“Live at peace with everyone, do not take revenge” was the entreaty that Apostle Paul made to Christians 2,000 years ago. It’s the same plea that evangelical pastor Alistair Begg made to the church on Sunday.

“Ask yourself this question, whether in all honesty, we can say that the picture of whatever is evangelical Christianity in the public arena is a picture of people who apparently are taking seriously the phrase ‘loved ones, never avenge yourselves,'” said Begg, senior pastor of Parkside Church in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

“Essential Christianity” is the name of the Scotland native’s new message series. Though he did not specify to the congregation what prompted the message on revenge on Sunday, he expressed several times his disappointment with Christians involved in litigation and how they handle themselves in court.

He mentioned that a local mediator in the Cleveland law courts told him that the worst cases she has dealt with involved Christian pastors.

It’s not easy, he admitted, to heed Paul’s plea (as revealed in Romans 12).

In fact, Begg believes not taking revenge and being at peace with everyone “is one of the hardest things in the whole of Christian living because it is completely antithetical to the way in which things work.”

“The natural instinct of men and women is retributive,” he said.

Yet the Bible is so clear on this matter and Paul is so straightforward in his statement that it’s impossible to misunderstand, the senior pastor underscored.

“If this is simply a call to moralism, it’s beyond our ability to cope with,” Begg noted. “We are aware of the fact that we cannot do this. We neither have the desire nor the will to do it.”
Essentially, this is a call to radically different thinking.

And that’s what Christianity is about, he pointed out.

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