The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-5, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question 

“How far are we supposed to go, as Christians, to protect ourselves, and our family, and our homes from intruders and such?”

 Answer

How far are we to go, as Christians, in protecting our family?  Well, personally I believe that we are given the responsibility to protect our families.  If you just look at Ephesians it is an obvious thing that one of  the things that the Lord has given in terms of instruction to a husband--in Ephesians 5, it says, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it."  The parallel here is between Christ's actual self-giving and the husband's actual self-giving for the sake of the wife.  Christ gave His life for us; the parallel says that if need be we would actually give our lives in the behalf of our family.

Now having said that, let me add that I don't think it is necessary initially to, first of all, give our lives--to say, "Well, here I am.  Shoot me and take all the money."  I think that there is an obvious factor of self-defense.  I think that God has built into us self-defense mechanisms; I mean, our eyes blink when something comes at us; I mean, it's just part of the human mechanism.  I don't see any limitation on the matter of self-defense at all.  I think that we are given the responsibility to love and protect, and it goes on in that passage to talk about being the savior, the husband being the savior of the wife; to nourish and cherish.  Not only to feed, but to insulate with warmth and protection (that word "cherish" means), and I am sure that we would include in that the encompassing of the children as well. 

So I feel that you have every right to protect, in a defensive mode, your children, just as I think that you have the right to defend yourself against any evil aggressor.  It is the same question that you would have to ask on a wider level politically, "Should a Christian go to war?"  Well, the answer is, to defend those who are under attack from an evil aggressor--yes; to be part of the army of the evil aggressor--no.  In Romans 13, which would probably be a related passage, Paul mentions that the police or soldiers "do not bear the sword in vain," and it says there, "they are ministers of God to be for good. . . .they are avengers to execute wrath on those that do evil." 

Now, you don't bear a sword to slap people in the knuckles, you bear a sword to chop their heads off; so the text there indicates to me that there are times, in the protection of the good against the evil aggressor, that the sword is in the hand given by God. 

I believe that in the sense of protecting my own home, if it came to someone taking the life of the people in my house, I think that I have an obligation to protect them on the behalf of good and what is righteous and just against that evil aggressor.  Now how you practically implement that. . . .   I think that I told the story about the guy who came with a butcher knife to our house and wanted to take Melinda.  And the only thing I could find was a 34" baseball bat, and I simply said to him through the door, "If you come in the door you will find your head in Encino."  I think that was a sort of a spiritual statement at that particular juncture, because there was no way he was going to come in with a butcher knife against my daughter.  I feel that I have a God-given obligation.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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