Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the First Century Church.

This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard.

Dr. Bernard is dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives.

In apostolic life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible

teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this episode.

Throughout world history, the threat of war and violence, of course, has always loomed on the horizon.

And earlier this year, we saw Russia invade Ukraine, and members of this audience have undoubtedly

heard the reports, seen the photos of the resulting death, the destruction, and our hearts

certainly go out to the victims of that conflict.

As Christians, we seem to face a perpetual conundrum. The world is full of war and violence,

and yet on the other hand, we have the teachings of Jesus in the sermon on the Mount where he made

statements like, resist not evil, or to him who strikes you on the one cheek,

offer the other also, and from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.

So does this mean, if we interpret Jesus' words literally here, does this mean Christians in

Ukraine and elsewhere? We're supposed to just roll over and let evil people destroy our homes,

kill our families and our neighbors and steal our stuff.

How should a Christian interpret this in a world that's filled with the types of things we've seen just this year? This is a difficult question, and it's difficult because we, as Pentecostals,

we feel like we're countercultural. We have a new citizenship, a heavenly citizenship. We have a new way of

life that's different from the life of the world. So for us to kill people is part of the old life,

is part of the sinful life, as part of the world, and we're withdrawn from the world. However,

we are still in the world and evil is still all around us. So if you look at the sermon on the

mount, you would get the idea that we, Jesus says, don't resist evil and don't and turn the other

...