“‘If I’m a Christian, can I fight in a war?'”

Steve Brown:
If I’m a Christian, can I fight in a war? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us, but there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author, Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
You know, we’re, that’s going to be an interesting question, given that we both

Pete Alwinson:
it’s fascinating

Steve Brown:
we both have guns.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, I know, right?

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
Do you have yours on you right now? I mean.

Steve Brown:
No, do you?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, I, I can’t tell.

Steve Brown:
Well, mine’s in my car down, okay. I can’t, so don’t mess with me.

Pete Alwinson:
I won’t mess with you. Promise.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson and Pete comes in on Fridays, has for a lot of years and we spend the time answering questions and we love to do it. Check out ForgeTruth.com if you want to know about Pete and a dynamic ministry, that’s ForgeTruth.com. And we love to get your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and you can record your question. Sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your questions to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
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in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us, we’ll rise up and call you blessed. This is an expensive ministry and most of the people who benefit by it are not able to help us financially. So, when you help us, you help your brothers and sisters in Christ, do it if you can. If you can’t, we understand. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray. Father, we come to you today and what a joy it is to stop just for a minute and to praise you, to worship you, to honor your great name as our God who created us. The God who provides and sustains us, the one who gives us air to breathe, food to eat, jobs to provide our bills for, and Lord, you just take care of us. You’ve given us great relationships, you’ve also given us trials, and we thank you for them as well as James teaches us. Thank you that you teach us, you develop us, you grow us through every phase of life. And so, we come to you and we honor you, we praise you, Lord, you know our needs and you know that some really have needs right now of our listeners and health, relational, family. And so, we bring our needs to you. Lord, meet us at the point of our need and do what you would do to help us and bring glory to your name. Be with our pastors and worship directors and priests and leaders this week-end. We want to worship and we want to meet you face to face and experience your awesome glory. So we commit our week-end to you, but we commit this time of Q&A to you now as we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
Nowhere in the red print of Jesus’ words, do I find anything that allows for us to take violence against people doing evil to us? So, where do our founding fathers and the revolutionaries that carved our nation out through rebellion against Britain stand? How are we supposed to resist tyranny when it wants to take our lives and our property? Are we allowed to take lethal force, is my question. Thank you.

Steve Brown:
Good, good question and a thoughtful question. And one that needs to be discussed by Christians. You know, you and I kid about it, that kind of broke up, but his question had to do with the actual words of Jesus in the gospels. And he never mentions, that it’s okay to respond that way. And he wonders if we can. And I, Pete, and I’m speaking for Pete, Pete and I agree on this issue, that sometimes Biblically you’re called to defend your family or even your property because private property is taught in the Scripture. And then there are times when there are just wars and you are called to stand in a particular time, and the church fathers have laid out very clear instructions about what is and what isn’t a just war. And so, I don’t believe that the Bible prohibits violence, depending on how you’re going to be using it. Now, if you just don’t like your neighbor and you want to get another neighbor, so you’re going to kill off the other one, that obviously isn’t a Christian. If you’re persecuted for your faith, I don’t think you can respond.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. I agree with you.

Steve Brown:
But other than that, I’m not so sure that the Bible is against violence, just unwarranted violence.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, a great point. And it really is a controversial issue. And he phrased those

Steve Brown:
Yeah, he did.

Pete Alwinson:
this issue well. The early church of course, struggled with it, being a soldier because to become a soldier of Rome, you had to throw a pinch of incense and avow leadership to Caesar as a god.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And you, and they couldn’t do that. And, in violence, certainly in the gladiatorial games was used against Christians. So, the early church did struggle with it. I think, you know, the, the commandment that says, Thou shall not murder, Thou shall not kill, means thou shall not murder.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. That means something far different than I shall not kill.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And yet, governments are given the ability, as Romans 13 says.

To use force to accomplish societal goals, punishment of evil doers, and protection of the people.

So, it’s undue revenge. It’s undue violence on our part. But to protect an innocent person, like for instance

Steve Brown:
it’s clear

Pete Alwinson:
I think it’s pretty clear. And I think, you know, I know a lot of people carry guns, but I wouldn’t carry a gun to protect myself necessarily

Steve Brown:
but maybe

Pete Alwinson:
but maybe, but more really for other people. In fact, I first started thinking about that when mall shootings started and I was going to be with my family.

Steve Brown:
I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
I want to protect the innocent and there are relatively innocent people out there.

Steve Brown:
You know, I got my first gun when, to protect my family. I was living in Miami and there had been a raise in violence. Castro had released all of the criminals from Cuba. And it was awful, it took an hour or longer to, for the police to respond to emergency calls. And so, I decided it’s up to me and I’m going to protect my family and I got my first gun.

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting

Steve Brown:
And it was interesting. I almost shot Billy Graham’s grandson too.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, now that’s another story and we probably ought not to tell that.

Steve Brown:
Actually, that was Stefan Tchividjian and he had come down after Hurricane Andrew and was standing on what was left of our house. And I thought he was trying to rob us. And I said, Stefan, I almost shot you, man. You can’t do that. But it’s, and we’re making jokes about a very serious issue.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, this issue is even more today with the reduction of police forces. What you experienced in South Florida during the Mariel Boatlift, is a significant issue in many parts of our country today. Our country is not protecting innocent people. And, they’re going to have to do some of that themselves.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Okay. And you can do that as a Christian, Pete and I believe.

Pete Alwinson:
I believe, I believe you can.

Steve Brown:
My husband is not a Christian. And no, you can’t shoot him.

Pete Alwinson:
We’re not connecting these issues.

Steve Brown:
My husband is not a Christian, do you have any suggestions for me?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, I think the best suggestion is what the New Testament says when Peter says.

Live the best life you can in front of him, and pray like crazy for him. And share the gospel.

Steve Brown:
But not overly so.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. I mean, you can’t be hammering him, every time he turns around you want ti run him away?

Steve Brown:
I had a guy one time come to me and say, look, he wasn’t a Christian and he didn’t proclaim one. He said, I’m thinking about this, but if you don’t call my wife off, I’ll never become a Christian.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah right.

Steve Brown:
He said, I can’t go to the bathroom without a track being sitting on the John or when I, they’re Christian books all over, by my bed. Just call her off. And she came in, she said she was being persecuted for Jesus’ sake. And I said, no Peggy, you’re, and she knew I loved her so I could say this. You’re not persecuted for Jesus’ sake. You’re persecuted cause you’re arrogant and rude. And you’re going to send your husband to a dark place if you don’t stop it.

Pete Alwinson:
And she probably started double tithing right then, right?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. She did repent. And she changed and he became an elder in the church

Pete Alwinson:
no kidding.

Steve Brown:
years later. So, it was an interesting thing.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And there was a lot of that in the early church where somebody would get saved out of the family and in time the other would. Stay with it.

Steve Brown:
What can I do, this is an e-mail, to encourage my teenagers to attend and become involved in the church?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh wow. Well, go yourself, number one, go to church. And I, I mean, I say you’ve got to pray, but it depends on what age they’re, maybe you just became a Christian. Invite them to special events of the church.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
Pray that God would bring a friend into their life, that would be a Christian too.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And don’t fail to exercise your parental authority.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
If your kids came home and said, I’m not going to school tomorrow, would you say, well, I’ll write a ministry and ask them how I can encourage them to go, no, you’d say, you know, I’m going to break your face if you don’t show up at school tomorrow. And maybe, maybe just say to your teenager, I love you and there are things about the church that bother me, but we as a family are going to let the world know where we stand.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
So, we’re going to church. And when you’re old enough to make that decision for yourself, I hope you won’t, I hope you’ll stay with the church.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
But until then, you’ll do it because if you don’t, I’ll stop your allowance and take the car keys away.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, be a parent, be a good leader at home. A lot of parents are afraid of that.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is. And we’re called to do that Biblically.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and thank you Pete Alwinson. I have to say, Friday Q&A is one of my favorite things we do here at Key Life. And by the way, you are always welcome to send in your own burning questions. Who knows? Maybe it’ll get red and answered on the air. How cool would that be? How can you send in said questions? Well, I’m glad you asked. You can mail those questions to Steve at [email protected]. Easy, right? Almost as easy as supporting Key life through your giving. How’s that for transition sports fans? To give a Key Life you can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or if you want to send your gift through the mail, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Or hey, save a stamp and donate by text. It’s simple, safe, and secure. Just text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.