Derek: 00:07

Welcome back to the 4th Way podcast. This is the second episode in our series, Making a Positive Case for Christian Nonviolence. So, in the last episode, I shared a little bit about my story, and I told you how I discovered how I was being very syncretistic in my life and how my conservative Christian community was filled with idolatry and syncretism. Particularly, we had the issue of consequentialism or this idea that the ends justify the means. And for something to be moral, at least in certain aspects, it had to work.

Derek: 00:46

It had to produce an overall good result. And, that meant that in all of my previous looks at issues of Christian nonviolence as I read the Bible, that I filtered out content or interpretations against the ethic that that violence was good. I just didn't accept that. Violence was a necessary, necessary thing. And hopefully that episode has kind of helped you to take a look at your own life and prepare to hear the case that we're about to make for Christian nonviolence.

Derek: 01:27

Because this is something that you really need to to come at with a neutral perspective. And also remembering that this is a cumulative case, and you really need to hear everything out, to be able to give it a fair fair go. And you also need to remember that as a cumulative case on something that you need to choose, really my responsibility is 51% certainty for you to be more rational to change your mind. Alright. Keeping those things in mind, let's go ahead and make the positive case from the Bible.

Derek: 02:02

So there are plenty of problems for the nonviolent case when you look at the Bible. And, I do want you to know before we get into the Old Testament, which is where we'll start, that I understand there are lots of issues, especially with the Old Testament, primarily with the Old Testament, and then and then Revelation. And I am not skipping those. I will come back to those. We'll do a, counter rebuttal, a number of counter rebuttal episodes, and we will definitely come back to the old testament problems.

Derek: 02:39

But right now, I want to set up the positive case for how we can pull nonviolence out of the Bible. And, just know that I'm not avoiding that, and you can come back later for future episodes where we deal with the the problems. Okay. Old Testament. So, the Old Testament is is pretty violent, and there are a lot of places where it seems like God himself is violent and where he encourages violence from other people.

Derek: 03:07

Like I said, we'll get to to talking about those later, but we also do get a number of inklings that, you know what? Maybe maybe, violence isn't really something that's that's great or something that God wants to keep around or something that God really likes in general. And today, I wanna talk about some of those inklings because they're they're really important glimpses, especially as we get to the ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ. It's gonna be helpful to see how this isn't just, you know, a a change of gods like, Marcion and and others kind of thought was going on. Right?

Derek: 03:48

We're not, like, changing the face of who God is, but it was there all along. The most violent aspect of the Old Testament is probably the conquest of Canaan. And we we would focus on a lot of the the killing and even of of women and children that goes on there. But we get glimpses of God intending for this sort of thing not to happen, to be able to keep people from dying, people from being killed, and to keep his people from killing other people. For example, in Exodus 14, before Israel's ever even gone into Canaan to to get rid of people, Exodus 14 declares that the Lord will fight for you.

Derek: 04:36

And Exodus 23, God says that he will send the hornet ahead of Israel to drive people out. Like, God, if you read certain aspects of of Exodus as well as other books, it really seems like God is saying, hey, look, I I'll take care of this. I'll drive them out. You just faithfully obey me and we'll drive these people out. We don't need to kill them.

Derek: 05:04

I'm not gonna have you kill them. I'm, myself, am not gonna kill them. I'm gonna send the hornet ahead of you. And we get a number of glimpses of that, especially in these these two passages here in Exodus. If you want to get a lot more of this, you can get, a lot more examples from Tim Mackey, who is the creator of The Bible Project.

Derek: 05:26

And he argues that more often than not, that the wrath of God and the judgment of God and and places where it seems like God kills people, is actually either God withdrawing from people and allowing natural consequences to happen to them, or God's use of, yeah. God's use of natural consequences or just his withdrawal of protection. Anyway, lots of examples. I kind of wanna talk about some of them, but we'll save that for the counter rebuttals, and you can look up Tim Mackey. I will I will, put a link to that here in the podcast.

Derek: 06:06

So, anyway, the Old Testament is littered with this type of thing, keeping keeping people from killing. One other example really quickly that that's really obvious is, take a look at Gideon or one of the judges. Certainly, a lot of the other judges make up for, for Gideon's lack of killing in this one episode. But Gideon is told by God to basically take some, like, trumpets and torches and clay pots, get 400 people, and go and and, surround his enemies up in the high cliffs and, like, blow trumpets and yell at them and break jars and all that stuff. Well, Gideon and God don't touch the enemy.

Derek: 06:52

They end up killing each other. And so the fear of God in them, their fear of the Israelites, their, evil hearts, and and all of those things kind of combined to make the situation where when when they thought they were coming up against God's army, God didn't have to lay a finger on them. They they judged themselves. And that's the type of thing that you see all over, and Mackie Mackie makes that a lot clearer in in his, I believe it was a podcast episode that he had. Other examples, other glimpses that we get that that violence, even something that might seem like justified violence or when God commands it, are not good, or not ideal.

Derek: 07:41

So David, for example, is kept from building the temple. In 1 Chronicles 28, we find out why. And it said that he shed blood as a warrior. Now this is important. This this caveat here is important because, you know, some people would say, well, he shed blood.

Derek: 08:00

Yeah. He was a murderer. Okay. That's true. But here it specifically says that the issue was he shed blood as a warrior.

Derek: 08:07

And now remember, if you just read the story of David and his killing of the Philistines and Goliath and all these other things, you would think that out of all the people to build a temple, God would love to have David build the temple because he's a man after God's own heart. And weren't all of those killings legitimate and, wonderful things for the kingdom of God for Israel? But God apparently didn't really like that. He didn't like that David had blood on his hands. And that's kind of a glimpse of of God's, disdain for for blood.

Derek: 08:45

His his, just hatred of of violence. We see in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, we see that this this notion of swords being turned into plowshares, in in the end, in the last days. And, certainly, you could interpret this in a number of different ways. You could maybe say, well, this will be when Jesus comes back and, and establishes his final reign. And, you know, we could talk about, well, Jesus is actually reigning now and He brought His kingdom.

Derek: 09:21

Just read especially Mark, but read any of the Gospels. Right? The kingdom's here now, and we're expanding it. We're ambassadors for it. And we apply other sorts of passages like Joel, when when individuals were speaking in tongues, it's supposed to be a pro a fulfilled prophecy.

Derek: 09:40

So, you know, this idea of swords being turned into plowshares, for a lot of people, is something that is actually supposed to be taking place now. That was, that was prophetic of now. And that's not just some crazy, like, pacifistic interpretation. You look at the early church fathers and they quoted this concept frequently. This idea of, hey, look.

Derek: 10:02

Right now, we've turned our plows our swords into plowshares. In the next episode, I'll give you some specific examples of those quotes from the church fathers. But that was a a very early interpretation in the early church. I think it's interesting that, in particular, that Isaiah is one of the individuals who gives us this this glimpse of swords being turned into plowshares. Because it's also Isaiah who gives us the, I think, the only glimpse I mean, I guess you could count some of the Psalms.

Derek: 10:38

But, really, the clearest glimpse of the Messiah being a suffering servant, who wasn't coming in in violent conquest. And so Isaiah seems to understand the messianic aspect of Jesus. He seems to get Jesus the clearest. And so the fact that he is also talking about the nonviolence in that era or, you know, after that established kingdom, it kind of goes hand in hand. And I think it's it's, something interesting to consider.

Derek: 11:20

And that makes a lot of sense too with if you understand progressive revelation, and you say, well, there's a lot of killing and and those sorts of things going on in in the Old Testament, but you understand that there are a lot of these concepts that that God is not promoting, but he's dealing with. Like, take, divorce for example. Jesus says, look. This wasn't something God wanted. He gave you this law because of your hardness of hearts.

Derek: 11:49

And, essentially, if he didn't give you this law, like, you'd be doomed. Like, this was this was his mercy on you to work with you through this through this, misunderstanding, through this this hardness of your heart. And so if we understand progressive revelation, and we think that, Isaiah has progressed down this path more in understanding who the Messiah is, then that's helpful in understanding why maybe we see less violence, in in, this idea of the suffering servant and swords to plowshares and all of that. Now, the New Testament, of course, is going to be much clearer, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think it's, it's fair to say that that preaching nonviolence discounts the old testament.

Derek: 12:45

Because if you do understand this progressive revelation, that helps to make sense of things. But then also, you get this idea, that we see in a number of places that Jesus really is the clear revelation. I mean, a lot of the old testament doesn't make sense if you don't have Jesus, and so much more is illuminated if you do have Jesus. Jesus says in John 14 that if you have seen me, you've seen the father. Right?

Derek: 13:12

He is the revelation of God. Hebrews says that he's the full revelation of God. Right? He's the he's the image of of God. And, we have only seen dimly up to the point of Jesus, but now in Jesus, we see we see crystal clear, because Jesus is the image of God.

Derek: 13:35

He's the pure revelation. And, so some of the things that we think we might see in the Old Testament that maybe were progressive revelation or, God allowing things or working through systems for due to hardness of heart, really, if we see something that's pretty clear in Jesus and isn't very clear in the Old Testament, then we go with Jesus because that's the clear teaching. And and this is is something maybe comparable to, something like the trinity. Right? In the in the Old Testament, if you were to try to find the trinity, you could find, potentially, some examples.

Derek: 14:21

The the angels or or the, individuals appearing to Abraham, the 3 individuals that he fed. You know, there are a couple times where where God says, like in Genesis, let us make man in our image. And I know there are different interpretations of that, but some people use that to try to show Trinity. And so you you really do get at least a bindity in the Old Testament, like with the angel of the Lord and God. You kinda see that there are potentially 2 people, maybe maybe more.

Derek: 14:59

But it's not until the New Testament that we we get this idea of a trinity. And even then, it takes quite a long time for them to figure out how to how to put that into words and to to make that something that's not heretical. It takes them a few centuries to kind of hash that out and nail that down. So some of these things that that we take to be staples, orthodox staples for Christianity, I mean, it's not like they are just clearly seen in the old testament and new testament. There is this progressive revelation, and there is this clarification in Jesus Christ who makes a lot of things make sense.

Derek: 15:45

And even with things like the trinity, even though it makes sense to us now, it still wasn't didn't make complete sense to people as they were trying to piece together everything. And I think this is this is kind of like that, and it's not fair to to judge pacifism for, this idea that things become much clearer in the New Testament. And needless to say, things become much, much clearer in the New Testament. You really don't get very much information at all that's gonna give you give you a case against nonviolence. Just about everything is going to be for Christian nonviolence.

Derek: 16:31

So take a look at Matthew 5. Right? This is Jesus's famous teaching on turning the other cheek, on loving our enemies. And then in Romans 12 and first Peter 3, they build on this concept and they say, don't take vengeance. Right?

Derek: 16:49

That's that's a problem. So it's not just it's not just Jesus in in Matthew 5, but you've got other authors saying, don't take vengeance on people. Right? Let let that up to God. And maybe maybe, and we'll talk about this later, like I said, maybe God took vengeance in the Old Testament.

Derek: 17:09

Maybe he did that. Maybe God used people to take vengeance in the Old Testament. But now as revealed through Christ, at least at this time, God has told us not to take vengeance. We let that up to him. We are in an era of nonviolence.

Derek: 17:28

If nonviolence has not always been, at least it is now, as seen through through Christ and his teaching. And supported by Paul and Peter and probably others. You know, Romans 13, that's we'll have a whole episode on that later as well. If you're gonna read Romans 13 as legitimizing violence, even if I give that to you, it only does so in the function of a state, not in the hands of an individual. And so, even if you're going to want to incorporate some sort of violence, Romans 13 at least limits that violence to the state.

Derek: 18:09

And like I said, we'll talk about that because I I think that's even a a stretch. But, anyway. So, Jesus, beyond these these ideas of turning the other cheek and loving enemies and not taking vengeance and leaving vengeance up to the government beyond those things. Jesus also shifts our vision of the kingdom that he brought when he said that his kingdom is not of this world. Because if it was of this world, his followers would fight for him.

Derek: 18:44

But Jesus says, my kingdom's not of this world. My followers don't fight. And so Jesus kind of gives us this this, this perspective that the kingdom that we we are to be faithful towards is a kingdom that isn't like the kingdoms on earth. We don't use power and coercion and force. We we fight our battle in a different way.

Derek: 19:14

And you see this too in, in Paul, where he talks about how we don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers. And the this idea of spiritual warfare and, and that that the kingdom is different than the earthly powers is quite clear in the New Testament. You also get this, this idea of the Son of Man, which I think is is very interesting. A lot of times people, I remember one time we had Jehovah's Witnesses come over, and they were talking about how, well, look. In the Bible, it even says Jesus is the son of man.

Derek: 19:56

Like, well, great. Thank you for thank you for acknowledging that because that, more than the son of God, is a title of divinity. We see this in Daniel. In Daniel 7, Daniel gives us picture of the the ancient of days and, how he's clothed, and he's got this white hair and and all of this stuff. And the son of man is like that and ascends up to sit at the right hand of the throne of the Ancient of Days.

Derek: 20:28

Now he gives the son of man qualities that are divine, that are only true of God, and he has him sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. So this son of man, as seen in Daniel, the the the place in the old testament where we get this term, is probably the most divine term you can come up with, because because of all the things that Daniel says about who this son of man is. And what's really interesting is Jesus basically says, you know that guy in Daniel? You know that guy who's God? Yeah.

Derek: 21:05

That's me. Right before his crucifixion, Jesus says, in Matthew 26, I believe it's also in Luke, from now on, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. So this idea of coming on the clouds, a lot of people think that, you know, rapture, Jesus comes down. But the way that that coming on the clouds was used in the Old Testament, when God came against Egypt in judgment, he came on the clouds. Or when the son of man goes to sit at the right hand of the throne of God, he comes on the clouds.

Derek: 21:40

So this idea of coming on the clouds, a lot of times can can mean ascension and a lot of times means judgment. So when Jesus says, hey, look. You're about to crucify me, but I want you to know something. From now on, you're gonna see the Son of Man. You know that guy in Daniel 7?

Derek: 21:59

Yeah. He is me, and he's gonna be sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. He's saying, I'm about to go up there. I'm about to take my seat. My work's gonna be finished, and judgment's coming.

Derek: 22:13

So be warned. That's when when Jesus says that his kingdom's not of this world in John 18, and then we get this understanding of what he's telling the Pharisees that he's about to do, that's that's a pretty big deal. And, it's it's just something that that a lot of people overlook, about about this this kingdom. First Peter kind of bolsters that. He talk the whole book of first Peter is really fantastic for for this, probably more so with government and less so with pacifism directly.

Derek: 22:51

But Peter talks about this concept that we're aliens. Like, we we really do belong to another kingdom, and we don't fit into this kingdom here. Our kingdom, our allegiance is something different than it is here. And that means, like Jesus said, the way that we we fight for that kingdom is different, and like Paul said about flesh and blood, etcetera. Revelation is is also interesting, because a lot of people are gonna use that.

Derek: 23:24

And, again, we'll get to this later on. But a lot of people are gonna use Revelation as an example of, well, see, the New Testament's very bloody. And even if you wanna say that, it's fairly clear that we're in an era where we aren't to take vengeance. And if Jesus decides to come back in vengeance, so be it. But what's gonna happen in the future versus what we're supposed to do now are two different things.

Derek: 23:49

But, secondly, I think people just miss what Revelation is saying. And Tim Mackey, again, is is somebody who's good to listen to on this, but, if you just look at what Revelation is saying and how, how it would have been applicable to the the early church, it's just a beautiful book. This, there's so many offsetting pieces of imagery, like, the one who conquers isn't the Lion of Judah. Right? John sees the lion, but then when he takes a double take and he looks again, it's not the lion, but it's the Lamb who was slain.

Derek: 24:29

And this Lamb who was slain conquers. And time and time and time and time again, the imagery we get in Revelation of, when we get this word, Nica or Nike or whatever, for conquer, when we get that, it's in the context of submission and laying down our lives. And something that was really interesting is is after, I heard Mackie say something like that, I I went and looked through Revelation. And, you know, I thought Revelation is just this gory, bloody book. And so, I looked up all the times that the word blood appeared.

Derek: 25:07

And I think it's, like, I think it's 18. And I wanna say, I think it's 6 of those times. The blood appears in in, like, a it's it's a metaphorical judgment. You see it in the old testament. You see it in in all sorts of passages.

Derek: 25:24

But, like, the moon turns to blood and and that kind of stuff. So it's it's nobody's blood. It's just this symbolic something's gonna turn to blood as a judgment. And I think there are 12 other times that blood is used. And all but one of those times, the blood either refers to Jesus or to the martyrs.

Derek: 25:49

And that one time, that that one remaining time where blood occurs, it's unclear whose blood it is. It could be the it could be the martyrs, and it it might not be. So go ahead and and look that up yourself. If I have the document, if I can find it, I'll I'll post it here, a link to it. But Revelation, if you listen to somebody like Mackie or or Boyd, expound on it, I mean, it's just jam packed with this idea of conquering is submitting and is is, nonviolence.

Derek: 26:31

It's sacrifice. And just as Jesus conquered by being a slain lamb, so we conquer. We conquer in light fact like fashion. Who are we to think that we are better than our savior? That, what what is becoming of Him is not becoming for us.

Derek: 26:49

So, Revelation, great book, interesting. Lots of things that people think they know about it that they just don't. Again, we will get to that later. I hate having to keep saying that, but, I just I really want I'm chomping at the bit to say so much more about a lot of these things. But I just can't for time's sake.

Derek: 27:13

Okay. So beyond the the just biblical case, the the concepts, the ideas that that are being taught, we also have some New Testament examples. Now, I will admit right off the bat that that these examples, I would not hang my hat on it, and and say that these are examples of, absolute non violence and they support the case for non violence. I'm just throwing them out there because, again, this is a cumulative case, and I'm going to throw out all the pieces of potential evidence that I can. And, point is, in the New Testament, beyond the teachings, we do get a number of examples of people who are put in situations where violence is being done to them, and we see how they respond.

Derek: 28:01

And that's important because even though a response of nonviolence doesn't prove that that's how things should always be, the fact that we never see a returning of violence is also interesting. In in every case, we never see a returning of violence condoned, And I don't think there's a case where violence is is even done at all. Maybe the only case you can see is Peter slicing off a, not a centurion, a high priest servant ear, Malchus. And what does Jesus do? He puts it back on and says, Peter, put your sword away.

Derek: 28:44

And then the early church fathers used that, in in some of their quotes and say, hey, look. When Jesus told Peter to to sheathe his sword, that was a command for all Christians. Not that not that the early church fathers were right about that, but, the fact that that they understood the significance of the one violent act you see against somebody else, a Christian against somebody else, is reprimanded and and restored. There's restoration, there's healing, by Jesus, who refuses violence in that very same situation. So, New Testament examples.

Derek: 29:21

We've got a couple that I can think of. The first most interesting one would be Stephen stoning in Act 7. And, from my understanding now, I could be wrong about this, so please correct me if I am but when when Stephen was stoned by the religious leaders, I don't think that they had the permission to actually execute somebody at that point. And if that's the case, then Stephen stoning in acts 7, is is particularly important because his willingness to die was not a submission to authorities. And I hear this a lot in in, the United States, especially where we are a gun culture that okay.

Derek: 30:11

If if somebody comes into your house, and they're a government official, and it's illegal to be a Christian, and they try to take you, you submit because you submit to government, except for that, you know, whole revolutionary war thing that was legitimate. But, anyway, this, you know, this idea that we submit to the government is is is something that's used to excuse away a lot of things. And they'll say, well, look. All these New Testament examples are gonna be submissions to government. I don't think Stephen stoning applies because he wasn't submitting, from my understanding, to to government here.

Derek: 30:54

He was submitting to, let's say, mob violence, mob justice, and to a group who didn't have the authority to do what they were doing, as far as I understand. And so the fact that he did not retaliate, like, in the United States, if if there was a group, a mob, people doing something unjust, then a lot of Christians, conservative Christians especially, would say, Yeah, you blast them. Right? Because they don't have the authority to do what they're doing. Stephen did not do that.

Derek: 31:28

Another interesting thing, sort of a side note, going back to one of the things I mentioned earlier, but it is interesting, if you remember my son of man discussion just a few minutes ago, Stephen, as he's dying, says that he he glimpses up to heaven and he sees the Son of Man at the right hand of God. And so, apparently, what Jesus had said in Matthew 26 that, hey, Pharisees, I'm about to go to take my seat at the right hand of the throne of God, and the kingdom's here. Well, Stephen sees it and he confirms that for us. We also see Jason and Paul, which, which I think is another interesting incident because maybe I'm wrong about Stephen stoning. Maybe the religious leaders did have the authority to execute him.

Derek: 32:22

But, with Jason and Paul, this is certainly a mob that that is out against them. And, Jason and Paul, their response is to lock themselves in a house. They don't do any violence. Now, there could be a number of reasons for that. It would probably be stupid of them to, go slashing a whole mob of people who could who could take them down.

Derek: 32:47

People might argue that, well, you know, in the early church, they had to actually be good witnesses, because if they were killing people, then, you know, what would that do for the gospel? As if as if killing people today changes the effect that, killing has on the gospel. But, nevertheless, Jason and Paul, we don't see them use violence in their situation, even though the people who were seeking their harm did not have the authority to do so. We also see many times where Paul and others submit to to beatings and, executions by by the government. And, you know, that is the government, and a lot of people will excuse that away.

Derek: 33:29

But we just don't see violence condoned in the New Testament. In every New Testament example we see of individuals who who have violence done against them, we never see an ounce of violence approved of. And then finally, the ultimate example, the cheap example here, is gonna be Jesus. And he submit to death despite his authority. So even if you wanna say, well, look, Pilate had authority, Rome had authority, they could put Jesus to death.

Derek: 34:04

Yeah. That's true, except that Jesus is given all authority in heaven and earth, and he is the creator of the universe, and he has the authority. And so Jesus submit to death, despite his authority and despite the injustice of the situation. Now people are gonna excuse that away as, well, Jesus had to do that as the messiah. And that's just a long discussion to have.

Derek: 34:35

Read John Howard Yoder's book, the politics of Jesus, for a a good insight into that. And we can have that discussion later. Anyway, that is the case, the overview for the case from the Bible. And I'm sure there's more that that could have been said, but hopefully that gives you a taste of of what there is to find in the old and new testament. That gives us both inklings and clear visions of a faithful life of non violence and enemy love.

Derek: 35:12

That's all for now. So peace because I'm a pacifist. When I say it, I'm happy.