Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Violent Protest? | Questions You're Asking | Matthew 5.43

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

Don't forget to sign up for our upcoming classes! Find out https://info.thecrossingchurch.com/who-would-jesus-vote-for (Who Jesus Would Vote For) and https://info.thecrossingchurch.com/how-to-be-skilled-at-life (How to Be Skilled at Life) in these Zoom classes with https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Pastors Keith Simon) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/patrick-miller/ (Patrick Miller). Violence and riots around political issues are becoming everyday news. How should Christians respond? Should they condone it? Turn a blind eye to it? Speak out? How does Jesus call us to respond to our enemies, and how should that shape our response today? Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources and related episodes, including https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/is-it-okay-for-christians-to-be-nationalists/ (Is It Okay for Christians to be Nationalists? )and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-to-protest-and-why-you-should-david-in-22-2-samuel-18/ (How to Protest and Why You Should) from our last series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/david-in-22-stories/ (David's Life in 22 Stories). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to Tim Minut of Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. So I'm sorry if you feel like all we are talking about is politics right now, but I think as followers of Jesus, we need to speak into whatever it is we're experiencing in our cultural moment. And I know that not even all of our listeners live in America. And so they might be bored of hearing about American politics, but that's where we live. and I hope there's something good to learn from what we're saying wherever you are right now. Patrick, I think you made some people mad the other day.

I 100% made some people mad on our Facebook page. Yeah, some people said that they are out of. I don't know what they're out of because I don't know what they're in. You still don't understand Facebook. It's okay. But I guess they're in, but they're out. So how did you make him so man? Well, if you listened to our last episode that Keith and I did together. Oh, don't try to drag me on it.

We talked about whether nationalism is a form of idolatry. Is it okay for Christians to be nationalist? And in my opinion, in God's fortuitous timing, there was a speech that happened the night before we posted it after we had actually recorded it, where someone at the RNC had basically replaced several lines out of a verse in Hebrews. This is the full quote, that we should run the race that's marked out for us and we should fix our eyes on Jesus. and he got the whole quote right, except he traded out Jesus for Keith,

Old Glory, the flag. And it fit in perfectly of what we were talking about. And so I posted it onto our Facebook page. And I just asked, is this a problem? Is it idolatry to replace Jesus with the flag? And my goal was not, by the way, to make a political statement, because if you listened to the last episode, we had both Democrats and Republicans who've done the exact same thing. I'm not trying to make a left or right statement. I just want us to think about this Christianly. But understandably, a lot of people were very upset. They thought I was giving an anti-Trump post, which I find funny. I wouldn't describe myself as an anti-Trump person. I don't know if I call myself a pro-Trump person, but...

It kind of showed the whole point we've been making, at least in some of these episodes that we've been doing, is just how people have become partisan to the extent that they can't hear something without filtering it through their news lens and through their own personal, partisan political beliefs. And the comments were not intelligent. Just to be honest, I'm sorry if you're offended. They weren't intelligent comments. They were just angry little jabs and then they're going to run off. Well, this is a podcast, a Facebook page, a ministry. We're trying to have intelligent conversations. We're not saying we get everything right. We're learning. You're learning. But we're going to talk about hard issues. And if you're not up for that because you can't handle your pet political

interest being tweaked, well, you're going to get out eventually. You might as well get out now. And while we're on that topic. Let's offend some more people. Here we go. We're going to continue our fending. If you've read anything in the news for the last week, you will know that this has been a difficult week in America for a lot of different reasons. And, well, I don't want to weigh in on all of the specifics that are happening. One of the things that's been happening, it's been happening for a while now, is that we are seeing a growing instance of riots. Vandalism isn't even the right word for it. I mean, people burning businesses down, people doing violence against each other, people boarding buses and violently accosting other people. This is becoming,

in a very strange way, almost normal news all of a sudden. A lot of weapons out there. I mean, people being killed in protests and riots, and it's just heartbreaking. I totally agree. And I think this is, again, a point where we as Christians need to start reflecting. We need to ask, I mean, on the one hand, we should ask, should Christians be doing that? Maybe the answer is obvious there. But should Christians condone it? Should Christians turn a blind eye to it? I was having a conversation with four people. They're all followers of Jesus, all very committed to Jesus, but they came from different political perspectives. And two of the people were defending what was happening in these rights. They weren't saying that they would do it themselves, but they said, look, I can understand it.

And sometimes they didn't say it. Sometimes you've got to break a few eggs to make an omel. And the other people said, well, I'm really offended by that. I don't think Jesus calls us to be violent. I don't think he calls us to protest in a way that hurts other people. And then the two other people respond, they say, well, hold on a second. You're an American and you probably don't have a problem with the American Revolution. Well, they were rebelling against the state, and they did it violently. So these people are just doing exactly what we did in the American Revolution. They're violently rebelling to protect their rights. Now, I'm not trying to weigh in on who I thought was right and wrong. What I think is. thought was so interesting was that both of them, they actually agreed on something. They agreed that at times violence responding to a situation violently is an appropriate thing for a Christian, whether in the one case it's the American Revolution or these riots that are happening today. And I find that somewhat mind-boggling and strange. I say that because Jesus actually had a lot of things to say about violence and about how you make change in the world. So think about the world that Jesus lived in. Jerusalem was under the control, under the thumb of Rome, and they were violent uprisings all the time.

People were trying to overthrow governments, coups. There were all kinds of zealots who were out there trying to overthrow the government. They were actually called messias, by the way, in many cases. Which Messiah, which king did you support in contrast to Rome and Caesar and all that? And so we could talk about this in so many ways. Let's just think for a moment that Jesus calls of his 12 disciples, Matthew, who is part of the Roman government system. He's a tax collector, and Simon the zealot, who is most likely part of one of the political groups who is trying to overthrow Rome. And Jesus brings them all under his tutelage to cause them to work together, to love one another, to figure out their differences. But he also doesn't ever come down on the side of Rome. Like you don't find

Jesus supporting Rome, but you don't find him condoning any kind of military overthrow of Rome, or violence against Rome. I wish I could have sat around the campfire with Matthew and Simon the Zealot and just hear the conversations that they have with Jesus. But the simple reality is Jesus did actually say a lot of things about how we respond to, in his case, Roman oppression, but whether again, whether or not violence is a live option. One of my favorite examples of this is a misunderstanding that he has with the disciples. Jesus is telling them, look, it's about to happen.

and the kingdom of God is about to come. And Jesus is trying to tell them, I'm going to be crucified and die under Rome. That's what's going to happen. They don't hear that, though. All they hear is the kingdom of God is coming. So two of the disciples go out and they buy two swords. And they come back with Jesus, and they go,

Jesus, we got some swords. Jesus's response to them. He looked at him, and this is Luke 22, by the way. Verse 30, he goes, it's enough. If you know what it takes to do in uprising, two swords is most definitely not enough. And I think it's supposed to make you laugh when you read it. He's saying, look, you guys don't get it. For what I'm doing, two swords is enough because we aren't doing a violent revolution here.

Jesus was going to provide a revolution through his death. The day he died was the start of the revolution. I think about when Jesus is in the Garden of Gassimony and the temple soldiers come out and they're going to arrest him. Judas is betraying Jesus. And one of his followers, Peter, pulls out a sword and cuts off a guy's ear. I think the guy's Malchus is his name, if I remember right. And Jesus says, no, we're not doing this. And he rebukes Peter and he heals the guy's ear. And when Jesus said that, what he was teaching his disciples is that my kingdom does not come about by violence. And if you think about a lot of the movements in history that have made a real lasting impact, they understood that peaceful protest was more faithful to the mission of Jesus. Think about the civil rights movement,

or even think about outside of Christianity, think about Gandhi's peaceful protests. But Jesus told his disciples, in his moment of need, when he was getting ready to launch the revolution through his death, that we don't do this with violence and swords. That's how the kingdom of the world operates, but not my kingdom. Yeah, that's exactly right. The disciples all expected, I think. Maybe some of them did it. But I think they pretty much all expected that the way the kingdom was going to come was with swords, and that's why they go out and they buy swords. That's why Peter attacks a guy. And Jesus has the exact opposite in mind. He says, no, it's not by violence against Rome that we're going to conquer the world, actually

quite the opposite. It's by Rome's violence against me. It's by the world's violence against me. It's by me receiving the death penalty in your place. That's how we are going to conquer the world. And Jesus had an enormous amount of things to say about how we should treat people who persecute us, treat people who are our enemies. I mean, I could just read verse after verse after verse. The simple reality is you don't have to wonder what Jesus said about nonviolence. In Matthew 543, this is in the sermon on the Mount. It's the first long bit of teaching in the entire New Testament. I mean, this is central stuff.

Jesus says this. You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those. who persecute you. I love about Jesus that he just keeps it simple. We don't have to think, okay, what category is this person in? And depending on that category, I'm going to respond to them in a particular way. No, he keeps it really, really simple. If the person is your neighbor, love them. If the person is your enemy, love them. If the person is someone who lives down your street, love them. If they live on the other side of the world, love them. No matter what

the person has done, no matter who the person is, our response to them as individual, Christians is supposed to be love. And violence is the opposite of love. So why do we not get this? If Jesus is so clear and so direct, what's causing some Christians to be okay with either violence or, if not physical violence, at least derogatory speech? And I think a lot of it comes down to fear, that we live in a world in which the political interests of our day play on our fears. And there's a lot to be afraid of in our culture right now with the COVID crisis, economic crisis, health crisis, just people that we care about and how they're doing. And so all of us are a little bit uneasy. We're all a little bit scared. The future is unknown. And like we've talked about before,

we don't handle uncertainty very well. And now you have these politicians who are all playing on our fears. If Donald Trump is reelected, if Joe Biden is elected, either we're going to have fascism or Marxism. And there's a sense in which Christians need to heed the command of Jesus to do not fear. Do you know that that phrase, do not fear, that command is, I don't know, it's either the most or one of the most repeated commands in all the Bible. Do not be afraid, Jesus keeps telling them. So are we motivated by fear? And that's what's causing us to be okay with whether it's violent speech or thoughts or actions and to miss Jesus's clear teaching to love our neighbor and love our enemy? I think another reason why we tend to ignore these

verses about turning the other cheek, loving our enemy. I think honestly, it's because we don't trust God to make things right ultimately in the end. Romans 1219, Paul says this, do not take revenge. Why shouldn't I take revenge, Paul? He tells us, he says, you've got to leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay. There's a Croatian scholar, I think he's at Yale. His name is Miroslav Volf. And in his country where he came from, there was a lot of violent oppression. He describes having seen sisters and mothers raped and violently attacked. And he asked the question, what could ever stop me or any of my people from seeking revenge? He said the only possible answer is knowing that God would in the end make it right. In other words, nonviolent protest is only

possible if you have a theology which allows for the fact that God is just and he's going to make things right in the end. But if you don't believe that, you will take it into your own hands. And if you're taking it into your own hands, or you're condoning it, or you're turning a blind eye to it, chances are you don't have a robust enough theology of God making things right. Sometimes we need to explore that further because I have read some articles about how politics is the new religion. When God is minimized, then people put their faith and their hope in politics. Then people put their faith in hope and political figures, candidates, politics. And it sounds like that's what you're saying, Patrick, that when we lose our hope that God will bring

about a just world, then we try to do it. But of course, because we're sinful, we're going to screw it up. And I know a lot of people probably listen and go, well, you're naive. You're naive if you think that we can see real change without violence, without breaking some eggs to make an omelette like your friend said. And you want to know something that's naive? Here's something that's naive. That there is a man who's 33 years old, and he goes to a cross, and he's crucified, humiliated in a shameful way. And he says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Believing in that person, putting your hope in him, well, that's naive, at least according to the world's standards. So it's not a big stretch for Christians who worship a crucified savior to say that

we're not going to participate in demonizing our enemies. We're not going to participate in any kind of violent protest. We are going to put our hope in the crucified Savior who is not now Lord of all. Every other kingdom in the world establishes itself by blood. We are the only people who were part of a kingdom which was established by spilling its own blood, by Jesus spilling his own blood, and by his followers after him as he told them to spilling their own blood. In his Nobel lecture, Martin Luther King, this is just a great quote. In 1964, he said, nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It's a sword that heals. I love that quote. And it sounds a lot.

lot like Jesus to me. It sounds like the kind of thing Jesus himself might have said, and I think it's true, when you lay down your life for those who hate you, when you are willing to sacrifice and put yourself second to those who want to persecute you and harm you, that is one of the most convincing things you will ever do. That's what changed the civil rights movement. It was people watching on television, Martin Luther King and his associates being beaten by police and by people in the South. That's what changed America. They saw them taking the beatings, not fighting back, and they said, this has to stop, this has to end. And of course, Dr. King sounds like Jesus because Dr. King listened to Jesus. Jesus was his role model in all of this. So don't misunderstand here. We're not saying that protesting is wrong.

What we're talking about is violence. We're talking about violence, whether it's physical violence or violence in our speech. We're not saying that it is wrong to protest injustice. There's all kinds of injustice in our world. And Christians are called to oppose that, to work for justice in this world, in this life, not just wait for the by and by to come of heaven. But how do we go about working for justice? That's what we're talking about. And violence, again, physical or verbal, has no place in the Christian worldview. So I think back to where we started, when losing people off of our 10-minute Bible talk community, one of the places that it's easiest to attack people is on social media. So when we're talking about violence, I'm at least thinking even the kind of stuff you post.

Like we were getting posts on that speech that Patrick referred to earlier where people were accusing those on the left of being Satanists. Now, I don't know how many people you're going to win to Christ and influence and be a light to if your response to them is to say, hey, I think you're a Satanist. My guess is that's not what Paul had in mind when he said that we should season our conversation with salt, that attacking people is not a way to win them to Jesus. No one is going to be one to faith in Christ by someone screaming insults at them. In some sense, it's so obvious, why does it need to be said? And yet, who of us hasn't found herself in a conversation realizing anger is rising up within us,

and we are either on the verge or we've already committed it of saying something we regret. And the same thing cuts across the other direction. I hear people call those who support Trump or voted for President Trump racist or they call them bigots. And I think, again, to key's point, you are not convincing anybody to follow Jesus. That's hateful speech. It's unkind speech. Beyond that, as we look at some of the movements that are happening, they're being shaped by, and this is a big long term, but they're being shaped by critical gender and race theory. And part of this theory, it comes out of Marxism as a notion that you can divide up the world into a binary. There are oppressors and oppressed. Now, the thing you need to know is that's not a biblical perspective. The Bible knows about oppression. The Bible talks about oppression, but the Bible doesn't divide the world into two kinds of people. There is one kind of person. They are all made in God's image. But if you can divide the world into oppressed and oppressor, well, if you're oppressed, this particular worldview justifies violence towards the oppressor, whether it's violence in words or actual outright violence to stop them.

And again, that is anathema. It's nothing to do with what Jesus taught or thought. If you're interested in pursuing more of what Patrick's talking about, about critical gender and race theory, you might want to pick up a book that both of us started recently. It's called Cynical Thories by Helen Pluck Rose and James Lindsay. I'm not very far into it, but I can tell you I've already learned a lot. Now, it's a challenging book.

It's not bedtime reading, at least not for me, maybe for Patrick. he's probably listening to an audible at 3.0 or something. If they had it onaudible, I would be listening, but it's not there yet. So it's taken me a while, but it's really, really interesting. I just mentioned that in case you heard him talk about critical theory and was wondering where you get more information on it. What this comes down to is loving our enemy, and let's just try to be more specific. Loving your enemy means assuming the best.

It means giving people the benefit of the doubt. It means seeking other people's welfare, saying, How can I help them succeed? I want them to succeed in life. One of the things I learned is that if you're frustrated with someone, if you'll just start praying for them. So maybe you're thinking of an enemy at this point who isn't really your enemy. It's just somebody you're angry with or you're frustrated with. It could be a boss. It could be a family member. Or maybe it's somebody in the other political party. What if you just started praying for President Trump or Vice President Biden in a real sincere way? God, I pray that you'd bless them. I pray you'd give them wisdom. I pray that you'd give them wisdom. I pray

that you give them a heart that loves you. I pray for their children. I pray, Father, that you would give them a sense of peace and comfort and joy that can only be found in Jesus. You find yourself having a hard time hating those and speaking ill against those you're praying for. One thing I do that helps me a little bit is I remember that the Apostle Paul said that all of us, without exception, we all share this in common. We are, because of our sin, enemies of God. Apart from Jesus, we're all enemies of God. And what I try to tell you, out myself as this, this person who's my enemy, this person who I'm angry at, this person who I want to hurt or offend or belittle in some way. If Jesus treated me the way that I'm treating that person,

where would I be right now? What would my relationship with God be right now? Well, chances are I wouldn't be reconciled to God. I wouldn't be walking with God. I wouldn't know and love God because Jesus loved me while I was his enemy. Jesus died for me while I was his enemy, and he expects nothing less of us to those who we call our enemies. You mean Jesus doesn't want us to ask him for murder? for ourselves, but then judgment for others. I think you might have had some stories about that. God, I pray that you'd be merciful to me and just judge them, God. That's a weird prayer.

If we stop and we think, what are the costs of hatred, whether it's politically driven or otherwise, what are the cost of hatred in God's kingdom? On the one hand, I think it causes church division. We are called to be unified at all costs, and we can't lose our unity over politics. One of my favorite writers, Francis Schaefer, said that love is the final apologetic. The best apologetic isn't, by the way, apologetics are defending God's existence, defending who Jesus is. He says, the best apologetic isn't having the best argument for the existence of God.

The best apologetic is how you love each other. And he's saying that's what Jesus said. He says, they're going to know me by how you love each other. So I think when it comes to how we treat our fellow Christians, we need to expect that we're going to disagree, at least on political issues, probably on other issues too. of it for sure politics and be okay with that. And we can go to the same church, we can be in the same small group, we can love people, be kind to people, pray for people, work together with people who have different political beliefs than we do, because we serve a king that is greater than any party.

Tony Evans, this pastor in Dallas, who I think unfortunately died a couple years ago, he used to say that Jesus did not come to take sides. He came to take over. He said it in a far more powerful way than I just did. But when I heard him first say it, when I was on staff with Camps Crusade, I got chills just because I thought, well, that's right. Jesus has not come to take sides. He's come to take over to be the king. And why would we trade in our loyalty to King Jesus, an eternal kingdom for a political party that's going to come and go? Are you a wig? No, you know who the wigs were, though? They were a political party in the past, and then they came to their end. There's been several political parties that have come and gone. Why in the world would we trade in allegiance to a political

party instead of allegiance to King Jesus? It just doesn't make sense. Are we going to really give up an eternal king for a finite human political savior? Oh, please, let's don't be that dumb. Keith's right. Some Christians are going to have their candidate win in November. Some Christians are going to have their candidate lose. But if we get divided over this political issue, the only real loser is going to be the world. Let's let the world win by being Christians who, by the way, where everywhere else, we cannot get along. People across party lines cannot love each other. Let people come into church and marvel at the fact that somehow King Jesus, he's the kind of king, who can bring even Democrats and Republicans together and care and love. Thanks for listening.

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