid and then get the kid yo safely and then call an ambulance and try to preserve the guys life. I would never think that Jesus or Paul just want me to scream, pray or stand by.
I can see that this is an issue that you’ve done a lot of thinking about and feel strongly about. I respect that. I’m not here to prove you or your position wrong. I’m happy for you to hold a position that in certain circumstances violent resistance is OK. From the the below you’ll see that I agree just in a different way.
However, can I ask you not to misrepresent non-violent resistance as cowardice? This is something that is often thrown in the face of passivists and is unfair. Many would argue it takes a great deal of courage to know that you could fight back and choose not to. Cowards are motivated by fear. Christian passivists are motivated by a desire to do what they believe is pleasing to God. I hope you can see the difference.
So I think you’ve brought up an important distinction here. So (personally) I would suggest that these things are in a different category. Intervening to protect someone else from harm, for me, is not the same as not fighting back if someone tries to mug you.
You might not agree with that. And perhaps can think of a lot of ‘what about X’ scenarios - that’s fine. However, that is the general principle as I see it. How that applies from one scenario to the next is probably not something that can be hammered out over the internet. For example, living in the UK I couldn’t draw a gun on someone even if I wanted to. And even if I owned one, I wouldn’t be allowed to carry it on the street. Especially not loaded.
I’m sure there are a lot of things that the Bible doesn’t explicitly call sin and professions that Jesus and the apostles don’t condemn that both you and I would agree are sinful. The Bible is, in the first instance, not a moral handbook, where it does touch on virtuous living, it never claims to be exhaustive. Rather God provides us with moral (I’d argue, wisdom) principles by which to order our lives. That requires interpretation. Where there is interpretation, there are differences. Where there are differences, we have grace.
I apologise if that grace was not evident in my previous replies.
2 Likes
I did not take any of your responses as being mean or graceless or even heated.
I don’t think someone choosing to allow different forms of violence against them makes them weak. That’s why i was saying what i consider cowardly is someone who stands by and does nothing to stop another from harming someone. Such as if a person was beating another person and it was causing real harm and they were intended on what appears to be attempting to murder them, and another just stands by yelling I would think that person is a coward regardless of what they try to say motivates it. Like when a man is just knocking the teeth in on a woman and everyone just stands around watching and saying hey that’s wrong. It happens a lot. A lot of people in the world just stands by watching harm come to others. I’ve even heard pacifists ( and I’m not saying this is you ) not help someone being harmed and they just call the cops and then to me the illogical aspect is why call the cops? If someone thinks using violence to stop violence against someone is wrong, why call the cops when the cops are going to use violence to stop the violence. It just seems like it’s an attempt to pass the buck. It’s like I’m not going to hit that dude because it’s wrong but I’ll call someone else to do the hitting for me. That’s when I think it’s just cowardly.
I don’t think it’s cowardly to let someone rob you and leave with your money, regardless if you cannot can’t do anything about it. If someone pulled a gun on me from 10 feet away, or pulled a knife out just a few feet away, even if I had a gun on me, I would probably not shoot them because I think material goods are not typically more valuable than life. Or the risk to keep $20 of cash is not worth attempting to get shot over.
3 Likes
Good discussion of a difficult subject. I might add that context matters in these verses as well as in Paul’s writing to conduct yourself in such a way as respect the government authority. Christianity was new, and the Roman government was powerful and oppressive. If it were to have a chance to flourish, They had to be seen as good citizens and not as rabble rousers. Christians got enough attention and were persecuted enough as it was, though it seems most of the persecution early on was at the request of the Jewish authorities for religious reasons. In any case, it was important to show Rome that they were not a civil threat.
4 Likes
(There are some involved in neutralizing his teachings about the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, the wide and the narrow gates, the foolish rich man, Lazarus and Dives, and Paul’s severe warnings as well.)
This is going to be a deep dive and frankly it intimidates me after reading this from Scott McKnight’s commentary for the Sermon on the Mount
There is no way around explaining what Jesus is saying in our text: Jesus overtly ends the Mosaic command to “show no pity” in the appropriation of the lex talionis and in its place orders his followers to be merciful.
Undoubtedly, one can call the cops for a trivial offense and that’s your way of getting back at them with as much vengeance as you can legally get away with.
Something else that comes to mind is Paul’s instruction to Timothy that people who don’t work should not be given food. It seems implicit in the passage that the person is able to work but is unwilling to. And the same Paul also writes about a principle of fairness to the Corinthians. These are not black and white moral issues that we’re talking about. Hence the need for wisdom as a gift from God.
The “you’ve heard it said” statements from the Sermon on the Mount have captured my imagination as there seems to be such a beautifully nuanced vision of perfect righteousness that Christ is conveying.
If Jesus was referring to the Law he could have said “it is written” but by referring to “you have heard it said” he can be making a reference to Pharisaic teaching that he may have touched upon in the previous passage (Matthew 5:17-20).
And it also could be Pharisaic teaching had come to the point where it was saying that as long as you don’t murder somebody or you don’t commit adultery then you are righteous with God. “You have heard it said.”
So, from my comment where I recalled Pharisaic teaching corrupted the word of God, I now see that isn’t the case as I look again at The Sermon on the Mount. More than likely, it appears they had boxed in the commands for righteousness which is often what happens with legalism today… whether it be exclusively for mercy or justice 
btw… if there appears to be a contradiction between this comment and the previous comment, I promise it was unintended. Sometimes when you start to write about something your mind goes places you didn’t foresee it going.
2 Likes
But the NLT is adding words for which there is no justification except, “Oh, this kind of sounds like this other verse over here so let’s throw in a word form that verse”.
Adding things in that fashion is dishonest regardless of theory of translation. In this case it is definitely so because the addition of the word “other” actually changes the meaning of the verse from an admonition that covers any physical attack to one of just striking on a cheek.
This brings to mind an ethics course where an argument was made that self-defense per se is immoral, but if your demise or injury would result in harm or injury to others then self-defense becomes an obligation.
I was in a similar situation as it relates to my above observation: I was responsible for some teens on a campout and had gotten up early to get some photos of the morning sun hitting a waterfall near the campsite; when I returned to the campsite there was a big guy wearing a Crocodile Dundee variety of knife, engaged in undoing the zipper on the sleeping bag of one of the teens. My reaction was immediate: I tossed my camera into the open car trunk and extracted my .22 rifle and walked into the campsite, clearing my throat loudly and saying something like the guy should go back to his own campsite. He actually just looked at me and moved on to the next sleeping bag, whereupon I racked the rifle bolt and swung the barrel in his direction. The slimeball actually hesitated as though he was considering continuing his activity, so I put the rifle butt to my cheek and took aim.
And yes, as I answered the kids a few minutes later once the guy was out of sight, I would have shot him – and would have considered myself to be evil if I’d let him continue what I could only consider sexual abuse. And my shot wouldn’t have been a warning, it would have been to end the threat, meaning if the first shot into his chest didn’t stop him then I would have kept firing until he was no longer able to bother any of those kids.
2 Likes
- Makes sense to me. Besides, I can choose to be nonviolent for myself, but I can’t vouch for my wife if you annoy or upset her.
4 Likes
Christ was not a passivist. He resorted to violence when cleaning the temple. He cursed a fig tree. His ultimate act was to submit to violence. He was passionate, which is a very different set of rules. Revelation criticises one of the churches for being lukewarm, "“neither hot nor cold”.
Maybe there is a distinction here that gets overlooked?
It would seem to be a case of choosing your fights rather than going off proverbially half-cock all the time. Revenge and/or justice would seem to be less important than honesty and truth. A wrong can be forgiven, even forgotten, but continuance changes the parameters.
The problem I see with fanatical Christianity is that it justifies cruelty and put downs in the name of good doctrine we loose our humanity by condemnation and blanket judgementalism under the guise of “fallen humanity”. The individual is lost. So is the care and the love.
It is all very well to claim that all can be saved but the mechanism we place for doing it is uncaring and restrictive. It involves the person identifying the problem and reacting to it, whereas most of the world can live quite happy in blissful ignorance of sin and/or forgiveness. And people who are trying to live correctly but under a different set of rules and ideals are just dismissed because of our claims that “you cannot earn your way to Heaven”.
Perhaps we have taken that teaching beyond where it is meant to go? God seems very interest in intent. Christ taught that if you think to do something it is as if you actually did it. So perhaps we need to re-assess dogmatic doctrine and do the unheard of Accommodate
(which seems to have become a four letter word)
Richard
1 Like
Well, first…good set of questions, Barry… I think the verse from Colossians, cited regularly at the top of this post, should be key.
It is also easy, in this Internet age where people poke at “strangers online” and not face to face…to come off as brusk perhaps.
I am not sure what you mean by “Trinitarian apologist” since, frankly, lots of people who believe --by virtue of church creeds – in a Trinity can hardly explain it beyond “I believe it.”
And yes, the unbeliever may also be quite rude. There are two sides to every problem and things can get out of hand.
You also have questions about “the biblical data” and whether or not it is “too convoluted to permit drawing a reasonably certain answer”. That depends on what you are referring specifically to. The concept of the Trinity goes way back in church history and some form of it was even part of Jewish beliefs before Christianity formed. But not everyone is into the history of the thing. Thus you might get varied responses to the question…that is, if it is about the Trinity.
The question at the end of your last paragraph is a good one. And it certainly depends upon what you specifically are talking about. The Trinity? Inerrantism? iF you ask a question of three people and they say “Yes, and…” and the rest of their comment is not word-for-word the same as the others—I don’t know. Is that a problem? If they said the exact same thing, would you not wonder if people are programmed robots, spewing out doctrine by rote? I am not sure where you are coming from on some of this.
5 Likes
No, that’s not what’s happening. To say this you are presuming that there are one to one correspondences between the source text and the receptor text and certain word “equivalents” are licensed and others aren’t. That isn’t how translation actually works or how meaning is communicated from one language to another. You are comparing meaning “changes” from a translation you are familiar with to the NLT, not meaning changes from the source text to the receptor text. The former is something debatable, but a whole team of native English-speaking Greek experts decided that the NLT rendering was what the source text actually “means.”
What? Of course Jesus was referring to the Law in parts of the “you heard it said.” It’s literally where most of those sayings come directly from.
1 Like
My bet is that he was referring to something other than the written word, as we also have examples of him saying “it is written.”
It’s hard to describe that view without using the word “delusional” or phrase “detached from reality.” What is the theological problem with Jesus referring to the OT teachings? And yes, there must be a hidden problem or theological forcing causing this, otherwise you wouldn’t be dreaming up this idea.