There's been a lot of discussions going on lately about Christians and the role of Government, and they will keep going on for a couple more weeks at least. A recent discussion I was in was about government sanctioned killing, mostly the death penalty but also branching into soldering.
The bible does not say "thou shall not kill", if it did mankind would have starved to death trying to eat rocks before Cane and Able were born. Think about it: how many innocent living plants were dismembered and brutally slaughtered to make that chop salad you so thoughtless had for lunch the other day? The bible says "thou shall not murder" which is a whole different thing.
One cannot read the bible, either testament, and not see that death is a tool God has given governments to perform their function as an agency that He has created. It's a tool used to defend the citizens of kingdoms from external and internal threats. Think about it: God used the Roman Empire's governmental power of execution to perform the ultimate sacrifice which insured our salvation. And the pagans He used to insure our salvation were soldiers.
I've read a good article about military service here:
ReplyDeletehttps://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2015/05/25/remembering-memorial-day-3/
I also wrote an article about war, killing, and military service.
http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2011/02/war-and-killing.html
As WWUTT points out, no where were soldiers condemned for being soldiers. And people really need to think about how God used the armies of Israel in the O.T. before they decry military service and war.