Recently on the social media platform known as “X”, Pope Leo XIV posted the following statement.

“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.”

The root of this statement is another in a long line of back and fourth between the Vatican and the U.S. over the military action in Iran.

Now I am not really interested in getting into a debate with the Pope. However, I am interested in this statement. Because the question of the hour is this, is it true that God does not bless conflict? Now ultimately what I think the Pope getting at is that Christians are to be a people of peace. That is true and supported by the Bible. I agree with the Pope from that perspective. If the Pope had something in lines of this in mind when he wrote it, then I think that he would have a better ground. But as it is, he said that God does not bless conflict.

The problem is that we have examples of God in fact blessing conflict and commanding his people to wield the sword. The mere fact that God sent the people of Israel into the promised land to conquer it and put everyone one to the sword seems to suggest otherwise. We see in the conquest of Northern Canaan the following account in Joshua 11:14–15

[14] And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the people of Israel took for their plunder. But every person they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed. [15] Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses. (ESV)

Or as we see in Deuteronomy 20:16–18

[16] But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, [17] but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, [18] that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God. (ESV)

They were commanded by God to take this action and by command, it was by default “blessed by God.” In Numbers 21:1–3 we have an example of the people of God that is the nation of Israel calling out to God for help in dealing with the Canaanites and God Blessing them by giving them over into their hands. That is to give them the victory.

[1] When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. [2] And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD and said, “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.” [3] And the LORD heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah. (ESV)

Fast forward to the new testament and in John 2:13–17, we see that Christ has a righteous anger for how the temple was being treated and how the worship of God was turned into a business transaction.

[13] The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [14] In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. [15] And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. [16] And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” [17] His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (ESV)

One could make a pretty sound argument that this is conflict. It certainly challenged the religious leadership and the methodology of worship at the temple. It was part of a conflict that would lead the religious leaders to decide that instead of hearing the call to holiness and obedience to God, they decided to kill the one whom God sent. That being Jesus Christ.

The preacher in Ecclesiastes reminds us that for everything in this world, there is a time and place. Ecclesiastes 3:8

[8] a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. (ESV)

This would include war (e.g conflict) and peace. So from one end of the Bible to the other, we see that conflict while it should be avoided if it can be, because we are a people of Peace can be blessed by God. Standing up for the unborn is going to cause conflict with those who align with death and abortion. Standing up for girls and women’s right to not have men in their private spaces will cause conflict. Testifying that Christ is the only means and way to escape the wrath of God will cause conflict. But in any of these cases, do we think that God would frown upon or support any of these stances? No I not not think so, because his word supports, guides and commands his people in these and many other matters that conflict with his truth.

Now, we do need to be very clear that this is not a license to take vengeance or to be violent in an unwarranted or unjust manor. We cannot take the law into our hand and we cannot take matters into our own hands. Time and time again, we are reminded that we are to leave the final judgment to God. See Deuteronomy 32:35, Romans 12:19, and Hebrews 10:30 for just a few examples.

Likewise, we are not to go to war for our purposes and desires. Warfare it the one thing that we should do when all other options have been expended. If we look at Matthew 18 and what to do if a fellow believer has sins, it is not instantly going to the Church to bring the hammer down on the matter. Instead, it is a series of step to allow for repentance and restoration of each party to each other before God. But if all these fail, then go to the Church. Warfare should be no different. It should be the last option used when all other options have failed.

But there is one other aspect to this that we must address and that is standing on the truth of God will cause enmity with the world. In other words, when we stand with God, there will be conflict with the world. James summarized this succinctly in James 4:4

[4] You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (ESV)

Christ himself said that the world will hate us because of him. We see this in John 15:18–19

[18] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (ESV)

We are going to have conflict and to say the Lord will not “bless it” is foolish because if we are to stand on the truth of God, there will be conflict and in his light, there is good and evil. Evil can never be tolerated and must be stood against in all forms, even if it means conflict. Acts 5:29–30

[29] But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. (ESV)