What do the supreme court ruling on guns and the martyrdom of missionaries have to do with each other?
Noël and I watched Beyond Gates of Splendor, the documentary version of End of the Spear, the story of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint in Ecuador in 1956. That same day we heard that the Supreme Court decided in favor of the right of Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense.
Here's the connection. The missionaries had guns when they were speared to death. One of them shot the gun into the air, it appears, as he was killed, rather than shooting the natives. They had agreed to do this. The reason was simple and staggeringly Christlike:
The natives are not ready for heaven. We are.
I suspect the same could be said for almost anyone who breaks into my house. There are other reasons why I have never owned a firearm and do not have one in my house. But that reason moves me deeply. I hope you don't use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun. Better to find some missionaries like this and support them.
5 comments:
Never thought about it this way...
What a stud
I'd say it's important to note that Piper isn't commenting about gun control, per se. He's speaking more about his personal decision to own or not own a gun. I'm with him.
I wonder what he'd say about whether or not the Second Amendment was appropriately interpreted by the S.C.
Yes, definitely a good article by Piper. I honestly haven't really thought about the two ends of the spectrum that he compared together.
But off the cuff I would disagree with Piper. I would see nothing wrong with owning a fire arm, especially owning one to defend my family against a person who has decided to potentially forfeit their life by coming and attempting to take the life of me and my family.
But this is also coming from someone who already owns a firearm, was raised on old WWII flicks, and has eight years of military "shoot'em up" indoctrination.
Can anyone point us in the right direction on what the Bible says about defending our families?
Make sure you read this before you make up your mind:
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2748
I disagree...Eliot's family was not in danger...we should set priorities straight...if someone breaks in your house you won't sacrifice your family for that criminal..your duty is to protect your family and if someone tries to hurt your family and you allow it according to the Bible you are worse than an infidel. The media has done too much brain washing on this subject...Pilgrim's had guns and didn't saw them as evil..so did the Founding Fathers...so why do we need to see them as evil?
Post a Comment