An authentic Christian response to violence (A sermon from Matthew 16:21-26; Romans 12:9-21)
Paul gives a number of admonitions all under the heading, “Let love be genuine.” Everything that follows from that opening statement is a description of what genuine love looks like. In the second paragragh beginning in v.14 Paul focuses on how we should respond to violence, echoing the teaching of Jesus about loving our enemies. Jesus’ teaching on the subject can be found in Matthew 5 and its parallel version in Luke 6. Paul, of course, is not quoting either Matthew or Luke, because Matthew and Luke were not written until two or three decades after Paul wrote his letters. Other than maybe the book of James, Paul’s letters are the earliest New Testament documents we have, most likely written in the 50’s of the C.E. So Paul would not have had access to the written Gospels. However, he would have had access to the teachings of Jesus and the stories about Jesus that had been circulating in the oral tradition, that is, teachings and stories that were being told and retold and passed on by...