WWUTT 430 Q&A Self-Defense and Suicide?

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Is it Biblical for Christians to use self -defense? Why does Jesus refer to His mother as woman?

00:08

And what does the Bible have to say about suicide? The answer to these questions and others when we

00:14

Understand the Text. You're listening to When We Understand the

00:27

Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email

00:32

WhenWeUnderstandtheText at gmail .com. And don't forget our website, www .utt

00:38

.com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. It is Friday when we respond to questions from the listeners, and you can submit a question by email,

00:49

WhenWeUnderstandtheText at gmail .com. I think I've got five questions here I'm responding to today, all of which have come to me by email.

00:56

Before getting to these questions, though, I wanted to mention something about the podcast. This is the 430th episode, and every once in a while,

01:05

I'll get an email or a Twitter message or something from somebody saying, hey, just found your podcast, and I'm going all the way back to the first episode and listening to the study beginning with the study

01:18

I did in Philippians a couple of years ago. That's awesome, and I appreciate that you enjoy the content so much you would even want to go back and listen to all of those episodes.

01:28

But if memory serves, I can only backlog 500 episodes at a time.

01:34

I think on Podbean, I have an unlimited amount of space, but on iTunes, the feed will only extend to 500 episodes.

01:42

Once we get to episode 500, at least through iTunes, maybe the case on Podbean as well,

01:47

I'm not for sure, but I don't think you'll be able to go back to episode one once we cross that 500 threshold.

01:53

I'm just letting you know that now. You can still go back and listen to episode one, although I don't know how long you will be able to do that.

02:02

But again, I thank you for listening to when we understand the text and telling somebody else about this podcast.

02:08

All right, let's get to the questions. This first one comes from Kevin in Montreal. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, are you ever intending on responding to so and so's video of you?

02:20

And I've intentionally omitted the name. And the answer is no,

02:25

I'm not. I'm not planning on ever responding to somebody's video. Any videos that are critical of when we understand the text or some of those articles that are written about me that are critical,

02:35

I just don't respond to them. It's awfully distracting and time consuming to be responding to those who are critical of the work that you do.

02:44

I would rather be serving those who really want to hear from the teaching that comes either from the videos of the podcast or on my blog or any of those things.

02:54

And so that's where my investment is. Those who really want to learn. Most of the time, those who are being critical, they don't really want to learn anything.

03:02

They just want to be critical. And sometimes those critics are actually using when we understand the text or WWUTT, which is very unique acronym.

03:12

When you type in WUTT in Google, what you come up with is when we understand the text. So sometimes people will grab that acronym and make a video bashing a

03:23

WUTT video because they want attention. And so for that reason, I'm not going to give them that attention.

03:28

And I don't have any indication that they really are asking a question or they want to learn something.

03:34

They just want to be critical or attract attention for themselves. So and again, it's very time consuming to respond to critics.

03:42

It's very draining on top of that. Who wants to submit themselves to that kind of negativity constantly?

03:48

I would rather be investing myself in the word of God, rejoicing in the words that are here and instructing those who truly want to hear what the

03:57

Bible has to say and learn from the text. So that's where I'm going to pour my that's where I'm going to pour my energies into.

04:05

Now, sometimes I will respond to an email here on the Friday episode of the of the broadcast.

04:11

I'll grab a critic's email because I think that in responding to that email, there's there is an educational point to be made, something that we can all learn from that particular criticism or how to respond to that critic.

04:24

But as it stands, even the emails that I get that are that are critical,

04:29

I'm probably only responding to one out of every ten. I very seldom put my time into responding to a critic more often than not.

04:39

I want to I want to take that time to respond to somebody who has a genuine question and really wants to know something.

04:44

So I appreciate your question, Kevin. But no, those critics that are making videos about me or writing articles,

04:49

I have no intention of ever responding to them. Now, that's not to say that I am above correction.

04:55

That's that's a different matter. If you want to correct me on something that I've said that you believe was an error or I was wrong, then

05:02

I will listen to what it is that you have to say. I'll go back and listen to what I said and compare the two.

05:08

Go to the text. And if what I said was wrong, then I will issue an apology. And you have heard me do this on the podcast before apologizing for something that I had said that was pointed out to me that wasn't correct.

05:19

So I am not above correction, but that's not the same thing as responding to somebody who just flat out wants to be critical.

05:25

All right. This next question comes anonymously. It was submitted to me. It was like a phone number, email address, no name attached.

05:32

But the question was simply this. Is it biblical for Christians to use self -defense?

05:39

It is perfectly OK for you to defend yourself, your family and even your property.

05:44

Like like say you don't have a family. It's just you living by yourself and somebody breaks into your home.

05:51

You can defend yourself and your stuff from being stolen by an intruder. Exodus chapter 22, verse two, if a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no blood guilt for him.

06:07

So self -defense is permissible. But don't read that as as retaliation is permissible.

06:15

That's a totally different matter. Jesus said in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

06:23

But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

06:30

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

06:39

Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. And I have heard people use this passage to say, see, we're not supposed to to defend ourselves because we're supposed to turn the other cheek.

06:52

Well, no, Jesus was specifically talking about retaliating. And if someone strikes you and you strike them back and then you turn into a full out brawl and then there's no winners in that, you're probably pulling other people in in the midst of that.

07:03

Or when it comes to being sued and taken to court, if you sue them back or you're bringing you're bringing the secular courts into the matter.

07:11

And then as Christians, we just look foolish in the eyes of the world. And so to keep the peace with everyone, we should be a lot more discerning when it comes to matters of retaliation.

07:21

That's different than self -defense. You are you are permitted to defend yourself, your family and your property from those who wish to harm you or steal from you.

07:31

But do not retaliate against the one who has done you wrong. All right.

07:36

This next question comes from Derek. He says, greetings from South Texas. I want to say how much

07:42

I appreciate your videos. I use them from time to time in our youth services. They're awesome.

07:48

Thank you, Derek. Jesus refers to his mother as a woman twice at the wedding at Cana and then when he's on the cross.

07:57

Why does he refer to her that way? Any insight is appreciated. Certainly those two references are in John 2, 4 and in 1926 and in John 2, 4.

08:08

That's when the the wine ran out at the wedding. And Mary said, hey, they're out of wine.

08:16

She goes to Jesus and says the wine is run out because she knows that he can do something about this. And and Jesus responds to a woman.

08:23

What does this have to do with me? You know that my time is not yet come. And then she looks at the servants and says, do whatever he tells you to do.

08:30

OK, so that's the first time he refers to Mary as a woman. And then the second time is on the cross. Chapter 19, verse 26, when

08:38

Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loves standing nearby. And we know that was

08:43

John, the one who is writing this gospel. He said to his mother, woman, behold, your son.

08:48

And then he said to the disciple, behold, your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.

08:55

He cared for cared for Mary. And Jesus made sure that his mother was being taken care of.

09:02

So why refer to her as woman? Well, the most popular explanation for this is that by calling

09:12

Mary woman, Jesus is showing himself to be the fulfillment of the proto evangelion that was given in Genesis 315.

09:21

God is cursing the serpent and says to the snake, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

09:31

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So there are some who say that Jesus calls

09:37

Mary woman to show that he is the Messiah that was prophesied all the way back in the book of Genesis.

09:45

Now, while there are good intentions in that explanation, I think it's actually reading too much into the text, because in John, chapter four, when

09:56

Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he calls her woman in verse twenty one woman.

10:02

Believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

10:08

So what are we to make of that? Jesus calls Mary woman and then he calls the Samaritan woman at the well also calls her woman.

10:15

There's a very there's actually a much simpler explanation to this. And that is that this is simply the polite way that you referred to a woman in this culture at that particular time.

10:27

It's like we would say miss or ma 'am or yes, ma 'am or missus or something like that.

10:33

During this time period, Jesus would have said woman. And and it was actually a very humanizing term on top of that to call her woman, because I'm sure

10:44

I don't have to tell you that the culture at this time didn't really view women very favorably.

10:50

A woman's testimony was not considered valid in court. They were considered to be subservient to men.

10:56

So for Jesus to call Mary woman was was actually a very polite and endearing term.

11:03

And then for him to refer to the Samaritan woman at the well at the same the same way, this is a woman who was not only looked down upon for being a woman and looked down upon by Jews for being a woman for that matter, but also looked down upon because she had been married to five other men and was living with a man now who was not her husband.

11:23

And so Jesus very politely and very respectfully calls her woman.

11:29

And so that's that's how we're supposed to understand that. Don't read too much into it and think that there's something gospel in the midst of all of that, but simply that Jesus is setting a good example for us and showing proper respect to everyone, even those in a culture or a society that the rest of the culture might look down upon.

11:49

So that's that's simply what is behind Jesus referring to Mary as woman.

11:55

All right, this next question, we're going to shift tone a little bit. This is a little deeper topic, something a little bit more personal.

12:03

This is from Edward in Seminole, Texas. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, my wife grades for the

12:08

Gospel Echoes ministry that provides Bible studies for inmates. Her most recent inmate asked her to comment on her mother.

12:15

This inmate's mom committed suicide after many other awful things happened in their family, and she's asking, did my mom go to heaven even though she committed suicide?

12:25

My wife and I both feel certain that suicide does not grant entrance into heaven because the person is unrepentant of her sins.

12:32

She ultimately denied God when she killed herself. How should we proceed in answering this question?

12:38

This inmate will obviously not find any hope for her mother with my response. And my fear is she is unstable.

12:45

I want to show empathy, but I refuse to lie or beat around the bush to comfort anyone.

12:51

Thanks for everything you do with when we understand the text. It's been a great benefit to us as we learn to walk in Christ after leaving the charismatic church.

13:01

Edward, I so appreciate your question, and I think that the most honest answer that you can give to this woman concerning her mother is this.

13:09

I don't know. We don't know the specifics about her mom, what she was going through mentally, and we also do not know that each and every circumstance of suicide results in a person going to hell.

13:23

The scripture simply doesn't say that. Now, suicide is the same thing as murder. If you kill yourself, it's the same as if you were to kill somebody else.

13:30

But murder is not the unforgivable sin. And there's nothing in scripture that indicates that because a person has taken their own life, they have immediately disqualified themselves from glory and God's eternal kingdom.

13:44

God knows what is going on in the heart and the mind of each and every individual. And sometimes a person has become so mentally unstable that they are not able to think rationally anymore.

13:54

And that may not necessarily be their fault. For example,

14:00

I am a pastor in a church that is primarily military. Sixty percent of my congregation is either active duty or retired.

14:08

And I have counseled men who have thought about suicide or they've had friends that have committed suicide and are struggling with some of those things.

14:17

And in a lot of those situations, they're on a great deal of prescription medications for some of the post -traumatic stress disorder that they are experiencing.

14:27

And those medications will cause a person to have increased thoughts of suicide. Now, you know this just from watching television, because some of those drug commercials that come on when they start going through the list of of side effects, one of those side effects is increased thoughts of suicide.

14:45

Now, I think that I would rather deal with the ailments that I'm struggling with and take a medication that's going to cause me to despair of life so much that I would want to kill myself.

14:54

But nonetheless, that is one of the listed side effects of some of these drugs is that it would cause a person to contemplate their own their own death, their own suicide.

15:04

Before I became a pastor, I attended church with a man who killed himself. There was one

15:09

Sunday that he didn't come to church. And we actually found out at the end of service that day that he had committed suicide.

15:15

And we never would have seen that coming up on the horizon. He was a very happy guy, but he had an extensive military career.

15:23

And we know that he struggled with PTSD a lot and was on a number of prescription medications. And so it's possible that just one day things were in such turmoil for him in his mind that he thought suicide was the way out.

15:38

And it could have been a combination of the PTSD and the drugs that he was taking that led him to make that particular decision on that day or during that week.

15:46

We simply don't know what goes on in a person's mind and heart enough to definitively be able to say there's no way this person could have been saved and where they ended up after taking their own life was hell.

15:57

Now, I think that's going to be the case more often than not, because what we read about just this past week when we were in First John, First John three fifteen, you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

16:10

But again, I don't think that we can say in every circumstance that that was the case could have been something just triggered in their mind the wrong way.

16:18

And so there's no way that we can absolutely say that every situation of suicide resulted in that person going to hell.

16:25

I think the reason why we tend to gravitate that way when it comes to talking about suicide is because of what's come from the

16:31

Roman Catholic Church. There was at one point that they taught that if a person committed suicide, that was the unforgivable sin.

16:38

And that person went to hell. And the and the Catholic Church would even deny funerals or grave plots or burial services for individuals who had committed suicide.

16:49

There are also some independent fundamentalist Baptist churches that believe this way, that if a person is committed suicide, then they've gone to hell.

16:58

But but the scripture simply doesn't paint that kind of a picture. Now, when we have instances of suicide in the

17:06

Bible, they were usually very wicked men. You have the the story of a

17:11

Bimelech, of Saul, of Saul's armor bearer who killed himself, but he wouldn't kill

17:17

Saul. So he killed himself and Saul killed himself. Ahithophel, Judas. Now we know where Judas ended up.

17:24

Samson is another one. And Samson's debatable because some people would say, well, no, he was trying to kill his enemies. Well, he knew that making the building collapse that he was chained to was going to kill him.

17:35

And he was taking some Philistines with him on the way out. And yet he's listed in Hebrews chapter 11 as one of the heroes of the faith.

17:43

So once again, I don't think that we can definitively say in each and every circumstance that a person who has committed suicide has ended up in hell.

17:52

But but when it comes to counseling people in this life concerning such matters, we need to tell them to place their whole trust in Jesus Christ.

18:00

Suicide is not an option because, again, it's murder and there are consequences for that.

18:06

Now, you won't be facing those consequences in this life, obviously, but the Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

18:13

God. So we should not ever tell a person that that they could kill themselves and still be able to go to heaven.

18:21

They need to place their trust in Christ. And we have accounts in scripture of men who despaired of life so much that they thought they would die.

18:29

David wrote about it in the Psalms. The apostle Paul talks about it in Second Corinthians, chapter one. They thought they had received the sentence of death because of people bearing down on them for preaching the gospel.

18:40

But Paul goes on to say this was to make us rely more upon Christ who raises the dead.

18:48

We talked about King Solomon just yesterday and how in the book of Ecclesiastes, he sees life as meaningless and that the pursuits of happiness in this life really amount to chasing after the wind.

19:04

But Solomon did not respond by killing himself. As a matter of fact, in Ecclesiastes 12, 13, he says that we are to fear

19:12

God and keep his commandments. And this is the duty of all mankind. So there are times for individuals that life is going to seem meaningless and we are going to be under such duress and anxiety and feel such stresses that we think that the only way out is to commit suicide and kill ourselves.

19:30

But we must not ever tell somebody that that is an option for we need to commit ourselves to Christ and trust in him.

19:38

He holds our lives in his hands. It says in Job 14 that he is appointed the days of a man which a man cannot cross.

19:47

And so we need to trust in the Lord as our life and our hope for this life.

19:53

So I hope that that was helpful for you, Edward. Once again, I think that the best answer that you can give to this woman is you don't know where her mother has ended up, but you need to encourage her to turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ, who in Luke chapter 13, when he was being questioned about he was being repent or you will likewise perish.

20:19

So I think the question is less about what's happened to this person or or is this person cursed?

20:24

And that's why this has happened to them, which is this is the way that our mind tends to try to process some of these things.

20:31

But what we really need to be looking at is have we turned from our sin and placed trust in Jesus Christ?

20:38

And so that's how you can direct the question. You need to repent and trust in Christ with your life or you will likewise perish.

20:47

It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we are rescued from death and hell and delivered into his eternal kingdom.

20:56

So let our hope and our trust be fully upon our Lord who raises the dead.

21:02

And now I'm out of time. I did have one more question, but I think I can save it until next week. I did already respond to this individual, so I can save that one for another episode.

21:11

Again, if you have any questions that you would like to submit to the broadcast, our email address is when we understand the text at gmail dot com.

21:19

God willing, I'll be back on again Monday as we continue our study of first John moving now into chapter four.

21:25

And we get to talking about false teachers once again in this particular section of first John. And then we'll also continue our study of first kings with the life of Solomon moving on into chapter five.

21:39

That's coming up next week as well. God bless. And thank you so much for listening to when we understand the text.

21:46

This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the Web at www .utt