Just an FYI: Insulting language is not permitted on this blog. Comments like “And what part of 1 Tim 2 don’t you understand…” are inappropriate and will be deleted in the future.

Now back to the subject: How do you support the claim that “the New Testament is clear that there is a time for war”? If you mean that “Wars will occur,” that’s one thing. But the issues are about Christians’ support for, prayer for, and participation in war. Where do you find that in the NT?

As for prayer, do you pray for bank robbers? If so, what do you pray for them? If not, what might you pray for? Do you pray for “our bank robbers” If so, why? If not, why not?

My response was directed at the blog in totality, not any one comment. It was also an observation from MY experience in the churches that I have belonged to in my lifetime.

It is precisely “OUR troops” and not “THEIR troops” that is the focus of the type of prayer that I was addressing and so your highlighting the EVERYONE from 1 Timothy I think is very appropriate.

Thanks for your response and putting words in my mouth in regards to praying for the troops. I don’t like war, just like you. As previously stated in this ongoing discussion, a prayer for our troops may be a prayer that they would return safe, stay away from evil doing while on duty and that peace would prevail and end the conflict(s).

And what part of 1 Tim 2 don’t you understand when it says pray for EVERYONE? I didn’t say that that particular verse was used to explain any view of Paul. I was simply using it as a reference that we are clearly instructed here to pray for EVERYONE regardless of some possessive language being present or not.

And Mark to your point that somehow I pretend to know what God is doing with worldly powers….I have no idea what He is doing, how could anyone with half a brain pretend to know what God is doing with worldly powers? All I know is that I am instructed to obey the authority that has been placed over me as the scriptures indicate that authority has been ordained by God. How is me, obeying the authorities over me by paying taxes, etc etc pretending to know what God is doing with worldly powers?

So if the New Testament is clear that there is a time for war, how do you reconcile this with your view then? Do you then pretend to know in God’s eyes what is and is not a just war? I really want to hear someone explain their position on this in relation to Ecclesiastes 3. I’m not trying to be smart about this but if New Testament writing clearly indicates there is a time for war, how do you justify your position?

Thank you so much for the post. It really resonates with me and my family as we have a nephew who just arrived back from Iraq this week. During his tour my six year old would pray every night for his safety and safe return AS WELL AS peace in that area of the world and for all those involved to ultimately experience the love and peace of God through Christ.

But to address another issue. Rom 13 and 1 Tim 2 and like versus cannot be used to explain the view of Paul and even less the view of the New Testament regarding our relationship with nations or better, empires. More often Paul explicitly and implicitly draws attention to the lordship of Christ as opposed to Caesar and empire throughout his letters. It is the crucified Lord who defines how we pray and engage with nations. This is even clearer in the case of Revelation.

It has been my experience when Churches pray for the safety of the troops, it is also a prayer for the success of the troops and that now moves out of the arena of concern for the well-being of a human being to the agreement of the goals of empire (or nations).

Mike C.

The topic of your article has been a concern to me for quite some time, as I’ve found how important it is that my language communicate what the gospel is about - the Kingdom of God - in light of the misconceptions brought about by improper associations. I am involved in a ministry to Muslims where their perceptions of Christianity are produced by Christian’s inaccurate language (and, of course, their involvement in certain ways in the concerns of this, and any other, country of the world). It has made it difficult to relate the gospel in many cases. In fact, we had spent months helping someone see Jesus’ kingdom, only to have it all blown away in fifteen minutes - and mutual animosity engendered - by a brother we brought along, who could only think of politics in his Conservative American way.

The challenge I think you are trying to relate here is that the New Testament does not use “possesive” language to describe our relationship with anything in the world. When we are called to pray for “kings and all those in authority” it is not “our” king and only those in authority over us. It is for “all authority” for the express purpose that “God desires all men to be saved….” perhaps setting a condition (living peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and contentment) that faciliates this very thing. I don’t think it is necessarily self-preservation that is the point of it all. Paul does mention his Roman citizenship (in Acts), but even then he does not fill it with any significant content - content derived from its definition given by its owner - Rome. Rather he simply uses it for the purposes of his ministry, challenging the centurion to think along the lines of his accepted definition. Where he explicitly uses the possesive is with our citizenship as being in heaven (Phil. 3:20).

As far as Romans 13 is concerned, Paul has this overarching concern that Christians understand their relationship to these worldly powers (that incidentally are passing away - I Cor. 2:6), again so that our behavior is consonant with what God is doing in the world, primarily through his people. The problem with the way this passage is handled by the majority of Christians is that it once again is used as a participational scripture, not a relational one. And, of course, what goes along with a particational approach is that we think we know what God is doing with the world’s powers. That was the whole scandal Habakkuk faced with God’s use of Babylon against His own people. We’d do well to understand this, since it is this kind of faith Habakkuk has to come to, and rest in, in order to accept God’s very purposes. And, incidentally, it is where Paul draws his definition of saving faith in his epistle to the Romans.

Jesus’ world is bigger than the world created by any given nation at any given time. Our language either confirms or betrays this. And I’ve always known that this is only brought out where the devil is - “in the details.” My church has a young man in the marines who writes on facebook that “it is because of what he is doing that I can sleep peacefully at night.” I know that with my concentrating on the mission of Christ that I’ve really no time to take that in and process it, except that I sleep peacefully at night because Jesus rules the world, a world that would still be His even if Muslims took it over. And my mission would not change! The sad thing is that this young man sounds more like the pagan Cicero in his argument against the early Christians, than a person who knows what Jesus is about, as they once did.

I knew the minute I saw your post what the response could be, especially since so many Christians have decided voluntarily to sacrifice their lives to this cause of this country in this time in history. Anything with this much at stake will have a hard time considering anything else, even just adjusting to accurate language. That is why I and others who just want to bring up the nuances that the Lordship of Christ brings to any discussion of living in the world are marginalized in our church. They’ve placed these things at the level of “conscience” rather than obedience. If what you’ve written in your post is considered with any degree of seriousness, it will entail a reexamination of what civil religious idolatry (Jesus co-opted for the world’s purposes) is all about, and to the degree with which Christians have compromised themselves, and their allegiance.

Prayer for “our” veterans on the hand…