Pastor's Blog

Some of the most widely neglected sections of the Bible—sections often skipped over by those who begin the new year with a good resolve to read the Bible through—are sections that contain case law ( e.g., Ex. 21-23). These are sections designed for use by the judges of Israel to guide them in rendering just judgments in the cases that come before them. The laws seem irrelevant to many modern readers because they were given in the ancient world to a people living an agrarian lifestyle and having customs very different from our own. But a careful reading of these laws, with an understanding of their historical and cultural contexts, will amply repay the effort by revealing basic principles of justice and imparting wisdom for daily life (Deut. 4:6; Ps. 119:98; Prov. 28:5). In a previous post we examined the not so prudent jurisprudence of Islamic law regarding theft in light of the prudent jurisprudence of biblical case law. A recent story in the news caught my eye today that furth...

A post I wrote a couple of years ago, The Ethics of Killing in Self-Defense , received some renewed attention this past week. Judging by some feedback I’ve received, I thought it might be helpful to set the discussion into a larger context, The Ethics of Killing in general, you might say. Homicide The sixth commandment safeguards human life with the prohibition, “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13). It should be pointed out, however, that the verb in the commandment (Heb., ratsach ) is more general in meaning than “murder.” Kill is the single word that perhaps best captures its meaning. It indicates a range of actions from murder, to causing death by negligence or reckless behavior. The word which is used in modern jurisprudence is homicide, derived from the Latin homō , meaning man, human being , and the suffix -cide, which indicates an act of killing . Thus the term refers to the killing of a human being. [1] Homicide is a neutral term. Any killing of a human being, whet...