He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” (NRSV).
I noted that you are using one of those "new," and "revised" translations. Read the original translations instead.
"And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages." Luke 3:14 King James Version
The word here used for either violence or extort is “diaseiō” and most lexicons define it:
1. to shake thoroughly
2. to make to tremble
3. to terrify
4. to agitate
5. to extort from one by intimidation money or other property
Notice that the entire system of war, and those participating, is about constantly putting others in fear. Terrifying people is something that war is perpetually in the business of doing. If nothing else is agitating to a people, war is most certainly agitating. If anything is gained by war, surely money, and that by intimidation and conquest. If anyone can kill a man in combat, then surely the combatants get shaken thorughly from thime to time. If anything makes one tremble, it is war, and the drums and soldiers of war, that do so.
Everything about war and its participants breaks this command, "Do violence to no man."
also when Jesus healed the centurions servant (Luke 7:10) he made no mention of this fact,
In the orignal translation it actually says "slave," not "servant."
Oh, and about that centurian. . .
From "A Practical Chrsitian pacifism"
in understanding the context of the words of Jesus, which, in this instance, focused on the great faith of the centurian who believed that his servant (slave) could be healed with a single word from Jesus. And what great faith that is.
Your argument, as I understand it, is that if soldiery was so bad, then how come he didn't tell the centurian to quit being a soldier?
"And a centurion's slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. . . "
The centurion says to Jesus: ". . . I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. . . "
". . . Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, "I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith. " When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. "
There is a different issue which this passage could be appealled to by using the same arguement: if slavery was so bad, why didn't Jesus tell the centurion to quit owning slaves?
Such a point may seem silly beyond the need to consider to modern sensibilities, but such arguements were exactly the kinds used to defend slavery as little as a century ago.
The New Testament is filled with references to Christian slaves and slavery which doesn't paint it in a particularily negative light (Philippians 4:22, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:22-4:1). There is even a whole book of the New Testament, Paul's Epistle to Philemon, which is giving advice to a Christian slaveowner and the slave. Paul has advice on fulfilling the duty of slaves, permitting even Christians to have slaves and going on to say that to even debate the slavery issue is pointless quarrelling, as in this quote from the First Epistle to Timothy.
But Paul later wrote, correcting his error concerning slavery, in Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. "
Ultimately, the whole situation is less about the centurion than it is a lesson for us. This is the extravagance of God's grace: that even a slave-owning soldier from an oppressive and occupying military superpower (Rome) can know God's grace. How easy would it have been for Jesus and the Hebrews to tell the centurion to shove off because he's their oppressor. Yet they did not. . . God's grace is for all people, even our enemies.
People saw through this pro-slavery argument in the past. And I see through your pro-soldiery argument today, in the present.
jesus himself says there is nothing greater than sacrificing your life for others.
Indeed, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
Isn't it interesting that he says "
lay down his life" for his friends, and not "
take another's life" for his friends?
Jesus told us to be kind to the evil. Jesus told us to love our enemies.
"But
love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for
he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Luke 6:35-36
Either of these great men would have been crushed by Nazi Germany
Not a chance.
Perhaps you don't know of how nonviolence could save the Jews from Hitler because you have never considered it.
Have you not heard of the Orthodox pastor who saved lives of hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust?
They had the Jews down at the train station, and they had them in a barbed-wire enclosure. It was a rainy, misty night. Out of the darkness, at 11:00, the leader of the Orthodox church of Bulgaria, this seven foot four figure, with a long flowing white beard hanging over his black robe, emerges out of the fog. Can you imagine the drama of this? And then from behind him come about 300 of the members of his congregation. They say his gait, his walk was so fast, that the other men had to run just to keep up with him.
He came to the entrance of the barbed-wire enclosure, and the S.S. guard pointed their machine guns at him and said, "you can't go in there, father." He laughed at them. That's guts. Brushed the machine guns aside, and marched in among the Jews. They gathered around him, seeing what the Christian leader of Bulgaria had to say in their moment of distress, in their moment of need. They were crying, some of them were hysterical, they knew they were heading for Auschwitz, unless something miraculous happened. And something miraculous did.
The Christian leader raised his arms, quoted one verse of scripture, and changed the destiny of the nation. Here's the verse. Quoting from the book of Ruth, he said to the Jews, who were hysterical, knowing they were about to be carted off to Auschwitz to die. "Whither so ever thou goest, I will go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God." Ruth 1:16
The Jews cheered. The Christians were outside the barbed-wire enclosure. They cheered. The noise was so great, that people came out of their houses, and started coming down in increasing numbers to the train station. The hundreds grew to thousands.
The S.S. troopers knew there was no way they were going to get away with rounding up these Jews and carrying them off to Auschwitz. The train left without the Jews, and never returned again. And not a single Jew ever died in the concentration camp, if he was a Bulgarian. Because the Church of Jesus Christ boldly stood up and said, "We're not going to kill enemy, we are going to identify with the suffering, and we will suffer with them." This is Jesus' way.
All the while this pastor obeyed Jesus' commands to "love your enemy," "do good to those that hate you," and to be "as harmless as doves." Matthew 10:16
Will you imitate Jesus and follow His example?
God never once condemns anyone for soldering and has commanded many battles to be fought His own self.
On the contrary, David, a man of war, faced severe consequences for all the blood He shed on God's behalf. He wanted so dearly to build a temple for God, and God denied him.
"
But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood." 1 Chronicles 28:3
First off, God commanded people to fight wars in the Old Testament. The words "Old Testament" literally means "Old Covenant." Look it up in the dictionary for proof. "Testament" is synonymous with "Covenant."
Although God (Jesus) does remain the "same yesterday, today, and forever," Hebrews 13:8, His commands to His people have changed over time.
What many choose to cite in order to justify war are the Jewish wars of the Old Testament . What is wrong with this approach is that the ancient Israelites were men living under the Old Covenant. Under this old covenant, the Jews were permitted to own slaves, kill women and children, and all sorts of terrible atrocoties to mankind. But God gave them permission to do so, and He physically spoke to them on many occassions.
Under the New Covenant, however, the rules have changed, and the Old Covenant has been made obsolete.
"But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. " Hebrews 8:6
From the International Standard Version:
The New Covenant is Better Than the Old
"7For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one. 8But God found something wrong with his peoplewhen he said,
“Look! The days are coming, declares the Lord,when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
9It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors at the timewhen I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not remain loyal to my covenant,I ignored them, declares the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11Never again will everyone teach his neighbor
or his brother by saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because all of them will know me,
from the least important to the most important.
12For I will be merciful regarding their wrong deeds,
and I will never again remember their sins. ”
13In speaking of a “new” covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. " Hebrews 8:7-13
In the King James version, it says the Old Covenant has aged and "vanished away. "
You see? The Old Testament doctrine has been made obsolete, including the "eye for an eye” doctrine..
“You have heard that it hath been said,
An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say to you, that ye resist not evil.” Matthew 5:38-39
Don't confuse the ancient Jews with Christians. The Jews were not Christians, thus they followed the Old Covenant.
That is what the "Old Testament" means, "Old Covenant. "
Christians follow the "New Testament", which means "New Covenant. " You follow the New Covenant.
Don't get me wrong though. In the New Covenant, Jesus still upheld the Ten Commandments, on numerous occassions. But He said the greatest commandment was to love God, and to love your neighbor. The terrorists are our neighbors too, as evidenced when Jesus said "Love your enemy. "
