Do We Have a Duty to Resist Evil?

Deuteronomy 22:23-27(NKJV)

23“If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, 

24then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you.  

25“But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 

26But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. 

27For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

I'm a big believer in the 2nd Amendment to the constitution.  Therefor I carry a gun everyday.  Years ago I did a presentation at the church we used to attend about self defense and firearms.  One of the gentleman in the discussion asked my opinion of this scenario.  If he and the bad guy were both armed, did he have a duty to shoot the bad guy and stop him or could he "display the love of Christ" and simply let the bad guy shoot him without defending himself.  If the bad guy then went next door and shot this guys neighbor, did the first guy bear some responsibility for the death of the second guy?

My answer was yes although I couldn't really come up with any Scripture to back that up.   Well let's look at what this Scripture says.  In the first case the woman is stoned to death just like the guy because she didn't cry out, she didn't resist evil.  Living in the city, if she had only cried out there were others around that could have come to her rescue.

In the second example the woman lives out in the country and if she is raped whether she cries out or not doesn't matter because there is no one around to help save her.  As the verse puts it "there is in the young woman no sin deserving death".

And now I think I have a Scriptural answer to the question the man asked.  The way I see it, this verse is saying that when she was in the city and had the ability to resist evil and didn't do it, it was a sin! 

Just another great example of how cool studying God's Word is.  The presentation at church that I referenced happened around 15 years ago.  Through the diligent study of God's Word, He provided that insight to me today.  God will reveal to us what we need to know when we need to know it.

The main thing that God has revealed to us is His son Jesus Christ.  Have you accepted Jesus yet?  Why not do it today?  Just say "Dear Jesus…." !