{"id":138,"date":"2013-01-11T20:25:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T20:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.all-creatures.org\/blog\/?p=138"},"modified":"2013-01-11T20:31:04","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T20:31:04","slug":"early-christian-peacemaker-justin-martyr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.all-creatures.org\/blog\/early-christian-peacemaker-justin-martyr\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Christian Peacemaker \u2013 Justin Martyr"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Justin<\/a>Early Christian Peacemaker \u2013 Justin Martyr<\/h2>\n

The early Christian peacemakers, such as Justin Martyr, needed no weapons for he had the peace of Jesus Christ in his heart. In 160 AD, five years before his death, he wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ourselves were well conversant with war, murder, and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for ploughshares, our spears for farm tools. Now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness to men, faith, and the expectation of the future given to us by the Father himself through the Crucified One.\u201d (Dialogue with Trypho 110.3.4)<\/p>\n

Justin Martyr was living the peace that Jesus taught all of us to have.<\/p>\n

Note what Jesus said, as recorded in John 14:25-27.<\/p>\n

25. “These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you.<\/p>\n

26. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.<\/p>\n

27. “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
\nNASB<\/p>\n

The world thinks that it has to fight for peace, which is not the peace that Jesus has given us.<\/p>\n

Jesus gave us His peace so that our hearts would no longer be troubled or fearful.<\/p>\n

The only reason anyone believes that they need any weapons is because they are filled with fear, and no gun or other weapon will ever bring us true peace or remove our fears.<\/p>\n

We are hearing a lot of gun debating going on these days. Those wanting to limit the availability of assault type weapons want to eliminate fear from their lives; however, the comments we hear from the gun lobby are promoting arming ourselves even more or having armed guards, and because it is based in fear, it can never eliminate our fears or bring us true peace.<\/p>\n

All weapons are designed as instruments of violence and death; therefore, they should never be a part of any Christian\u2019s life, because we are called to be peacemaking children of God.<\/p>\n

Since \"date\"