Non-retaliation and the Christian

Practicing peace is therefore a form of bearing witness to the gospel in the most difficult circumstances, the expression of the teaching and example of both Jesus and Paul to refrain from retaliation and to love one’s enemies. By obeying and imitating both their apostle and their Lord in this regard, believers would become a living exegesis of the gospel of peace. Such peaceful relations with outsiders would include the rejection of violence toward them, apparently even in self-defense, for as Richard Hays has put it, “There is not a syllable in the Pauline letters that can be cited in support of Christians employing violence.” Non-retaliation, for Paul, is not an option for peacemakers in Christ; rather, it is the way of Christ.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 190