Quote:
Originally Posted by ABrotherinFaith
I think you're missing an important element here...in an earlier post you used the a fence line as a possible point of contention.
Paul's appeal had to do with defending the gospel against unbelievers, the gospel, not secular matters. The point is, disputes between believers ought to be settled among believers and not in such away that would discredit believers in front of unbelievers. Here, it's any dispute since Paul doesn't qualify other than to call the disputes trivial. If a brother moves a fenceline and is adamant than, yes, rather than bringing him to court, despite how right you are, you should rather be wronged according to Paul. That's pretty clear. Of course reconciliation should be sought, there should be ones among the brothers who can settle such disputes. When a non believer makes accusations we have two possibilities, Christ's turn the other cheek or Paul's appeal to Caesar. I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I am sure Paul's decision came after a lot of pray throughout the whole time he had been in prison.
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ABF,
Yes, I use analogous examples to tamper the emotion and yet still address the underlying principles, hence the property line. I could have used a church property line for more relevance. In any case, Ray's position is that Christians cannot take civil action in court against another Christian under any circumstance, secular or not and that to move a property line constitutes the perpetrator a liar and not a Christian. As if Christians do not or cannot lie.
And you are correct about turning the other cheek for when our Lord was being abused he did not qualify his response, rather he just turned the other cheek. Also agree with
ZNP, that it is a shame and that it will be finally settled at the judgment seat of Christ. It is better not to engage in civil action and better to try to work things outside the court system between believers or for that matter even with unbelievers.
Bringing this back to Duddy, he should never have written such a slanderous and libelous book and should have retracted it without objection. There is an abundance of Scripture on the topic of bearing false witness against another and one does not have to search to hard to find it.