Peace or War
December 12, 2007
I belong to a few online communities where people will post questions and other reply. I tend to steer myself to Christian ones as I feel that I will not have to be defending my faith in them. Some of them I have to from time to time. The one I wind up defending my faith the most at isChristDot (http://christdot.org/).
As usually there, the discussion went to current events and of course the terrible shootings in Colorado this past weekend. One person got on a rant that guns should not be in church. This man could have been stopped any number of ways, but killing him dammed his soul for all time. According to him, God does not promise us peace in our lives, he promises war and our churches should be no different and any pastor that preaches a life of peace to his people should be fired.
My thoughts:
John 14:27 KJV
(27) Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
In reply I told the man that maybe we should rip that out of the Bible and question if the words of this speaker should be believed in at all. Of course, the speaker is Jesus. He offers us peace. The verses go on to talk about that it is not the word's peace, but His. That just begs the question, what is Jesus' peace.
I do not have any answers folks, just questions. Does it bother me that there was a gun in the church, yes. I also understand that there are crazy people out there and it is a necessary evil (if you will pardon the expression). I know my own church (a fairly large one) has people with guns on their hips as well. Does it make me feel more comfortable? No. I realize they are a first line of defence should a man make his way in.
What is Jesus peace, and how do we receive it? Is it something we should strive for in a corporate way, or just for ourselves.
Sorry gang. Normally I try to tie these all up with some pat little answer to the question I pose. Tonight I do not have one, just too many questions. Any comments?
