Just yesterday, 3 young, law-abiding Muslims were murdered in North Carolina. Their deaths at the hands of a White shooter will prompt a new round of debate about guns in America. Lots of public Christians will speak to the issue. None of them will say anything new. They’ll all be reading from the same memos.
So if
we could all just take a moment and stop pulling our sermon outlines from the
Democratic and Republican talking points of the week and just let the Bible
speak, that’d be great.
I present, for your consideration, the words of Jesus from the night before He died.
Then He said to them, “But
now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him
sell his garment and buy one. (Luke 22: 36)
Jesus did not prohibit His disciples from owning weapons. It’s
not un-Christian to be a gun owner.
So they said, “Lord, look,
here are two swords.”
And He said to them, “It is
enough.” (Luke 22:36-38)
Jesus did endorse limits on weapons ownership. It’s
not godlessly communist to license and/or limit how heavily citizens can be
armed.
But Jesus said to him,
“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When those around Him saw
what was going to happen, they said to Him, “Lord, shall we strike with the
sword?”
Then Simon Peter, having a
sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.
So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword in its place, for all who
take the sword will perish by the sword. Permit even
this.” And He touched his ear and healed him. (Luke 22: 48-51; Matthew 26:
52; John 18: 10-11 combined )
Jesus permitted the right to bear arms and simultaneously condemned the impulse to use them to solve our problems, even when the problem was somebody attacking our Jesus.
So,
yeah, you can carry your .40 cal in one pocket and your New Testament in the
other without hypocrisy. But if your
first instinct when you feel angry or threatened is to reach for the pistol
instead of the Psalms--- then you are waaaay outta line with God.
In
the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told the disciples that they could not use the
very weapons He had just hours before said they had the right to carry. Then all the disciples
forsook Him and fled. (Matthew 26: 56)
And
that right there is the problem.
Liberal
Christians, conservative Christians, Democrat Christians, and Republican
Christians: on guns and pretty much everything else, we’re still running away from the whole truth of what the Bible
speaks. We are regurgitating the same politically polarizing points without considering the possibility that maybe neither side is completely, infallibly right.
Maybe God is an Independent.
Let God be true but every man a liar. (Romans 3:4)
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director of
rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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