Quote:

Wonder Boy said:

One last thing:

The verses that you listed as "just thrown in" because they mention soldiers.
As the article you quoted them from makes clear, those verses are listed because they show consistently that soldiers are portrayed (in both Old and New Testaments) honorably working in a noble profession as soldiers, honorably upholding law, and preserving order, in the profession God has allowed them to pursue. And whether Christian beleivers or not, upholding God's design of justice and order.

In the specific verses from Acts that you list as the greatest waste of time, Roman soldiers who don't necessarily like or agree with the apostle Paul, nonetheless listen to reports of an assassination attempt on Paul's life, and act to protect Paul and save his life.




Also, as described with crystal clarity in the same link you deconstructed, several soldiers in the Bible are described favorably in scripture.
If Jesus and his disciples saw being a soldier as anti-Christian or contrary to Christian teachings, these soldiers would not be described as favorably in the Old and New Testament, and exalted ( in Matthew 8, exalted by Jesus himself) as faithful servants of God.

There does seem to be a dichotomy Biblically of (1) peace/"love one another", and (2) with other parts of scripture, more subtlely in the New Testament, where soldiers and war are also conducted in the service of God.

In particular, the battle of Armageddon in Revelation describes Jesus leading the armies of God in The Final Battle.




none of those scriptures in the New Testament say to take up arms for your nation, that's why they're not sufficient evidence to back up your claim.

Before Jesus, the Jews were Gods favored people. They were a sovereign nation and of course they had a military. However when Jesus came to Earth all the rules changed. We are no longer under the Law Covenant as Jesus was the fulfillment of it. Now in order to be found favorable to God you must be a follower of Christ. I already listed several scriptures from the sermon on the mount where Jesus ordered his followers to be peaceable even against those who wrong you. Nowhere does Jesus tell his followers to take up swords for their nation or their beliefs.

And Jesus is as above us as God is above Jesus. God placed Jesus and the angels with the task of eradicating evil through force, not us. We were commanded to stay peaceable and allow God to enact vengeance for us.