November 6 - Commandments #6- “To Kill Or Not To Kill”

Commandments #6- “To Kill Or Not To Kill”

“You shall not murder.” Exodus 20:13

There is something about the Ten Commandments that creates a natural evaluation or litmus test about how I am doing in my relationship with God.
There are some commandments that we feel we might violate at various levels (though we too often give ourselves the benefit of the doubt).  Some we violate frequently such as putting god’s before God and coveting.  Others we violate occasionally through using the wrong language, stealing or lying.  But the Sixth Commandment on Murder is one that most of us can feel a little pious or pompous…because of course, if there is one I have kept, it is that one.
After all, I’m not serving  a 10 years to life sentence and have pretty much averted it.  However, before we break our arms patting ourselves on the back,
we want to look a little closer because all of us are more vulnerable than
we think in this area.  There is something within our human nature, though most will never commit murder, to become conditioned to murder and killing. 

But you may not realize how much violence has been programmed into
you.   Did you know that by the time the average child reaches the 6th
grade, he has already witnessed over 8,000 murders on television and
movies? We begin to see people and lives as dispensable.  He has watched over 100,000 acts of violence on TV. In America every 22 minutes someone is shot, stabbed, beaten or strangled to death. The evening news televises murder on almost a nightly basis including school massacres where students shoot fellow students.  High-rated television shows such as CSI and others are in abundance.  The cultural statistics are staggering.  We have the highest homicide rate in the world.  More children die from violence than they do from sickness.  At the same time, video games have an inordinate amount of death.  It is not uncommon that families or loved ones we know have faced it.  In fact, today, most violent crimes and most murders occur between family members.

We experience it so much that we can become desensitized to it.  At best, we are neutral to it.  Clarence Darrow, the famous attorney, once joked, "Everyone is a potential murderer. I have not killed anyone – but I frequently get satisfaction out of obituary notices." Only when we become passionate about life will we begin to sense God’s heart about this.  Suicide, abortion, homicide and more, all fall into this category. 

While Exodus 20:13 talks about murder, Jesus takes it up a notch in the New Testament.  He tells us rather than waiting for the bad fruit to occur, you better start looking at the root of the problem.  Murder almost never happens as a spontaneous act.  Most people usually have allowed something in their hearts that have led up to it.  It always involves “unchecked anger” in our hearts which
continues to grow.  Jesus was saying, “There is the letter of the law and the spirit
of the law…” You can easily fulfill the letter of the law while violating the spirit of it continually.  We have all been guilty of this.  In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says,  “I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder (Matt. 5:21-22)  He reminds us that words kill. Jesus, in this passage, equates anger with murder.  While most thought they were innocent of Commandment #6, Jesus simply tries us, indicts us, and convicts us all. 

Now there is such a thing as righteous indignation which we can experience, but Jesus is talking about something different. He is talking about anger that gets the best of us.  It is anger that begins to “singe our very souls” and creates a spiritual cancer that leads us down a wrong path.  We need to recognize the root of the problem.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian wrote in his classic
book, The Cost Of Discipleship,  “The angry word is a blow struck at our brother, a stab at his heart: it seeks to hit, to hurt and to destroy.”

Leonardo Da Vinci once had a terrible falling out with a fellow artist just before he began work on the "Last Supper." He determined to paint his enemy as Judas. It was a perfect likeness.  But last of all, he set to work painting the likeness of Jesus.  No matter how he tried, nothing seemed to please him. Finally, he realized that he could not paint the portrait of Jesus as long as his enemy had been painted into Judas’s place. Once that was corrected, then the face of Jesus came easily. Neither can we paint the face of Jesus in our lives as long as we hold bitterness in our hearts. Anger indeed!

Whether out of control anger, vehement hatred, killing people’s reputation, passive pleasure at someone else’s pain, or actual murder, we are all vulnerable and guilty as charged.  Maybe most importantly, we forget how absolutely passionate God is against things that bring death and just as passionate about things that bring life.  Whether or not you will ever commit actual murder or not isn’t so much the issue as much as God wants us to understand that we become life givers in every way.   He is the “Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  He has given us life and we are to be light givers in a dark world.  He wants us to be life-giving agents through our words, heart meditations and actions.   When we do, we represent the heart of God.  

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)   Have you ever committed murder in your heart?

2)   How does God want to cleanse this area in your life?

Consider reading the Word:

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser