A Time For War: A Review of Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence by Preston Sprinkle, Part Four

If you’ve read my TAWG Blog, then you might know that one of my favorite all-time characters in the Old Testament is David. Of course, he was a sinner like us, but there’s so much in his life that I look to emulate in my walk with Christ. There’s a reason why when blind men called out to Jesus, they utilized the Messianic title “Son of David,” and he accepted the title with no qualification.

Dr. Sprinkle seems to take a much dimmer view of David’s closeness to the Lord than I do, and this is another area in which we part ways. Here’s how he describes David’s later conquests after he becomes king:

But something changes with David, though it’s more delayed and subtle that with Saul. Power breeds violence, which breeds more violence and more power. As David continues to wage war against his enemies, the slowly—like Saul—becomes a “me-centered” warrior-king. In later battles with the Philistines, instead of God striking down David’s enemies (2 Sam. 5:24), it’s now “David” who “defeated the Philistines and subdued them” (8:1). In fact, 2 Samuel 8’s summary of David’s wars is “a delicate balance between human aggression and divine blessing.” God is mentioned only two times in the chapter.”

            Here’s the note I made while reading this: “Um, yeah, the Lord’s name is mentioned twice in the chapter. In both verses 6 and in 14, it says ‘The Lord gave David victory wherever he went.’ How exactly does this comport with your characterization of David’s actions in this chapter? It’s not a ‘delicate balance between human aggression and divine blessing’ at all. How do you interpret ‘The Lord gave David victory everywhere he went’ as being something besides a general approval of what he was doing?”

            You see what I was referring to earlier? He’s so anxious to put the square peg of a distaste for violence into the round hole of what the Scripture’s saying that he skews it and reads into it things that aren’t there.

            Now, before I say what I’m about to say, please don’t misinterpret me. When I say “probably for space limitations,” I’m not being sarcastic at all. In every non-fiction book on a controversial topic there’s always going to be material that’s not addressed, especially material which appears to refute your arguments. If anyone’s writing a book that’s trying to persuade people, obviously they’re not going to be able to address every possible argument out there. There’s always going to be folks (like me) who disagree and say “But what about this passage or argument?”

            Having said that, I think—probably for space limitations—that Sprinkle doesn’t address some potential counter-arguments in looking at David’s life. Conventional wisdom states that he was the greatest king ancient Israel ever had, and I heartily agree. He started from humble beginnings and rose through the ranks into the kingship without any innocent blood on his hands. And years after he died, here was the (inspired) general verdict of his administration: “David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.” Now, does that mean he never committed any sin except for what’s recorded in 2 Samuel 11? Of course not. But that’s the verdict that the inspired author of 1 Kings had over the general direction of David’s life, especially during his reign as king.

            Keep that in mind when you look at 1 Chronicles 11:10-47. The inspired author of 1 Chronicles takes most of a chapter to list by name David’s “mighty warriors.” These are an elite group who were the best of the best of the best. . . at killing people. They’re the (very) rough equivalent of Special Forces. They were his full-time special operations officers whom David could count on. They were not “volunteers” who were called from their farms when an enemy invaded. They were full-time professional soldiers. Do you get the impression from that chapter at all that the Holy-Spirit-inspired author of the chapter disapproves of this? Really?

            Contra Sprinkle, I don’t see from Scripture any indication that the Lord disapproved of Israel having a standing, professional, full-time army in and of itself.  Now, later on, David obviously messed up when he ordered Joab to number the fighting men. From what we gather, this was a case of the king giving in to the temptation of trusting in human sources of security rather than the Lord.   

            Also, there’s something else Sprinkle fails to address. Early on in the narratives about him, while Saul was manically pursuing him, David apparently made it a standard practice to consult the Lord for guidance regularly. And if the Lord told him to do something, he did it. Apparently he continued this practice into his administration as king: When he had it in his heart to build a temple for the Lord, he consulted Nathan, a true prophet. And Nathan, unlike the common court “prophets,” most emphatically told David what he needed to hear from the Lord, not what the king wanted to hear, and David listened. He had absolutely no problem telling the king he was wrong. The most famous example of this, of course, was when Nathan accused David of adultery and murder to his face.

            Now in fairness, I’m arguing from silence here. But I have to point out to Sprinkle and those who agree with him that there’s absolutely no record of Nathan or any other true prophet condemning David at all for any of his conquests. The only possible passage I could find as an exception was the aforementioned story of David’s plan to build the temple. In the Chronicles version of it, David recalls “[This] word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign.” Sprinkle interprets this as a condemnation of David’s later conquests, but based on the rest of Scripture’s general approval of his reign (which we’ve recounted in this posting), I have a different interpretation: David was a man of war, and although the Lord (generally) approved what he was doing, he (the Lord) wanted a man of peace to build the house. If it is a condemnation of his war practices, it’s a pretty mild one. To read that one verse as a harsh condemnation of David’s war practices is to ignore what the rest of the Bible says about him.

            One of my favorite verses from the Psalms is “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” The man who wrote that was David. But he had no problem with having a standing army, complete with professionally trained full-time elite soldiers. But he didn’t put his trust in those. Did he find that balance all the time? No.  As we mentioned in a prior paragraph, there’s the story of how David gave into the temptation of putting his trust in how big his fighting force was instead of the Lord.

            Here’s Sprinkle’s summary of David’s later campaigns: “God used David to further his purposes, but setting David's militarism as an example for the ages was never God's intention.” I agree. We shouldn’t be looking to David as an example for us to follow in that regard. But I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a wonderful example of being able to use human means of security without putting our ultimate trust in them. At his best, David did this.
            I have to be brutally frank here. I think that if 99% of the believers in the world claimed to be as holy and righteous in their personal lives as David was in most of his, they'd be making a pretty arrogant claim. I certainly don't claim that, and in continuing in my brutal frankness, I'd guess that Dr. Sprinkle couldn't claim that either. I'll say the same thing about David that I've said about Job: If I knew that the Lord spoke about me the same way he spoke about David, I'd be thrilled. 

            Once again, I want to reiterate that I probably agree with about 90% of Sprinkle’s interpretation. Human sources of security (like money or an army or human intellect) are dangerous blessings, but unless the Lord specifically tells us not to use X, and the Lord’s given it to me, then I’m going to use X—all the while putting myself under the accountability of the Holy Spirit, asking him to point out any areas in which I’m putting my trust in anything besides him.

            But according to Sprinkle, in light of the New Testament, particularly the teachings of Jesus, the Lord is forbidding us from utilizing physical force at all. God’s telling us not to join the army, not to become police officers if we might have to kill someone, and not to use violence in any way to defend ourselves. And that’s the subject of the next posting.