Our new President has been tweeting for a while, and a few years ago he posted something for the world that continues to be born out in his behavior.

When someone attacks me, I always attack back…except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life! (November 11, 2012)

He didn’t say when someone attacks my people, or my family, or even my friends, but just “me” (even though he did post it on an anniversary of 9/11). He doesn’t say that he defends himself, but that he “always attack(s).” He goes even further by multiplying the attack, “100x more.” It’s not occasional, or even frequent, but a personal manifesto for his “way of life.”

I make these distinctions because defending our loved ones, our neighbors, the helpless, is appropriate. There are times when self-defense is allowable. But as Christians we’ve learned a different way of life. If Peter had been a tweeter he might have posted this:

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. (1 Peter 2:21–24)

This is why Christians get our worldview, our way to walk, starting in our worship. As we step to the Table of remembrance, set with bread and wine representing the One who was attacked for sake of our salvation, we’re learning to follow one set of steps and not another.