Peace

They say, “It’s acceptable for Christians to be in the military because the Old Testament characters fought wars.”

/ Joan C. Thomson / Leave a comment
Photo by Mahmoud Yahyaoui on Pexels.com

Is it true? No.

They certainly did fight wars, and God sometimes* told them to. However, they were under the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant, and we who are Christians are not. God also told them to marry their dead brother’s wife to have children for him if he didn’t have any—I have never yet heard any Christian clamoring to do that!

We are under the New Covenant with teachings by Jesus that are more profound and far-reaching. Jesus commanded his followers, “Love your enemy” (Matthew 5:43-48).

“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36)

Thank God, we’re not back in the Old Covenant! Jesus’ ways are different.

*At other times, he told them not to engage in physical warfare.

They say,”Peace an indicator of God’s will.”

/ Joan C. Thomson / Leave a comment

It is said, “You can tell if you are in God’s will by the ‘indicator of peace’—if you are in God’s will you will have peace, if you’re not, your peace will lift.”

If this were true, Jesus would have been out of God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane and in his suffering on the cross. His was not a picture of peace (the kind referred to in this saying) but of agony, even questioning, though he gained what might be called resolve.

Using the peace as indicator formula has enabled Christians to come up with some outrageous self-permissions such as “It’s okay if I have a room mate of the opposite sex because we aren’t doing anything,”(yet) or “I have peace about leaving my husband because God wants me to be happy.” Remember the adage from the 1960’s? “If it feels good, do it.” The human mind can manufacture all sorts of things to justify what it wants—or lie about it.

No, the best indicator of God’s will is what the Holy Spirit has already spoken in the Bible (especially the New Covenant). You may think that it doesn’t cover everything for contemporary living—dig a little deeper, make sure you’re asking the right questions (the most basic ones)—you might be surprised how much is there.