Skip to content

What Did Jesus Think About Violence?

Yesterday I shared a link to a podcast produced by Dr. Peter Enns. It featured a guy from Canada, Brad Jersak. Brad was a Protestant Evangelical whose life journey led him to embrace the Eastern Orthodox Church. He shared some really good thoughts in Enns’ podcast. So, I visited Brad’s own website to learn more about him. As I perused his About page and some of his previous blog posts, I came upon in which he shared a post by Brian Zahnd. You can read it by selecting the link below.

I’ve heard many people saying that the God of the Bible permits, and in many cases, encourages violence. They cite several passages from the Scripture to validate their positions. As most of you know, I don’t agree with them. Not even a little bit. When I look at the person of Jesus I see the true imago dei, the truest rendering of “Let Us fashion Adam in Our Image.” Jesus is the fulfillment of that. He is the Icon of God. There is no violence there.

But, again, many of my Evangelical friends will say, “Whoa! Jesus did speak about violence and wrath. He even told his disciples to get swords if they could.”

Read this for a different take on that.

What did Jesus believe about violence? Jesus believed what he said when he was asked about it…

“No more of this!”

Published inBibleethicsFollowing JesusForgivenessImago Dei

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *