DECALOGUE 2.0
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
part 7

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Do Not Kill

• Kill or Murder?
  • Ratsach – Translated as kill and murder
  • Numbers 35:27 – Kill and murder in English translations are the same word in Hebrew
• Is this absolute or generic?
  • How can we be consistent?
  • The law seems to forbid and condone killing

The Value of Life

• Only God can give life, only he can take it away
• Humans are the only creatures made in God’s image
• Killing ruins culture and community by making life disposable
• Genesis 9:6 – Image of God

Matters of Life and Death

1. War
2. Punishment
3. Abortion
4. Euthanasia

War

• What is it Good For? – Edwin Starr song
• Is there a “Just War?”
• Criteria for Just War:
  • Justice
  • Redemption
  • Civil Authority
• Neglect is lack of compassion

Capital Punishment

• The value of human life justifies the death penalty (Life for Life)
• The value of human life condemns the death penalty (dehumanizes society)
• Three approaches to capital punishment
  1. Capital punishment as humiliation and retribution [clearly unacceptable]
  2. Capital punishment as justice and deterrent [debatable]
  3. Capital punishment as legal maneuver (sentence of death but converted to life imprisonment) – [potentially meaningless]

Abortion

• This is not only a woman’s issue – If men will take responsibility for their sexual ethics then there would be fewer unwanted pregnancies.
• Discussion of abortion needs to respect the guilt and regret of those who have aborted a pregnancy
• Abortion is a medical procedure; respect of life is a spiritual, ethical, and political matter

Euthanasia

• It means “dying well.” – But it avoids discussion of what it means to live well in light of suffering.
• Kevorkian’s machine was auto-suicide – this is a euphemism
• What happens to our respect of life as a people?
  • The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitudes of the physicians. It started with the attitude, basic in the Euthanasia Movement, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in the category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans. - Testimony of a psychiatrist at the Nuremburg Tribunal explaining how the Nazi government was capable of atrocities.
• What is a life worthy to be lived?

J. John, Ten: Living the Ten Commandments in the 21st Century, was an important resource in the development of this lesson. His outlook focuses on the application of the Ten Commandments in the UK. It is interesting to apply his observations to the U.S.

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Evening Sermon, 11 November 2007

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