Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, July 22, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I’m no fan of military, imperialist terminology. The idea of conquering something feels inherently violent to me—taking away something else’s autonomy in favor of my own will. Particularly in a context like this where the writer is saying that a particular ideology needs to stamp out all others. In our current, painfully polarized culture and political context, it sends up all sorts of red flags for me.
But I have to step back and look at it more objectively—it’s the only way to find the gospel message among the easily cherry-picked language of religious nationalism here.
The writer of 1 John has been talking about “the world” quite a bit up until now, and by it, they mean all those trappings of society that pull us away from God: obsession with self, pursuit of pleasures for their own sake to the exclusion of others needs, and the like. This “world” definitely needs conquering, that is, it needs a new set of guiding principles to replace the self-centered driving force behind our current way of being in the world.
This new set of guiding principles is the one lived by, in, and through Jesus: sacrificial love for God, neighbor, and self, for the flourishing of all creation. If we truly believe that Jesus is God’s embodiment of this kind of love, i.e. “the Son of God,” this becomes the foundation of a faith that such a transformation of individuals and society is possible, and that faith becomes the driving force behind our action to bring about a more just and peaceful world. This is something I can totally get behind!
How do I reconcile the gospel message of peace with military/violent idioms in the Bible?
