Did Jesus ever preach about wars? (ritual, Creator, Earth, Torah)

[emiliano]

I read some posts on the subject and noticed that even personal verbal discussions were presented as wars, that isn’t what a call war, my concept of wars is armed conflicts between nations, did the Lord ever touched this subject?

[Charity]

Originally Posted by emiliano

I read some posts on the subject and noticed that even personal verbal discussions were presented as wars, that isn’t what a call war, my concept of wars is armed conflicts between nations, did the Lord ever touched this subject?

Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars............that Nations would rise against Nations...I believe He was referring to the last days...........

[Dunemeister]

Not directly. However, in the first century there was an extremely strong impetus within the Jewish nation to militarily rebel against Rome. There were three elements to this impetus. First, there was the basic story of Judaism according to which they are the special covenant people of the Creator God. This God had sent Israel away to Babylon because of their sins. He had promised that the great sign of Israel's forgiveness would be return from exile. Well, the Jews had returned, but many of the other promises associated with return from exile hadn't been fulfilled. There was no temple (people viewed Herod's temple with great ambiguity), the wrong people were in charge (the Sadducees were widely held to be Roman puppets), and they were still subject to pagan domination. None of this was consistent with the biblical vision of return from exile.

So most Jews viewed the "return" as highly ambiguous, and at least incomplete. But they stuck stubbornly to their hope, knowing their God was faithful. The tension of first-century Judaism came in large part out of their internal debates about how to interpret their situation (as continuing exile or as return) and what to do about it. They had several options, all of which had been tried in the century or two before Jesus. There was the "practical compromise with the oppressor" approach (Saduccess), the "retreat from society and wait for God to act" approach (Essenes), the "intensify Torah observance" approach (Pharisees), the "non-violent resistance" approach (John the Baptist and Jesus, plus a couple of spontaneous events before them), and "repel the invaders" approach (Maccabbees, Zealots).

This last approach, revolution, was often associated with Messianic figures. As an example of revolution, not long before Jesus' day, the Jews had done just that against the Greeks, whose megalomaniac leader, Antiochus Epiphanes, had profaned the Jewish Temple. The Jewish people, under the leadership of the Maccabbean family, rose up and repelled the foreign invaders, setting up a short-lived dynasty with autonomy.

Then came the Romans, with their blasphemous eagle standards and so-called "justice." Hotheads of the first century wanted a repeat of what had occurred with the Greeks, and there was a great deal of sympathy among the people. To such people, Jesus announced the "kingdom of God" (which is a highly political phrase, fightin' words, in fact) by saying such things as "turn the other cheek", "those who live by the sword die by the sword", "love your enemies", "pray for those who persecute you", "do good to those who hurt you," "if they press you to go a mile, go two," and so on. In other words, Jesus was advocating non-violent resistance to Roman oppression and was specifically taking war off the table. And he was saying this to a nation that saw itself as terribly oppressed and beset.

So yeah, I'd say Jesus taught about war.

[emiliano]

Originally Posted by Charity

Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars............that Nations would rise against Nations...I believe He was referring to the last days...........

Thank for your input, as you say this is prophesy, what I wanted to get was answers to, is more on the lines of replies to the accusation often made against Christianity, specifically the Crusades, the Inquisition, even the Jewish holocaust, is there anything in the master teachings that could be said to have fuelled any of these event?

[Heneni]

Originally Posted by Charity

Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars............that Nations would rise against Nations...I believe He was referring to the last days...........

Hi charity! Has there ever been a time when there was not a nation rising up against another nation?

[Poisonshady313]

Originally Posted by emiliano

Thank for your input, as you say this is prophesy, what I wanted to get was answers to, is more on the lines of replies to the accusation often made against Christianity, specifically the Crusades, the Inquisition, even the Jewish holocaust, is there anything in the master teachings that could be said to have fuelled any of these event?

Mine enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.

[emiliano]

Dunemeister,

Then came the Romans, with their blasphemous eagle standards and so-called "justice." Hotheads of the first century wanted a repeat of what had occurred with the Greeks, and there was a great deal of sympathy among the people. To such people, Jesus announced the "kingdom of God" (which is a highly political phrase, fightin' words, in fact) by saying such things as "turn the other cheek", "those who live by the sword die by the sword", "love your enemies", "pray for those who persecute you", "do good to those who hurt you," "if they press you to go a mile, go two," and so on. In other words, Jesus was advocating non-violent resistance to Roman oppression and was specifically taking war off the table. And he was saying this to a nation that saw itself as terribly oppressed and beset.

So yeah, I'd say Jesus taught about war.

This doesn’t sit square with Jesus teachings “ Joh 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight so that I might not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from here.
The turning of the other cheek speaks about personal conflicts nor of wars. And so are the other.
Joh 8:23 And He said to them, You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
Joh 17:9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.
oh 17:20 And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word

[emiliano]

Originally Posted by Poisonshady313

Mine enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.

When did Jesus teach this?

[Heneni]

Parable. Luke 19:27

[Dunemeister]

Originally Posted by emiliano

Dunemeister,

This doesn’t sit square with Jesus teachings “ Joh 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight so that I might not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from here.
The turning of the other cheek speaks about personal conflicts nor of wars. And so are the other.
Joh 8:23 And He said to them, You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
Joh 17:9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.
oh 17:20 And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word

That only means that Jesus' kingdom doesn't operate on the same principles as kingdoms "of the world." It doesn't mean that Jesus' kingdom isn't political or instantiated in the world. It's speaking to the nature of the kingdom -- spiritual as opposed to worldly. Hence we have Paul telling the churches to be in the world but not of it. And we are told to live according to the spirit rather than according to the elementary powers of the world.

So turning the other cheek is not reserved merely for interpersonal relations. If Jesus were merely teaching about an otherworldly kingdom with no particular relevance to earthly kingdoms, he wouldn't have been sentenced to death. But since he was not only teaching about a very real kingdom of God that sought to bring the kingdoms of this world to heel, and since he was developing a community to embody this kingdom, he became a very real political threat and therefore worthy of the attention of the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. Nobody would have cared about Jesus if he had taught merely that there was an alternative way to get to know God. That would have interested some and bored many. It certainly wouldn't have got him killed.

And in his death, he demonstrated how his kingdom operates. The chief thing that drives a Christian political ethic is not violent resistance to evil, as if using the weapons of the world will defeat evil. Rather, the response of the Christian is to be patient endurance of suffering on behalf of others. That is -- turn the other cheek. In so doing, we unmask the pretensions and evil of the powers that be and begin the process of their redemption, which among other things means subordination to Christ. Not political? Please!