Unison: 1) Do you feel like there may be INFORMAL, yet BINDING structures that allow for idolatry in the USAF? If so, what are some of those?

Jeff: I don't know a whole lot about the military, to tell you the truth. But I think there is probably a lot of pressure to obey blindly in military situations. There is a clear advantage to this strategically, because there is often not time to evaluate. So I would say the judgment one makes must be made before one gets in that situation. If someone trusts our government to wage war justly, I can see how someone would take the risk of obeying military leaders for purely strategic purposes. I wouldn't see this as idolatry. Bad judgment maybe, depending on the government/military.

Unison: 2) about the "wrong relating"... Abu Gharib? Gitmo? Should a Christian participate in something that would sanction those kinds of things?

Jeff: I wouldn't say that any role in the military should be shunned because of wrong-relating elsewhere. I tend to think that if one's role is a means to a good or a lesser of evils, it is legitimate, independent of what else might be going on in the rest of the organization.

What about you, D? How would you answer those questions?

Post Edited (Sahid) : 6/13/2007 1:09:18 PM (GMT-5)

Now if I'm right about that, then something follows. When the messiah came, they were expecting him to do at that time what they had failed to do in their own history--bring in the kingdom by force. So one way to see the contrast of the language of the gospels is not one of changing the meaning of "lord of lords."  Rather, the contrast has to do with the fact that Jesus did not come the first time to subject his enemies under his feet at all. He is saying that not only had the nation been rejected as the means of restoring their kingdom, but that he himself was not going to do it either (at least at that time).

Consequently, they were to live out a life of love in their circumstances as a subject nation, with all that that entailed. Moreover, as Christ was hated, so would his disciples be hated. So they had it with both barrels. Not only were they to continue to be subject to the despised Roman empire, but they were to suffer persecution also from their own families, even.

This does not necessarily mean that doing things the way David did it was not love. It just means that God may not have been doing with Christ's first coming what He was doing with David's reign. Logically speaking, we can see those as divine decisions which we are to trust, given what He is trying to accomplish. By faith, many people did diverse things--because supposedly God told them to. Many of them don't seem necessarily loving. But obeying God is appropriate whether we can see all the consequences or not. That's why it's faith as opposed to naturally attained knowledge.

Per the OT, God actually forecast the failure of Israel in Deuteronomy. Yet He still, per the OT, had them live through that failure with all the use of force that fidelity to their divinely-given agenda in the land entailed. So unless Christ was expecting his disciples to understand that he was judging Samuel, Samson, David, etc. as unfaithful, they would not have necessarily understood his words as implying absolute pacifism. And I don't see anything in Christ's words that clearly says or implies that Samuel or David were unfaithful merely because they used force.

God has the perogative to visit judgment upon humans in this life if He wants to--even if those who give suck suffer therefore. And so He can use humans to do it--just like Peter with Ananias and his wife. I'm sure some of their friends and family members suffered on account of their deaths, too. So why would I think Peter etal would have thought Jesus was judging David as unfaithful merely because of a use of force?

Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/13/2007 3:58:51 PM (GMT-5)

Zach: What is clear is that the faithful, well-intended, praiseworthy, and instructive actions of past heroes like David are not always strictly binding after further revelation. Jesus stands out from these heroes in that he is the perfect Word of God. David did some things that (from his perspective) were fine to do but (from the Christian perspective) would not be good today; I don't think future believers will need to make such distinctions with Jesus.

Jeff: I absolutely agree with all of that except that Christ kept the Law whereas we need not.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/13/2007 9:21:59 PM (GMT-5)