Some understand this as an institution of a power in the civil magistrate to make laws against such notorious sinners as are specified, and to see those laws put in execution."
Matthew Henry
"We must not therefore think to set it aside, but use it lawfully, for the restraint of sin. The abuse which some have made of the law does not take away the use of it; but, when a divine appointment has been abused, call it back to its right use and take away the abuses, for the law is still very useful as a rule of life...he particularly mentions breaches of the second table, duties which we owe to our neighbour; against the fifth and sixth commandments, murderers of fathers and mothers, and manslayers; against the seventh, whoremongers, and those that defile themselves with mankind; against the eighth, men-stealers; against the ninth, liars and perjured persons; and then he closes his account with this, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
"If a Christian supports the death penalty but opposed abortion (which is imbalanced) this must mean there is an age cut-off."
Also, what kind of circular logic concludes that abortion opposition and capital punishment support equals a cut-off age that is imbalanced? What you smoking over there buddy? You hitting the wine and pipes with alastair?
You need to come hear with at least a name and general location. I've been on this site for over 3 years and I have posted more scriptures than I have ever seen you post. Posting Scriptures is not the litmus test many Christians like you would want people to believe.
As for debating, actually, it gives me a headache arguing with people like you who come into this forum ranting and raving about a subject matter you know little or nothing about. This is not slandereous, it is factual.
Of course, you can quote Scripture all day long until you are blue in the face (which from the post below appears you may be already) but if you do not understand what Scripture is teaching, we only get your presupposition on those Scriptures.
You are no minister and I often prefer to listen to ministers who are well studied and learned in the Scriptures. Your arguments in the posts below are foolishness and immature arguments that the early church also faced.
The use of the civil magistrate to uphold good and suppress evil through the power of the sword has been fully debated by "ministers" not people hiding behind a chat box.
Joe - you still didn't say which 'brethren' I was accusing, and yes if the DP had had its way, Paul would have been executed for murder (he was a murderer, no?)
There are some on the forum that are sensationalists. They will use the hot words like kill and killer, back it up with Scripture, and grind away at people in the discussion.
I just finished reading some of the comments and I would encourage you to not get bound up with these men. Chris is a Pacifist from Australia. It is very common to find these people all across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc. When he quotes verses like turn to the other cheek, I can just see him sitting there when someone is slapping him back and forth and literally he says, "I'm following Jesus's command to turn to the other cheek. Go ahead, keep pounding me. I can take the pain."
The Lord says to remove your eye and cut off your hand it if causes you to sin, I can see them telling people that Jesus also meant this literally to avoid going to hell like turning to the other cheek.
Anonymous just has little understanding of history or Scripture and believes it is possible to defend yourself only if attacked, but the civil magistrate has no authority to carry out justice against murderers. Swift and just punishment in the proper order of society is unavailable to the lawful civil magistrate, and rather, gross ignorance should be the law of the land.
When you mention to Joe that the FBI should make profiler of him. I think it is now time for you to dislose your name and location if since you are dragging a lot of people into this issue.
Since you do not know history, nor your own presupposition, you are a brownist:
"Having mentioned a number of the peculiar and distinguishing ‘principles’ of the Anabaptists and Brownists, among which is the following, ‘they affirmed, that the Christian magistrate had no right to meddle at all with any matters of religion; and they plead for a universal toleration, under the specious pretence of liberty of conscience.’
Mr. Wilson adds, ‘Against the above extravagant principles our reformed divines employed their pens, and discovered the contrariety of them to the holy scriptures, and their affinity to several of the gross principles of the ancient Donatists and Novatians. The above are the principles that the most part of our divines, cited by the author of the Essay, do reason against; and the principles of the Seceding ministers are as far distant from them as east from west.’" Wilson, Defence, p. 189. 190.
1) they saw Christ as their example and understood that they should follow him as commanded in the NT – commands they took literally unlike many today.
2) At the time the Roman government regularly exercised the death penalty not only against criminals but against Christians. When you are on the receiving end and face the death penalty just for being a Christian it doesn’t seem such a good idea. They also knew that many of the Apostles died this way.
3) The Romans used killing people as a blood sport and worldly men and women would crowd into arenas to watch it as gruesome entertainment. The Christians knew they could never watch this.
Today things are different. Many professing Christians see Christ’s commands as mostly figurative and have forgotten about the Martyrs as that isn’t happening in their country; they feel that the government absolutely should kill certain criminals as it chooses. They also like to watch films where people get slaughtered for entertainment, as they know that... well it’s not real anyway and we know it would never happen for real...
That's a nice, tough attitude Mike - I wonder if you would say that to Christ himself?
I will pray that you will learn to love your enemies, not want them killed.
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