Nonchristians often bring up the idea of “turning the other cheek” in the context of criticizing military action or criticizing self defense. They may think of it as inconsistent for Christians to say they believe in “turning the other cheek” as Jesus taught but also believe in supporting the military. Nonchristians in a similar manner often tend to criticize Christians for accepting the Old Testament because it has the legal principle in the Law of Moses to “take an eye for an eye” or a “hand for a hand.” But nonchristians criticize such things without knowing the context. The context matters a lot. Also, Jesus wasn’t so easily categorized as nonchristians make him out to be. There were some interesting incidents in the gospels recorded in the New Testament that have to do with Jesus, his disciples, the sword, and self defense. You won’t find unanimity from all Christians on the meaning of these passages. But these passages certainly don’t present the simplistic view that nonchristians tend to have of the Bible on these topics.

I first dealt with this issue from growing up in the Church of the Brethren, which takes a position of pacifism regarding war. I picked up a pamphlet from the Church of the Brethren once that made the statement, “all war is sin.” Because it accepted that all war was sin, regardless of the reason for the war, it was wrong for Christians to take part in killing in a war. Thus there have been conscientious objectors that in the past were drafted but they were allowed to serve in roles that did not put them on the front lines where they could be involved in fighting. I decided to look into this in the Bible and I concluded the pacifist position was not really supportable by Scripture. Most conservative Christians in America believe killing can be necessary in self defense and that there are at least some circumstances where going to war is necessary for a nation. What those circumstances are is a challenging question.

I found that when you study the kings of ancient Israel there were some instances where the Bible commends kings for preparing for the defense of cities. (The issues surrounding the Israelites conquering Canaanite peoples is I think a separate discussion.) There were situations where Israel went to battle not because they wanted to but because they had to, unrelated to the people groups in Canaan they were conquering. So the Old Testament does have support for the idea of a national defense, totally apart from the conquest of Canaan.

The “eye for an eye” principle in the Old Testament (see Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, Deut. 19) was something for the national level. It was never intended to justify revenge. It was harder on sinful violent acts than we are today. The Bible generally treats sin as more serious than we think of it today. But this was a law for ancient Israel and I think it was because they were a true theocratic state. I don’t think the Bible implies all nations should do the same necessarily. The Jewish legal system included a sort of trial where evidence was presented. If someone was found guilty of some act of violence then the principle could apply. I’m not sure how often it was carried out.

Jesus taught something different because he was telling people they could not use this command in the Law of Moses as an excuse to be violent toward someone, even if they were wronged. Responding to violence with more violence can escalate the violence rather than ending it. Jesus also I think emphasized how we tend to react in a selfish way, such as when possessions are taken from us. In the United States we often talk about our rights. But there are situations when it is better to give up on what may be your rights, as an example and a witness to others, and to avoid escalating a tense situation and making everything worse. This is the context of the “turn the other cheek” idea from Jesus (see Matthew 5:38-39). It was what Jesus said about how an individual should react if some other individual mistreated them in some way. It was not in a legal context about the consequences of a crime.

When I was looking into the pacifist point of view, I was surprised to find that in Luke 22:36 Jesus tells his disciples to take a sword with them after he was arrested or no longer in the world. He was about to be arrested and he implied that the disciples would face some opposition and possibly some hatred from some. He even said that if they didn’t have a sword to sell their cloak and buy one if they had to. At this statement someone spoke up and said “See, Lord, here are two swords.” Jesus then said “That’s enough!” ( Luke 22:38, NIV). This passage has been interpreted different ways. But it seems that some of the disciples took it the wrong way because in Matthew 26:51-52 Peter later attacks the servant of the High Priest and cuts off his ear! This was not what Jesus meant they should do. But Jesus did tell them to have a sword. I think the sword statement was meant to be for later after Jesus was no longer on Earth, for self defense.

Another interesting statement from Jesus was when he was speaking to Pilate in John 18:36. Pilate asked Jesus if he was the King of the Jews. Jesus’ reply was “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, NIV) Jesus disciples sometimes thought Jesus was indeed intending to become the new King over Israel and somehow defeat the Romans. But that was not God’s purpose. He deserved to be King, but he came to die in our place to be the Savior of the world. But this statement is not against the principle of fighting against an injustice or against an unjust government necessarily. The arrest of Jesus was the ultimate injustice. But it wasn’t God’s will at the time to start a rebellion against the Romans, or even against the hypocritical Jewish leaders. This statement of Jesus is very puzzling to Christians of the pacifist perspective. We should never want violence, but in an evil world, violence can come to us and it takes wisdom and courage to deal with it.

In Joshua chapter 10 in the Old Testament is an amazing story. It is about an important battle in the conquest of Canaan by the ancient Israelites. This story is well known not so much for the battle but for something that happened during the battle, the Long Day of Joshua. People have debated how to interpret this story. Even many Christians do not take it literally. The idea of “taking the Bible literally” is a misunderstood concept. The correct way to look at the Bible is to take it as an imperfect translation of copies of inerrant documents. To say it is not a perfect translation is not to question inerrancy. Inerrancy is about the original manuscripts, not about translations. The way to interpret it is to interpret it according to it’s literary genre. That basically means to treat it like any other document or ancient book. There is a lot of historical and cultural background to be aware of. But the Bible is actually true to history.

I can understand people struggling with believing miracles described in the Old Testament. When I became a Christian I had trouble believing in miracles. But there’s no explaining much of anything about our existence without miracles. The Bible doesn’t make sense without miracles either. If you try to treat a miracle in the Bible as symbolic or allegorical, then the story no longer makes sense. So if the passage is a historical narrative and it just happens to describe a miracle, we should not dismiss the miracle. If God is all-powerful, miracles can happen. I know the things that physicists or scientists may bring up about miracles in the Old Testament. But science cannot disprove a miracle from a one-time event that happened in the past that cannot be repeated. Scripture has more authority than science, and more certainty. But Scripture does not describe things in scientific detail. When the Bible describes something about nature it is describing from the perspective of an eyewitness who is just describing what they saw and experienced. It is not giving a complete scientific description. This means Scripture gives an accurate account of what happened, but it does not give a scientific description of what happened. The hermeneutical term for this is that the Bible uses phenomenological language. So you have to understand this about the purpose and limits of how the Bible is written. This means science can neither prove or disprove a miracle from the past described in the Bible.

A story has gone around that NASA once did orbital calculations that showed there was a “missing day” and that this proves the long day of Joshua happened. This is nonsense. No one should believe this.  NASA is good but they couldn’t possibly do this. God hardly needs NASA’s help to give evidence to believe the Bible, God has done enough himself to give reason to believe it. Christians should not believe nonsensical ideas that go around. Believing this story about NASA or scientists proving the long day of Joshua is being too gullible. But believing the Bible is not being gullible, it is being wise.

In Joshua chapters 9 and 10 it tells about the people of the city of Gibeon. They tricked Joshua into thinking they lived far away, so that they could get the Israelites to agree to make a defensive pact with them and not destroy them. Then the other Amorite city-states considered the Gibeonites to be traitors essentially.  They must not have wanted the Israelites to take control of the lands around Gibeon. So five Amorite kings pooled their armies to attack Gibeon. The people of Gibeon then sent to Joshua for help.

It says Joshua sent the entire Israelite army (which was over 600,000 men) to this battle at Gibeon. This is why I like to call this Israel’s D-Day. There was a large battle at Gibeon and the Israelites were winning, so the Amorites start to flee. The Amorites scatter in all directions and the Israelites start to chase them down. Then it says God sent a large hailstorm and hail killed many Amorites as they tried to flee. Then as the Israelites were trying to run them down, Joshua prays for the Sun to stand still and the Moon to stop, so they could have more time in the day to complete their victory. It says the Sun stopped in the middle of the sky and didn’t go down for about a day, and that the Moon also stopped. Now, should we take this as a real long day?

The trouble with saying it was not an actual miraculous long day is explaining how the Israelites could do so much in one day! If you read through chapter 10 and pay attention to the details, in verse 28 it refers to “That day” so it was still the same day in verse 28. This means that after the big battle at the city of Gibeon, the Israelites travelled about 30 or 35 miles in that one day, and they stopped in multiple towns along the way to take them also. Then in verse 32 it says they attacked the city of Lachish and they “took it on the second day.” If it was not a truly long day, they could not have done so much in one day. In fact, they had to march all night uphill through the mountains to get to Gibeon to start with. So it is amazing all they did in that day. Israel took control of a large swath of territory that day.

Certain ideas have been suggested to explain the miracle of this away. But when you think about these alternative ideas, they don’t make sense. Like the suggestion it was just psychological, so it wasn’t really a long day, it just seemed like it. If that were all, then how was it such an extraordinary answer to prayer as it says (see verse 14)?  It describes in two different ways clearly that the Sun stopped in the sky.  It was not psychological.

I say we should believe this as a great miracle that really happened. It means God can do incredible things helping his people sometimes when it is his purpose to do so. We do tend to underestimate God. Even when we have asked him for something, it can be surprising when he does it!

Now if I were thinking as a physicist, based on my knowledge of planetary science, I could guess at how this happened. But this is only a guess. We don’t know how God did this. But I would guess the spin of the Earth was slowed down so that Earth was temporarily put into synchronous rotation. This would make Earth’s spin work like the Moon does now, it keeps the same side facing the Earth because the time for one spin on the Moon’s axis is the same as the time for the Moon to orbit the Earth. If Earth’s spin totally stopped the Sun would not actually stop in the sky, it would slowly move backwards as Earth moved along its orbit. So synchronous rotation would be the logical thing apparently. Now, understand that for God to drastically slow Earth’s spin would be a major catastrophy that might destroy most life on Earth if he did not protect the Earth. He would have to prevent the ocean from washing over the continents, and keep the atmosphere from spinning rapidly around the planet. He’d probably need to restrain the motion of the core of the Earth also. But God is big enough to handle these things.

The significant thing is that the Creator-God intervened into history to help his people. It makes me think of Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV) “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!”