Friday, 25 May 2012
Do not kill... Are you sure?
I must say I'm a little confused with the journey readings at the moment. I mean so far this year we've read the 10 commandments saying do not murder yet all that David and his troops seem to be doing is murdering all the time!!! What's this about? Wasn't David supposed to be a man after God's heart?
A couple of things I thought about follow (and they are not by any means true - just thoughts)
Perhaps without Jesus there is death. Jesus obviously appears in human form in the new testament to bring life and truth and freedom from death. Our wrong doings upset God so much that they are punishable by death. Even if we are the nicest person ever we can still upset God by our thoughts, our words, our actions and so on. If you rarely do stuff wrong - awesome! Tell me how!!! If you get a lot wrong, it just means you get to experience grace more times over. A win win situation! We need a saviour to save us and give us life i.e. Jesus who took our punishment and died for us on the cross. (If you don't know the amazing life and freedom from death He offers - check it, out leave a comment or visit Watford Community Church's website - it's well worth it).
Secondly I started thinking, whilst 2 Timothy 3:16 talks about all scripture being God breathed and full of purpose, are we allowed to choose which scriptures we follow and which we don't? Are we allowed to place more importance on some than others for example those we deem to be 'cultural' such as women being silent in church? What do we think here? Has David done this here? Is he disobeying the ten commandments by killing? Why does God give him success in this?
Finally I loved Helen Roberts' talk on Sunday (check out the sermons on the Watford Community Church website to listen). She talked about the Bible working in harmony with the Holy Spirit. The Bible is quite confusing without the assistance of the Holy Spirit to open up our eyes to understand it and allow God to speak through it. Likewise we need scripture for guidance, spiritual grounding, truth and direction, therefore the Holy Spirit alone is not enough. So perhaps in this case it is worth taking my lack of understanding to God and asking His Spirit to assist me on this. You can do likewise with anything you're not sure of.
Anyways, what do you think about this?
Xxx
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I've been reading through the OT recently with a friend, and a similar thing has struck me - there's an awful lot of killing! I certainly don't have a clear answer, but maybe...
ReplyDelete- It's interesting that the word 'murder' is used, not 'kill'. I'm not sure of the degree to which a distinction is made in the original text - but I suspect that 'murder' is intended to convey selfish reasoning, whereas killing is just the action being done.
- If God has the power of life and death, is it wrong to mess with that? In killing or healing, do we deviate from God's plans - or are God's plans not that specific all the time?
I do also think that we have to be careful how we approach 'truth' in Scripture. If a rule or guide is given on a matter, it's given to a people, in a time and a place. Sometimes, what that rule is meant to convey hasn't changed, so it makes sense verbatim. But, there are times when the cultural context has changed, so we need to ask 'ok, so what does this look like now? What was God getting at with this?'. Take, for example, the various food laws. Make a lot of sense for a tribal nation in the desert 1000s of years ago; make a bit less sense now. What I take away from them is that God cares about what I put into my body and has a practical interest in my life - even down to my nutrition.
Sorry, that's a bit rambly. But hope it helps :)
Thanks Rob - again always a great outlook and many valuable points raised. :)
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