“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” o
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The concept of retaliation here is a tough one
for me. I am a prior service recon
Marine. When I leave my house, I carry a
Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol. I
sometimes have moments when I doubt myself in carrying a pistol because I ask
myself, “What if I were to use this right now and shoot someone?” When is retaliation okay? When is it okay to do violence? 1 Thessalonians 5:15 (NIV) says, “15 Make
sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is
good for each other and for everyone else.”
Also, 1 Peter 3:9 says, “9 Do not repay evil with evil
or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to
this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” When I read these verses, they clearly say do
not repay evil with evil or wrong for wrong.
Let’s say that I am standing in a store in the checkout line, which is
near the door. There are ten people in
the store including women and children.
I happen to be looking out the window and I see an armed man approaching
the store with a mask on his face. He
enters the store with his gun drawn and fires a shot without making any
demands. I am directly beside him in his
blind spot and he doesn’t see me. What
do I do? If there is an assailant intent
on simply killing everyone in the store, what is the more evil action: standing
by and not intervening physically or allowing the man to empty his gun in the
store killing everyone inside? If I
attack, I could kill him with my bare hands, he could hit his head on a counter
and die of a head injury if I try to push him to the ground, or any number of
things could happen that could take this guy's life. Even if I just try to tackle him with the
intent of holding him until the police arrive, he could die. What is the difference if I have a gun? Really, not much. I could shoot him and he survives the
gunshot. He COULD surrender. In that case I would be
considered a hero. If he dies, it is
there that some would say, “Well, a pastor shouldn’t be killing people!” I would contend that the primary factor is in my intent in
the situation. Is it evil to protect the
weak? No. Is it evil to intend to kill a person? Yes. I
admit that I hold murder in my heart for certain people in this world, which is
something that I need to get figured out through the process of
sanctification. However, I carry a gun
so that if a bad guy with a gun starts hurting people, I can intervene. The gun is not to kill people. The gun is to help people. If I draw a gun in a situation, my intent
will not be to kill the assailant as much as it is to stop the assailant. If the assailant surrenders, it’s over. If he does not, it will be over when I pull the
trigger or I am neutralized myself. In
either case, my intent is not evil. The way I see it, I am
not repaying an evil person’s evil with evil.
I am responding to evil with the loving reaction of protection of the
innocent. Maybe I’m just trying to
justify my actions, but I believe that there is a need for shepherds in the world who
will run the wolves out of the sheep pen.
I just happen to be a shepherd who carries both a Bible and a gun.
I would be really interested to hear some thoughts on this from gun owners and from non-gun owners. What do YOU think?
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