Did God Authorize America to Wreak Vengeance on the World? - Marlin Sommers and Jaran Miller

There's a way in which I was also surprised, in part because I kind of expected something like what happened with the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela to be framed with the moral high ground, like, here's why it is good and noble and right for this to happen.

Instead, or maybe in addition to the moral high ground, it's like, we want the oil. I was surprised by that too. So again, if servant means like following God's instruction, then we'd be like, hey, if Nebuchadnezzar says, I'll say yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way, as our chorus goes, then God would say, Nebuchadnezzar, go wipe everybody out. But is it that? Or is it God using this violence for judgment without justifying the violence?

Before we begin today's episode, a little more context. We recorded this episode just before the United States and Israel launched their current war against Iran. And in the last few weeks, we have seen vividly the destruction that comes when earthly nations vie for power and domination. And it makes the conversation in this episode all the more timely. As we witness the chaos and destruction that comes from war, we need to pray for God's mercy and for the light of Jesus to spread around the world. So with that context, on to today's episode.

So Jaren, Marlon, welcome back to the podcast. Jaren, you helped start Anabaptist Perspectives a number of years ago and are very involved with things on the back end, responding to a lot of audience feedback. And Marlon, you're the current director of Anabaptist Perspectives. And one of the things we like to do occasionally is an episode where it's the team here, like that run Anabaptist Perspectives, engaging with different things that we're seeing, especially in current events. So that's something we're going to be talking about today, and also some of the things we hear from our audience and so forth. So right now is kind of a wild time to observe what's going on in the world.

It just feels like a lot of confusion and the unexpected seems to be happening. We want to engage with some of that and process how do we reflect on these things, respond to them in an appropriate manner as Anabaptists, within the framework of the two kingdom concept and so forth. So I'll just use an example to kick us off, and then you guys can take it from there. And that is Venezuela. January, U.S. military forces and the President of America essentially kidnap, or whatever you want to call, the President of Venezuela on various charges and crimes. And I remember waking up to that just being like, whoa, whoa, okay, that just happened. That was a real surprise.

And that's really in the air right now as we record this. It can be a little hard to know how do we reflect on something like that. It's kind of unusual. I don't recall that happening recently or anything. It's the unexpected. And how do we engage with that when the kingdoms of this world do these kinds of things? As Christians, what's the appropriate response? So I'd like to hear y'all engage with that instance in particular, but if you want to broaden it out to other principles as well. So yeah, let's open it up.

That one hit me hard personally. And I think that was because I had kind of followed the news on Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and so on, and kind of scandalized, like I think a lot of Americans are, by just the Russia's kind of naked assertion of power, like, we want this, it should be ours, we're going to get it from Ukraine.

But then to hear that very same rhetoric from the U.S. and out loud, like, okay, we want the oil. Lots of people have suspected that in lots of American dealings, right, that oil money is really driving foreign affairs.

But in this case, you have a president just making posts like that on social media. It's the kind of naked assertion, well, we're Americans, we're the big nation around, so yeah, we can go in and do that. And yes, alleging corruption and so on, which I have every reason to think credible that there is corruption in the government there. But okay, that's exactly what Russia said about Ukraine, right? This government's so corrupt, we need to liberate people. So that's where it hit me kind of viscerally because it's like the U.S. very openly doing these things that patriotic Americans would like to think the U.S. doesn't do. And even as a U.S. resident, you hear the propaganda or whatever.

But anyhow, I was venting about that to Jared one time, and he was surprised that I was surprised. So Jared, why were you surprised that I was surprised? There's a way in which I was also surprised, in part because I kind of expected something like what happened with the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela to be framed with the moral high ground, like here's why it is good and noble and right for this to happen.

Instead, or maybe in addition to the moral high ground, it's like we want the oil. I was surprised by that too. So I think surprise at what happened made sense to me. I think in the conversation you and I had, we were talking about ways that Romans 13 and the role of the state is understood by people such as Anabaptists who talk about this thing called the two kingdom concept. And I don't always know what is meant by the two kingdom concept.

And I think the framing that I was offering to you in the conversation, as my understanding of what is often meant by it, is different from what you understand the proper framing to be. So the gist of what I understand to be in the air for how we understand this two kingdom concept thing is that Romans 12 gives instructions for how the church ought to live, among other ways, with peace and forgiveness.

In contrast to Romans 12 and the church, we have Romans 13 and the state, where God gives us a different set of instructions for how the state ought to operate. A piece of those instructions is use of the sword, which is not born in vain.

So if the United States takes the sword to Venezuela, the United States is doing what we would expect from a state to do. The state has the sword. The state takes the sword to Venezuela. We have the state operating in congruence with what Romans 13 outlines for the state, which is different from what the state different from what Romans 12 instructs for the church.

So suppose that the Venezuelan forces would have successfully repelled this kidnapping and taken these invading American soldiers captive and executed them. So now which government was God's servant following instructions? That seems like a fair question. I've never thought of that before. That is a great point. I don't know. But where are you going with that? Like, what's the because especially foreign affairs, when it comes to the nations of this world, get really dicey because it's like, how do you parse all that out? Which is, I mean, that's the reason we wanted to do this podcast, because I think people have lots of confusion, really, and different opinions and whatever. But like, how do we walk this out?

I mean, we're supposed to be in the world, but not of it, and all of these things. I mean, do we just put our heads in the sand and ignore all this stuff that happens, which part of me kind of wants to do that?

Yeah, I don't even know. Where would you like to go with that? You made quite an interesting point. I'd like to go a lot of places, but so Romans 13, I'm going to just start with the basics. I don't think it's addressed to instructions to government. It's still addressed to the church.

It says, this is why you should listen to the government and pay taxes, because it's God's servant to execute wrath on evildoers and to praise those who are doing good. And so we got multiple governments. So if you have one government over here, executing wrath against murderers, and you have another government over here executing wrath against murderers, and then the one government says, well, I'm going to send some soldiers over there because I think I should be the one taking care of the murderers over there and not you.

What does Romans 13 say about that? How do you get from, well, we should listen to the government because they throw murderers in jail and keep them from killing too many more people, to, wow, it's really good when one government goes out and tries to take over another government so that they can deal with the murderers there instead of the government that was there.

How do you get there from Romans 13? But isn't that what the Roman Empire would have done? And isn't that the empire that Paul would have been writing about when he says that? Just curious. Yes. Roman Empire took over, put puppet kingdoms in, acted a lot like the U.S. likes to act, including in places like Venezuela.

The U.S. likes to put governments in that are sensitive to it. So that's a geopolitical reality. But if you're reading Romans 13 as an instruction manual for governments, how are you going to get there? I think these are fair questions. And so I'm curious, the perspective that you're presenting here, Marlon, which is not really sympathetic to the notion that Romans 13 is authorization for international war, how do you think that this perspective compares to what we talk about as the two kingdom concept that is commonly spoken of in Anabaptist circles? Would Anabaptists use the two kingdom concept? So I think historically, Anabaptists have used the two kingdom concept to say there's the kingdom of God and the church, and that's what we're living in.

And there's the kingdom of this world, which is Satan. And then the governments of the world, whatever they are, they have their place inside this kingdom of Satan, like that kingdom. And I think that is different than I think now Anabaptists often talk about the two kingdoms in a way that it's like church does this, state does this.

And there's these different states. So the different states, different nation-states do different things.

But they're certainly present in Anabaptism in a bigger sense that, no, the two kingdoms are the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Satan. Warfare, all this stuff, all the violence of the state. Well, ignore traffic lights and road design and things like that for now, which somebody has to set up traffic patterns that work when you have a lot of cars. We'll grant that. But the violence, the sword, I think we said, well, that's the kingdom of Satan, as opposed to, well, church as an institution, government as an institution.

But I don't feel like that is I don't feel like that's maintained as well in contemporary Anabaptism or circles. Yeah. I mean, we can use a myriad of examples, but another one that's immediately current, which it'll be interesting to see where the story is when we actually release this, but perhaps the largest or one of the largest buildup of American armed forces off the coast of Iran, and really making a statement of, hey, do what we like, or there's going to be serious trouble here.

The threat of the sword is very obvious and apparent right now on the geopolitical stage in the Middle East and in other parts of the Middle East. But that's the one that came to mind as I was prepping for this. To make sure I'm tracking with you, you're saying we see the empires of this world, the beasts, to use language from Daniel 7 or Revelation.

That's what the beasts of this world will do, is those kinds of things, exert power, overthrow a government maybe that they don't like, invade somewhere, war, et cetera, et cetera. Is that essentially what you were laying out? I'm trying to fit it with maybe another case besides Venezuela so we can kind of triangulate how to think about this. And then, of course, Jared, I'd like to hear you and what you think too, but go ahead, Marlon.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, we will talk about empires a little bit and empires in God's plan or how God's people look at them. But specifically, I'm just trying to poke a little hole in that thing that says, well, Romans 13 is instructions for how the state should operate.

Remember, one time a while, a number of years ago, before there wasn't Anabaptist perspectives, I was talking to Jared and I think a couple other people associated with Anabaptist perspectives and pressing them on us a little bit. And it's like, well, Romans 13 says the sword is a servant of God. The authorities who carry the sword are servants of God. Don't you want to be God's servants?

And somebody said, well, don't you want to be God's ministers? Somebody's like, well, not ministers of wrath.

I never thought of that either.

So I thought that was a good answer. Reflections, Jared, what are you seeing here? I want to press you a little bit on the exegesis of some verses that I think probably often come to mind for us when we talk about these things. Romans 13:3, "For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is an authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."

Are you disagreeing that the work of the state in sword bearing is not authorized by God?

So what do you mean by authorized? I don't know what I mean by authorized. Whatever's going on with what Paul says about the rulers being a servant of God, including the sword bearing, whatever that means. So maybe the definition of authorization is exactly the question.

Right. I mean, so Jesus tells Pilate, you wouldn't have authority over me if you didn't have it from God, didn't come from God, and so on. Right. God is over you.

But I'm talking here from within a perspective of non-resistance. So we have said the Christian isn't doing it. And we can talk about that later. But so what seems to happen in our Mennonite Amish circles is we're like, well, we shouldn't do this. We recognize that God's using it, which I agree.

It's a servant of God. I agree. But then it seems to be like, well, this is the servant of God in the sense that somebody could go to God and get their instructions from God that say, execute wrath.

So my question is, if this is supposed to be directions that the government's supposed to follow, how are they supposed to get the memo? So first of all, if this is a person who wants to obey God, then they're going to follow Jesus.

And since we're non-resistant, we think, well, if they're following Jesus, they're going to know that they're not supposed to be carrying out wrath. They're supposed to leave it to God. So it can't be somebody who's following Jesus who comes to the Bible to get this instruction. So are we supposed to assume that somebody that's not a Christian is coming to the Bible to look what the government's supposed to do? That's the thing I get confused about. Well, the Bible says what the government's supposed to do. Well, okay, but if they listen to the Bible, then they're not going to be part of the government. And so how are these instructions supposed to get conveyed?

That's what I can't make sense of in our kind of Mennonite things. Well, we expect these people to read the Bible and not find out that they're supposed to be non-resistant like us Mennonites, but to find out that their job is to be wrath agents. And it's like we think, well, okay, if a politician comes to God, he's not going to become non-resistant. He's going to hear God say, now you, what I want for you is go out and carry out wrath.

Right. But if we're non-resistant in the classical Mennonite sense, we can't believe that that's what God would say to anybody that sincerely goes to God and asks him what to do and gets direction from Scripture. So that's where I get confused with how people talk about this.

So the servant language is probably part of it because that's how we normally think of servants, right? A servant goes to the master and gets explicit instruction and carries it out. So when we hear, well, the government is God's servant, it does bring that picture up. So I'll grant this, right? When you hear the government is God's servant, it brings that picture up of, okay, well, here's somebody that's taking orders from God.

I'll give away what I think, and then I'll go to the Old Testament and steal the Bible back from you to illustrate it in classic Mennonite fashion. Mennonites keep bringing these verses up.

I think it's a servant. When it says that they're God's servants, it's asserting that God is using them, not that they are taking instructions from God the way he wants.

So Jeremiah, a very long book. And Jeremiah, the prophet, had a job of trying to persuade God's people in the kingdom of Judah that they shouldn't be resisting the king of Babylon. So okay, there we do have some international relations, right? We have the king of Babylon coming in and taking over stuff.

And Jeremiah is trying to persuade them. He does talk about Nebuchadnezzar being God's servant. I'm going to read a section here from Jeremiah 27. God tells Jeremiah to go and talk to the king of Eden, the king of Moab, the king of Ammon, the king of Tyre, the king of Sidon.

Send ambassadors back there from Jerusalem.

So here he's talking about what Nebuchadnezzar is doing to going to do to all these kingdoms. And he, other places, Jeremiah is applying this to Israel. He says, submit yourselves to Nebuchadnezzar.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, it is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.

Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes.

Then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave. But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and put his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine, pestilence, declares the Lord.

So it's basically telling everybody, submit to Nebuchadnezzar. I control the whole world. I'm giving everything to him.

So he's my servant.

So again, if servant means following God's instruction, then we'd be like, hey, Nebuchadnezzar, if Nebuchadnezzar says, I'll say yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way, as our chorus goes, then God would say, Nebuchadnezzar, go wipe everybody out.

But is it that? Or is it God using this violence for judgment without justifying the violence? And there's a little sneak preview, even in what I read. There's a little thing that says, until his own time comes, and other nations will make him a slave.

And then we get nearer to the end of this large book of Jeremiah, back in the chapter 50, 51, and you've got whole oracles against Babylon.

And it's talking about how another kingdom is going to come, another empire is going to come, take care of Babylon. And there's a comment, 51, verse 24. I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the evil that they have done in Zion, declares the Lord.

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, declares the Lord, which destroys the whole earth. And keeps going and going and going on that kind of thing.

And this is something our people, I don't have the direct quotes, but I know that I have seen Mennonite thinkers reference this multiple times with regard to Romans 13. Just like, yes, servant. Nebuchadnezzar was a servant. God even instructed his people, don't resist this servant. He's carrying out judgment.

So go along to Babylon. But that doesn't keep the prophet from saying later, actually, these things that are happening to Babylon, they're God's judgment for those very things you did as God's servant. So in other words, just because the government does something and it's God's servant doesn't mean that it's something, how something good and like God instructed them to do it. It might be something they're punished for.

Jared, I'd like to hear you respond to that in the context of what you've seen of the Mennonite response to these things and how Romans 13 is thought about. And yeah, reflect on those points there that Marlon's making.

At one point, you said that you were confused by the perspective that I was trying to represent. And I'm honestly confused too. But I'm trying to understand what we mean. And doing some reading to prepare for this episode, I was reading some of the newslines sections from recent issues of Sword and Trumpet.

And the January issue has the newslines section, which is always written by Hans Mast. And he gets into his understanding of these things. And I thought it was interesting because he puts words to things that, and I think he articulates it well, some of the perspectives that I've felt in the air in places I've been and observed these conversations.

So what I'll be reading from is from the January issue of Sword and Trumpet, from the newslines section, and also from a talk that he links to in the January issue of a presentation he gave at Center Amish Mennonite Church, which I watched and found it to be interesting.

So I will read some from Hans's article and give some comments along the way. But I would also encourage your audience to go read the article for yourself. I don't want to misrepresent him or present that I'm giving a comprehensive overview of his perspective.

So go read his article and process it for yourself. But he says, I've believed since childhood that Jesus calls his church to love enemies, turn the other cheek, and lay down the sword. Early Annabaptist said it plainly in this Leitheim Confession of Faith. The sword is an ordering of God outside the perfection of Christ. In the perfection of Christ, only the ban without the death of the flesh.

Metasimons added, the regenerated do not go to war nor fight. They are children of peace. I affirm that calling. At the same time, I believe God intends church and state to play good cop, bad cop roles. The state bears the sword to administer his retributive justice, while the church offers mercy and forgiveness to the repentant.

So I think I hear him saying that God has intentions for the state. And one of these intentions is to bear the sword to administer God's retributive justice. He goes on to say, the church does not wield that sword, but we also dare not deny the God-ordained role of the magistrate and God himself to forcefully and fatally restrain and punish evil.

To do so opposes God and his plan. While we try to impose the Sermon on the Mount standards for the church onto the government, it has the appearance of self-sacrificial mercy like Jesus taught, but in reality, it's an inversion of God's intended roles, and it's a misapplication of the command to love our enemies.

Romans 12 through 13 lays this whole dichotomy of roles very succinctly and clearly. So again, trying to make some deductions, summaries of what he's saying. The God-ordained role of the state is to function forcefully and fatally in a manner that does not align with the Sermon on the Mount.

So in this article, he linked to a talk that he gave at Center Amish Mennonite Church called Reconciling Non-Resistance with God's Justice. He had a PowerPoint slide in that presentation where he lists in bullet points some of his perspective.

One, government is divinely appointed. Two, government is supposed to use violence and death or the sword. Three, government should hold terror for evildoers. Four, governments are agents of wrath to bring punishment on evildoers. Five, governments are God's servants carrying out his plan. Six, governments are supposed to protect good people.

Seven, when we oppose God's plan for government, we oppose God. So again, this is my commentary on what's being said here, but I think I see him saying that by affirming the role of the church as something other than the role of the state, we should expect members of the church to respect the violent operations of the state.

It's not our business to participate in acts of violence. And Hans says, a baptized disciple cannot participate in war or lethal force as an agent of the state. However, it is our duty to respect the state and its agents for doing it.

Now, one thing that I wondered about is that Hans does not comment on, he doesn't give a nuance of the different recipients of government orchestrated violence. And maybe this is something you were getting at. So you were saying, Marlon, that Romans 13 should maybe be thought of as narrowly applied to law enforcement. But Hans, I don't think, makes this distinction, which I think leaves out, open the door, the possibility for God-ordained, government-orchestrated international war, perhaps.

Reading between the lines there. In that talk, he says, Hans Mast says, I think in general, the scriptural warning tonight would be to be careful not to get in the way of truly guilty people getting punishment because you might be working against God's design.

So in that statement, he is seeing Romans 13 as explicitly regarding the government's relationship to criminals. Anyways, it's an interesting talk, an interesting article. And I think one that represents well what I think I've heard in the air about our understanding of the two kingdoms in Romans 12 and 13.

So first of all, there's no disagreement there on the fundamental issues. We're looking at the things I want to parse out are going to feel like, and I think in a lot of ways are more subtle questions. I think they're worth spending a bit of time on. Christians reject violence. We're not going to, you know.

And Christians aren't going to be agents of the state. No disagreement. Right. There's a fundamental Annabaptist agreement there. The sword is an agent of God's retributive justice. I think that's fair. I think the normal English translation of the Greek words there are vengeance. And I think retributive justice and vengeance could fit together so that not a point of disagreement. These things are ordered of God outside the perfection of Christ. Sleightime.

No disagreement there. But as I listen to what you read, and the thing that I keep thinking about is what's our definition there of ordained or ordered? So ordered in what sense? And I've already made my case for thinking it's ordered of God in the sense of God's providential control, God's using it, but not necessarily in the sense that God sanctions it.

So I actually want to read a little bit from Paradise Lost by Milton. I've been reading through this route with two of my high school students, and we're almost done with it. And came across an interesting section. Milton is not an Annabaptist.

I don't know that he embraces non-resistance or that kind of thing. But I found very interesting comments about his role of his view of how God uses governments to judge. And so he talks about how, and he talks about tyrants. I don't know that he answered or thinks all governments are tyrants, but he's talking about tyrants using force to control other people. And he says, well, tyrants only rule because human beings have, we've surrendered listening to reason and virtue and God, and we've been driven about by our appetites and passions.

And so God had to allow tyrants to control us. So he says, therefore, since he, since man, permits within himself unworthy powers to reign over free reason, God in judgment just subjects him from without to violent lords who oft as undeservedly enthrall his outward freedom.

So this is judgment. But it is God's judgment to subject themselves to violent lords from outside. And of course, we read about violent lords. Nebuchadnezzar was quite a violent lord.

And then along came the violent Medes and Persians and got rid of that empire a few generations later.

And then here's the kicker from Milton. Tyranny must be, though to the tyrant, thereby no excuse. So that is how I think about government violence. It is there for God's judgment. It is an essential part of God's ordering a fallen world outside the perfection of Christ.

But not to excuse violence on the part of the government as somehow justified. That being said, the qualifier that I do want to add to there right away is we can appreciate relative differences. So we can appreciate that it is better when governments punish evildoers and commend people doing well than when governments do the opposite.

That's not putting God's moral sanction on the violence.

I think we can recognize differences. We can recognize a difference between a well-ordered, lawful, lawful in the sense of rule of law government that has protections against abuse and tries not to punish the innocent and all of that. We can say that that's better than the alternative.

And that it is a bad thing when a nation that has rule of law starts to disintegrate into impromptu executions and sham trials and all of that.

But I just don't see the coherence of how you basically bless these actions.

Now, I want to acknowledge another tension there, because one of the last lines in there was talking about getting in the way of God's intention for government to execute vengeance.

I'll say the sense in which I don't agree with that, and then I'll say the sense in which I do agree with that. The sense in which I don't agree with that is I don't think we should ever be scared to ask for mercy.

And maybe especially when we have a personal connection and maybe somebody has wronged us in particular and we have forgiven them. I don't think there's any inconsistency with requesting mercy from the government saying, look, I don't want to, I'm not pressing charges.

I would like to see this person restored. I think that should be our heart to all people. But then the sense in which I agree with not getting in the way is, and Mennonites have tried, we have Mennonites, conservative Mennonites have tried to thread this needle for, I think, at least the last half century, probably more than that, to thread this needle because we have wanted to differentiate ourselves, I think rightly so, and say, well, no, we're not naive people who think we can run a pressure campaign and get the government to embrace Christian values and so on.

We recognize non-resistance only works if you're willing to die. We don't have this naive view that we'll make a peaceful society or something pressure the government. And we have tended to see a lot of pressure on the government as actually engaging in the same form of violence. If we are going to go out there, we're going to lobby, we're going to march, we're going to press this law through, get this person in, we have tended to say, well, look, then you're actually playing the same game. You say you're doing it for Jesus' ethics, but you're playing the same political power game at the end of the day and the same pragmatic approach. So I do think that is one reason why Mennonites often talk about, well, we don't want, we're not trying to say the government should have Christian ethics.

And I think that does have a root.

We're not naive about, well, let's just press this through and all of a sudden there won't be evildoers and whatever or there won't be violence.

We know the violence is going to exist. We know we won't always be protected.

Our non-resistance isn't kind of limited by, does society work? It's a trust in God. So I recognize that thread. I guess what it feels like to me is we try to thread ourselves away to explain why we're not naively optimistic peacenics who do political action to get the right government policies.

And then it becomes easy to start blessing the violence of the state. Or it feels like we slide from one to the other sometimes in subtle ways. And that's part of my concern with articulating this the way I have.

Well, I think that you are presenting something pretty compelling here, Marlon, and giving me a lot to muse on. I'm curious if you could comment on what I quoted from Hans's talk where he says, I think the general warning, scripture warning tonight is to be careful not to get in the way of truly guilty people getting punished because you might be working against God's design. So you've talked about the need to define what do we mean by ordained. He uses the word God's design here.

Can you comment on that framing? Yeah. So I mean, I already wrestled a little bit with that thing of, what do you mean by getting in the way of God's design here? And said, well, I think we shouldn't ask for mercy and seek redemption.

But I'm not in favor of trying to use political force to abolish punishments or something like that.

But yeah, but my other concern with that language of, it's God's design and where it's not tempered with, well, it's God using imperfect things. But where we start to think of, if we start to think of it as this is really what God want. It's not just God making use of violence or in Milton's thing, tyranny must be, but that is no excuse to the tyrant, where we start to put a really positive vibe on it.

Like, yeah, this is God's instruction. It's really good. But we as Christians don't do it. That gets really hard to communicate. Because a rising generation or people outside or somebody with just a different framework of biblical interpretation is like, wait, so you're really admitting God wants this done, but his people shouldn't participate in it.

That's just a really tough sell and that generates. That's a good point. That just generates a tension that can be very hard to get around and can be very hard to explain to an energetic and zealous young man, for instance.

And that's why I think it is important to dig into there.

Okay, how is God using it? And to use, and even those passages from the Old Testament. Because I don't think that the prophet Jeremiah intended to say, look, Nebuchadnezzar is my servant destroying all these, therefore you should enlist in Nebuchadnezzar's army and help him raid your own people or whatever. Now, he did say, make the most of it when you're in Babylon, seek its welfare, presumably not by helping it plunder other people, but by planting gardens and growing things.

I guess that's my plea. Recognize that governments play this certain function while one government will eventually get judged by another government and so on. And we're in a order of redemption.

So if we were to boil this all down for listeners that are maybe they're watching this and they're saying, okay, so what should we do? What do we do with this information now? How do we make this practical? What does the lived experience look like? Could you give us some pointers for this going forward? Really, we started the whole episode with saying, how do we respond and engage with these things happening in our world that are maybe confusing or I'm not sure, is that good? Is that bad?

What do we do? I think there's quite a lot of that within the church and I think probably within the audience listening to this. Give us some practical pieces. I mean, at the end of the day, that's why we're pragmatic.

You got a government, it's doing something. They want some money. Okay, you can have it. They tell us not to do something that we'd maybe kind of like to do, but they're not going to be happy if we do it.

Okay, we recognize it. God's using you.

And international affairs, I think for the sake of the witness of the church and missions and so on, I think it is important to be pragmatic.

But never to wish for, never to wish for evil. Like you talked about the buildup with Iran and maybe by the time this is released, it'll be a full-fledged military action for all we know. Well, we shouldn't be cheerleading and hoping something drastic happens.

If this comes to our mind, is on our mind, I think we should pray for the most peaceful resolution possible, not knowing how that's going to be. And then we think about this. That's going to shift doors for who can get into Iran and who can't.

Some people have a harder time getting in there as they'll have an easier time getting. If you can use that for the gospel, that's great. But not if it's like, hey, the great righteous Americans have now brought the truth to Iran and so on.

You got to be really careful. I do think, hey, if you hold an American passport and America does something, that means that you have access to the country and can use that in good ways for the gospel. I think you should do that. But you do have to be very careful that you're not becoming an agent or extension of an imperial system. That gets missionaries in trouble a lot. I mean, so for me, it's pragmatic. Well, we'll do whatever good we can, however we can, and we'll work around the governments, work around the governments or under the governments or whatever.

Jared, what do you think? I agree with that. That's wisdom. I think also we should remember that Jesus is Lord and Jesus is King. When we talk about the governments of this world, we might be tempted to forget that Jesus is King and He is Lord. So let's keep that in focus.

Well, thank you all for sharing on this. This is a complicated topic in many ways of trying to navigate living in the world, but not being of it, to quote Jesus. I don't necessarily think that's a very easy thing sometimes. And it can be hard to know how we should relate to various governments, empires, and so forth. Y'all definitely gave us a lot to think about here. And there's a myriad of current events that people can be thinking of that this all applies to. And so this is pretty pertinent stuff. But I like your point. We should be praying for these things, definitely. And you ended with there, Jared, that, yeah, Jesus is King. That's pretty easy to forget sometimes.

And the 24/7 news cycle and all the chaos seems like it's going on to rest in that. So thank you both for sharing. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode on how we should think about current events and relating to the government and so forth. An episode which we did a bit of a deep dive into the American military industrial complex we released recently with Vince Lewis. And you can find that linked in the description below. He was deeply part of that world before he became an Anabaptist and has since learned many lessons on what that means to live a non-resistance stance in relation to the government and to the military. I think you'll find that really interesting.

Another thing, we mentioned the Sleitheim Confession in this video, and we did a whole documentary series on the early Anabaptist movement. And that's its own series, and we'll be linking that channel in the description below. So make sure you're subscribed there as well. Thank you so much, and we'll catch you in the next episode.