One piece of biblical evidence frequently cited to justify violence is Jesus’s and his followers’ encounters with soldiers. The argument goes like this: because they interacted with soldiers in a friendly, sometimes even complimentary manner without condemning their occupation or instructing them to quit the military, they implicitly condoned soldiering, war, or militarism. Here are the three primary passages cited in connection to this claim:
John the Baptist’s Encounter
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:10-14)
Jesus’s Encounter
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment. (Matt. 8:5-13)1
Luke’s Encounter
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. (Acts 10:1-2)
For numerous reasons, these passages do not justify any Christian use of, or participation in, violence. To begin with, none of them say anything positive about soldiering. Neither John nor Jesus nor Luke complimented the soldiers’ profession or professional behavior in any way, shape, or form. Instead, Jesus praised the centurion’s faith and Luke his devotion to God, his fear of God, his charity, and his habitual prayer to God. In doing so, they both praised wholly nonviolent attributes, ones that have nothing to do with soldiering.
In fact, neither Jesus nor Luke said anything, good or bad, about the centurions’ profession or professional conduct. Both merely identified the person as a soldier and stopped there. They didn’t turn his profession into a topic of discussion or use the encounter as an opportunity to debate the ethical merits of serving as a member of an occupying military force.
John the Baptist, on the other hand, praised nothing about the soldiers but condemned two of their professional practices, both of which were violent. He instructed them to not extort money and to not dispense false accusations. Note that he didn’t tell them to use violence for good, to extort money to give to the poor. So yes, maybe John didn’t condemn all violence or tell them to leave the military when he had the chance, but he did condemn two specific violent behaviors, ones that might have made it practically impossible for them to continue being soldiers had they followed his advice. And maybe it did. Maybe they obeyed him and doing so caused them to quit. The Bible doesn’t say.
Also bear in mind that John’s encounter with the soldiers occurred prior to Jesus’s public ministry, so the full extent of Jesus’s nonviolent message had not yet been revealed. John knew almost nothing of Christian ethics. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t issue a more blanket condemnation of all violence. Or maybe he didn’t do so because the two soldiers he was talking to were of the less violent type. Maybe they carried weapons but performed more of a police function, only ever using force to restrain local lawbreakers. The passage doesn’t tell us much about them. If anything, the nature of John’s comments suggests they may have been more like modern-day police officers than modern-day soldiers. Typically police officers, not soldiers, accuse people of crimes. Typically police officers, not soldiers, enforce taxes and therefore have the opportunity to extort.
It’s also worth noting that a few English translations interpret John’s words in this passage as a condemnation of all violence. For example, the King James Bible, Webster’s Bible Translation, and the English Revised Version all translate John as saying, “Do violence to no man.” Similarly, Young’s Literal Translation says “Do violence to no one.”
Of course, Jesus, John, and Luke all wanted the soldiers they encountered to cease all of their sinning in every area of their lives, but condemning their shortcomings wasn’t the point of the interactions. Jesus and Luke condemned nothing, and John only condemned two behaviors because the soldiers asked him to. Surely Jesus and Luke didn’t intend for their lack of condemnation to imply that the soldiers were sinless or to be read as endorsing everything the soldiers did. Surely John wasn’t providing a comprehensive list of everything the soldiers needed to change to achieve perfect righteousness. It is well known that part of an ancient Roman soldier’s normal duties included taking part in various pagan ceremonies and other idolatrous practices, but Jesus, John, and Luke never condemned the soldiers for that.2 Surely their silence as to all the other sinful behaviors the soldiers regularly engaged in, whether personal or professional, wasn’t an endorsement of those behaviors. So why do we think it was an endorsement of violence?
Likewise, Jesus interacted with many other sinners in a similar manner, but we don’t interpret those encounters as endorsing their lifestyles, behaviors, or professions. For example, when a known sinner washed Jesus’s feet with her hair, the Pharisees rebuked her while Jesus welcomed her and complimented her faith, all without condemning her.3 Jesus interacted with a Samaritan woman who had been divorced five times and was living with a man who was not her husband, but he didn’t condemn her for those things.4 Jesus told the temple priests that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt. 21:31). Jesus invited a violent zealot named Simon to be one of his twelve disciples, a member of his inner circle and one of the few who would represent him to the wider world after his death, but there’s no evidence Jesus first made it known what he thought about Simon’s profession. And as far as we know, Jesus never even condemned the soldiers who crucified him.5 “In fact, with the exception of the Jewish leaders of his day,” notes Boyd, “Jesus never pointed out the things that he did not condone in other people’s lives.”6
So should we conclude that Jesus endorsed sexual promiscuity, serial divorce, tax exploitation, prostitution, violent religious zealotry, and the crucifixion of innocent people? Obviously not. If Luke had identified Cornelius as a member of a well-known band of thieves instead of as a centurion in the Italian Regiment, no one would suggest he had endorsed organized crime. But if we applied the same method of interpretation as those who believe the soldier encounters endorse violence, we would have to.
Put yourself in Jesus’s sandals for a moment. Have you ever been friendly to and complimentary of a known sinner without condemning their well-known sin? Ever spoken an encouraging word to someone you knew had just been caught committing adultery or someone who was engaged in a publicly visible struggle with another sin? By not condemning their known sin, did you intend to endorse it?7
Jesus’s welcoming, encouraging, and loving posture toward all types of sinners was not an endorsement of any sinner’s immoral behavior or profession. Instead, it was a demonstration of how to love others, even enemies. Roman soldiers were, after all, a prominent adversary of the Jewish people.
By praising the soldiers’ positive attributes and not condemning their negative ones (unless asked to do so), Jesus, John, and Luke were also practicing effective evangelism. Remember, they were welcoming and encouraging potential converts, not engaging veteran believers in nuanced ethical discussions. The two call for different approaches. Searching and seeking must be fostered with compliments, not discouraged with rebukes. Wise evangelism finds common ground, praises it, and establishes a loving relationship before it broaches the subject of condemnable conduct. It meets people where they are and focuses on the fundamentals, like faith, which lay the foundation for behavioral change. Condemning someone first only turns them off, makes them defensive, and further alienates them.
Jesus’s approach to evangelism was a key difference between him and the Pharisees. While the Pharisees unhesitatingly condemned strangers for their sinful lifestyles, Jesus went out of his way not to. The Pharisees rejected people until they cleaned up their act, but Jesus welcomed them as they were, broken and imperfect. Jesus didn’t reserve his love for those who appeared to have their act together. That’s why the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners were drawn to him and why he spent so much time with them. On more than one occasion, the Pharisees condemned Jesus for how frequently and non-judgmentally he interacted with such sinners, even going so far as accusing him of gluttony and drunkenness.8
Simply put, we should view Jesus’s refusal to condemn the soldiers’ profession as good evangelism, not as endorsing violence. He refrained from condemning it not because he approved of it but because he knew condemnation would have been counterproductive at that stage in the soldier’s faith journey.
This whole situation is ironic. We all recognize that the Pharisees were wrong to accuse Jesus of endorsing things like prostitution, drunkenness, gluttony, and exploitative taxation just because he welcomed, encouraged, and mingled with such people without condemning their sinful behaviors and lifestyles. But those who interpret Jesus, John, and Luke as endorsing violence, soldiering, or militarism because they praised the faith of a soldier without condemning his sinful behavior or lifestyle are making the same mistake. Like the Pharisees, they are erroneously associating Jesus and his disciples with the sinful behaviors of the fallen, broken, searching individuals they embraced and nurtured.
Indeed, one purpose of these soldier encounters was to condemn the Pharisaical way of viewing the world and do what Jesus did on so many occasions: turn commonly accepted power dynamics and prejudices upside down. Jesus was proclaiming that the gospel doesn’t discriminate, that it welcomes all, that no one is unredeemable, and that it can reach and change even the unlikeliest types of people—even soldiers. Jesus had made that same point regarding tax collectors and prostitutes when he told the religious leaders in the temple that such people were entering the kingdom of God ahead of them.9 Now he was making the point with another despised group: Roman occupiers.
Notice whom Jesus was directly addressing when he praised the centurion’s faith. It wasn’t the centurion—it was the crowd of Israelites following him. He turned to them and said, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” Then he informed the crowd that many of the people they think are not a part of God’s kingdom, are, and many who think they are, aren’t. Jesus was juxtaposing the faith of “outsiders” against the faith of the self-proclaimed “insiders.” He was putting the self-righteous Israelites in their place and condemning their prejudices. He was breaking down the antiquated religious barriers between Jews and Gentiles. In other words, he identified the centurion as a soldier to establish him as a despised outsider, not to praise soldiering or endorse violence.
One more quick observation. This one is about correct argumentation: To conclude that Jesus’s silence about the soldier’s profession was an endorsement of violence is to make an argument from silence. It is to deduce a conclusion from what isn’t said, to interpret his silence as something more than mere silence, as a message.
Arguments from silence are risky business. More often than not, they are fallacious. So often, in fact, there’s an official logical fallacy called the Argument from Silence Fallacy.
To be legitimate, an argument from silence must be supported by overwhelming contextual evidence. The surrounding circumstances must strongly suggest that the silence is saying something. For example, when a politician who is known for his transparent honesty, no matter the cost, and for aggressively denying all false accusations, is unexpectedly asked during a press conference whether he’s had an affair and he responds by frowning, shamefully lowering his head, and somberly walking off stage without saying a word, it’s reasonable to conclude that his silence communicated an affirmative answer. Even then, however, such an interpretation is rebuttable if additional context can provide a better explanation for his silence. Maybe he hadn’t even heard the question because he was preoccupied with reading a text on his phone that was sitting on the podium, a distracting text informing him his child had just been involved in a serious car wreck.
Without overwhelming contextual evidence, an argument from silence can justify anything, as Andy Alexis-Baker explains:
Since Jesus did not rebuke Pilate for being a governor of an occupying force, he must have sanctioned the Roman occupation and their right to exploit weaker nations, and by extension all colonial and military expansions. Since he did not ask Zacchaeus to leave his job as a tax collector, he must have approved of Roman tax collection and their right to drain resources from an area to the wealthy elite in Rome. Since Jesus did not admonish Pilate for murdering some Galileans in the midst of their sacrifices (Luke 13:3), he sanctioned police brutality and severe repressive measures. Since Jesus did not tell the judges at his own trial that they were wrong for their irregular court proceedings, he sanctions kangaroo courts and dictatorships today. Since Jesus did not reprove the centurion for owning slaves, he therefore condones slavery, even today. These arguments from silence can make Jesus to be the advocate of whatever we want.… The point is that we have to base our analysis of this text on what Jesus says to the centurion, on the entire narrative that Matthew weaves, and even more broadly, on the picture that the New Testament paints of Jesus in regard to nonviolence.10
In our situation, there’s no contextual evidence to support an endorsement of soldiering, violence, or militarism. Nothing else Jesus, John, or Luke said or did in the immediate context or throughout the rest of the New Testament suggests that they were endorsing or ever had endorsed such things.
On the contrary, when we look at the broader context, as I did at length in my book Jesus the Pacifist: A Concise Guide to His Radical Nonviolence, the evidence suggests a contradictory conclusion: Jesus and his disciples not only didn’t endorse violence, but they actually condemned it. For that matter, if there’s a valid argument from silence to be made here, it’s that Jesus’s silence regarding the soldier’s profession was a condemnation of it, not an endorsement. Jesus entered the encounter with an antiviolence reputation. Had he wanted to amend his reputation into something less than complete antiviolence, this was the perfect opportunity. That he chose not to compliment the soldier’s profession in an otherwise friendly and complimentary encounter implies that he didn’t approve of it. That he didn’t seize this easy opportunity to qualify his total pacifism is further evidence of his total pacifism.
Here’s another way to look at the self-defeating nature of an argument from silence in this situation. No one argues that Jesus’s, John’s, or Luke’s silence endorsed all types of soldiering, violence, and war. Even those who suggest they generally endorsed soldiering as a profession don’t claim they endorsed all types of soldiering, like participation in genocidal conquest. So here’s the problem: the only way to know where to draw the line between the types of soldiering their silence endorsed and the types it didn’t endorse is to bring context into our analysis. And when we look at the context in this situation, we are forced to conclude that their silence wasn’t an endorsement at all.
Lasserre made this same point from a slightly different angle. Given that the centurion was a soldier in an occupying force, he asked how someone can justify maintaining a defensive army if they conclude that Jesus’s silence endorsed the centurion’s profession:
Those who make so much play with these four “silences,” and deduce therefrom that the profession of arms is legitimate, do not seem so keen to deduce that the military occupation of a foreign country is legitimate (seeing that these soldiers had come to Palestine as troops of the occupation). If it is legitimate, why do we need a (defensive) army? The justification of military service is destroyed at its roots. And if not, why do they refuse this second deduction, having accepted the first?11
Unfortunately, even some of the most prominent theologians to ever live (e.g., Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther) fell victim to the Argument from Silence Fallacy in their interpretations of these soldier encounters. Nonetheless, the encounters do not justify violence. Jesus didn’t endorse everything he didn’t condemn. He endorsed only what he said he endorsed: faith. Concluding otherwise is a classic case of reading too much of our own fallen agenda into a situation where it doesn’t belong.
There are a dozen lessons to be learned from the soldier encounters, but the compatibility of soldiering and violence with the way of Jesus is not one of them.
Footnotes:
See also Luke 7:1-10.
Similarly, it is also well known that the Romans used tax revenue to fund much injustice (like the gladiator games in which Christians were slaughtered and the operation of blatantly idolatrous, cultic temples), but instead of telling the tax collectors to stop collecting taxes, John only instructed them to not collect more than was required, so should we conclude that he endorsed such injustices?
Luke 7:36-50.
John 4:7-26.
Matt. 27:26-35.
Gregory A. Boyd, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross, Volumes 1 & 2 (Fortress Press, 2017), 13244, Kindle.
It might help to place these encounters in a more relatable, less emotionally charged context. Pretend you’ve got a pacifistic friend named Frank. One day you are walking through the mall with Frank and you run into Barry, a friend of yours who is a soldier wearing his uniform. You engage in a minute of small chat and then introduce him to Frank. They also chat for a bit, during which Barry reveals he just celebrated twenty years of marriage with his first and only wife. Frank congratulates Barry and then turns to you and says, “Boy, I wish more of my friends were as committed to their wives as Barry is to his. Most of them have already been divorced two or three times.” Did Frank endorse Barry’s profession or the use of violence? Was Frank’s refusal to go out of his way to condemn the profession of a guy he’d just met an implicit approval of it?
Luke 5:29-31; 7:33-34; 15:1-4; 19:1-10; Mark 2:15-17; Matt. 9:10-13; 11:18-19.
Matt. 21:31-32.
Andy Alexis-Baker, A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Nonviolence (The Peaceable Kingdom Series), ed. Tripp York and Justin Bronson Barringer (Cascade Books, 2012), 3658, Kindle.
Jean Lasserre, War and the Gospel, trans. Oliver Coburn (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998), 54.
This article is an excerpt from Jesus the Pacifist: A Concise Guide to His Radical Nonviolence.
