0304 Look at the Bible as a Whole
To the Editor:
Insights about the sixth commandment, the beatitudes, and Romans 13 have been great since my March 21st letter. Here are some follow-up comments of my own.
Principles listed in my March letter are derived from a particular approach to understanding Scripture. I consider the Bible to be a unified whole, without internal contradictions or mistakes, and historically reliable. Therefore, passages must be understood within their written context and within the culture and history that existed at the time of their writing. Principles are taught by examples, by statements and commands.
With the above approach in mind we can know, in addition to what I wrote previously, the following:
1. Rights and responsibilities of governments are not the same as those of citizens. Both are to operate under the same moral code but apply that code differently.
2. Christians affect changes in their nation primarily by transforming the culture and civil law.
3. Out of 400 Biblical references to peace, NONE allow appeasing, compromising with or even “dialoging” with evil.
4. “Peacemaker” and “love your enemy” passages appear within contexts of personal holiness, interpersonal justice, and subjection (Mt 5, 18, Rom 12,13) to authorities as ministers of good and avengers of evil.
5. The same God who said, “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” also blessed wars of total conquest against evil and will someday judge His enemies with fire. The KEY – justice and righteousness always precede true peace.
For the sake of those who may not have read the March 21 letter, there were no statements concerning depth of anyone’s’ faith, or patriotism, or against free speech rights. Since no particular group was mentioned, my first statement, “Stop using Christianity to mask political ideology”, need only apply to those who do so.