Jesus...was more concerned that they be armed than that they be warmIII

Regarding defending oneself. Some additional light from Chalcedon position papers. by Martin Selbrede.The first paragraph is from the defense position paper.


...Self defense: Although some Christians decry all war, even defensive war within our nation’s boundaries after those boundaries have been violated, the failure of the civil magistrate (or in modern terms, the civil government) to defend its citizens from invading attackers is a transgression of God’s eternal law. We are commanded, “Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor” (Lev. 19:16). Psalm 50 furtherexpands on the idea of “standing idly by,” indicating that it constitutes actual consent to the evil being perpetrated. And to consent to murder is regarded by God as being a party to that murder, based on (1) Psalm 50:18’s elaboration of Lev.19:16; (2) Saul of Tarsus’s consent to Stephen’s stoning at Acts 8:1 and his later application of this law to himself at Acts 22:20 when he confessed that “when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death” (to stand by Stephen’s blood was to consent to his death); (3) Christ’s charge to the scribes that, “you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed the prophets and you build their tombs” (Luke 11:48 ESV),which is the ground upon which He added, “the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world will be charged against you” (Luke 11:50 ESV), proving that consent to murder is to be party to murder, for which reason Christ imposed the penalty for murder on the consenters in this passage. It further follows that to fail to defend oneself is to consent to and be a party to one’s own suicide, for (1) we are not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor, and (2) we are to love our neighbors as ourselves; therefore, (3) we are not to stand idly by our own blood. The only exception is when we lay our lives down to save another (evidencing the greatest love possible in so doing)....


...“He has shown thee, o man, what is good…” God has shown us: we don’t have to create new policies. What is good and just has been spelled out. Micah speaks to all men (“O man”) – not just to Jews, but to Gentiles and to us today.“…and what doth the Lord require of thee…” What is good is what the Lord requires of us. What God requires is for our good and achieves good personally and culturally. What is required has been shown to us: it is not up in the air; it is not in the New Testament (or the verse would have used the future tense, “He will show thee, o man, what is good…”).God has shown, past tense, in the Old Testament....

Rom 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.