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Love Your Enemies

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a couple of great posts on the recent death of Osama Bin Laden and what this means for us as believers (i.e. how we should think about it).

D.A. Carson weighs in with these clarifications on Love in Hard Places from a section he entitled “Hard Case Two: Osama Bin Laden,” written after 9/11. Here’s an outline:

1) It may be helpful, first of all, to reflect on pacifism and “just war” theory in the light of the biblical commands to love and forgive.
2) On the other hand, all war, even just war, is never more than rough justice. Even the just war is prosecuted by sinners, and so injustices will occur.
3) Several other factors are often thrown into the debate about how we should respond to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists.
4) Historically, wars have changed their form from time to time, generating fresh discussion about just war theory. It is time to begin this process again.
5) As with racism, so here: Christians need to reflect on how some of the fundamentals of the faith bear on just war.
6) One more theological reflection is relevant to the concerns of these lectures. Complex discussions about justice, forgiveness, enemies, and just war theory may entice us to forget that they were all precipitated by the effort to think exegetically and theologically about love.

The conclusion:

Therefore, in the present struggle, even while we must try to prevent the terrorists from doing more violence, we must eschew a vendetta mentality. Love demands that we do not demonize Osama bin Laden. He is a human being made in the image of God. He is an evil man, and he must be stopped, but he is a man, and we should take no pleasure in destroying him. Vengeance is the Lord’s alone. Do not offer the alternative, “Should we weep for Osama bin Laden or hold him to account for his genocide and prevent him from carrying out his violent intentions?” The right answer is yes.

I was also helped by The Resurgence and their reflections on what it means to love our enemies. I hope these help you as you wade through these things.

Carson on Gospel Centered in Christian Life…

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Justin Buzzard recently asked D.A. Carson 4 questions “about the gospel, the upcoming generation, and doing ministry in unchurched regions like the San Francisco Bay Area.” The first question is, “In a paragraph, what does it mean to be gospel-centered in one’s Christian life?” Carson’s answer:

Some think of the gospel as so slender it does nothing more than get us into the kingdom. After that the real work of transformation begins. But a biblically-faithful understanding of the gospel shows that gospel to be rich, powerful, the wisdom of God and the power of God, all we need in Christ. It is the gospel that saves us, transforms us, conforms us to Christ, prepares us for the new heaven and the new earth, establishes our relations with fellow-believers, teaches us how to work and serve so as to bring glory to God, calls forth and edifies the church, and so forth. This gospel saves — and “salvation” means more than just “getting in,” but transformed wholeness. It would be easy to write many pages on how a gospel-centered ness affects all of life, but one must begin with a full-orbed understanding of what the gospel is and does.

Check out his post for the answers to other questions.

Carson @ Next….

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This AM, back at the Y, I listened to D.A. Carson’s sermon at NEXT on the Incarnation. I would commend to you all the audio from this conference. Here’s a summary of his talk.

A few things stuck out to me:
1) His statement that the doctrine of creation necessitates responsibility on our part was an excellent point. I really hadn’t put that together with the masterful words Carson employed. This really opened my eyes to truth.
2) The way the readers of John’s Gospel would have read the opening verses. From a Bible-study method standpoint, this was helpful.
3) The practical manner in which Carson urged us to hold the incarnation.

This was very helpful. Listen and benefit from this as well.