Eye for an Eye

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This statement, or something pretty close to it, is attributed to Gandhi. Most people solemnly nod and agree with this. But it seems to me this isn’t correct, at least as applied to the biblical principle.

The biblical principle is to limit retaliatory justice so as to not let things get out of hand. But more to the point, an eye for an eye, when taken biblically, does not result in the whole world going blind. It results in one eye for one eye. It would not necessitate the original offending party responding, and the second party again in kind, until everyone was blind. Justice is served in the eye-for-eye swap. It would be an act of injustice for the original offending party to again bring harm to the individual.

This is not to say that Jesus’ commentary on the issue is mistaken. Matthew 5:38-39 have Jesus discussing the great contrasts of the understanding of the day vs. the heart issues in the Sermon on the Mount. My only point for the day is sometimes conventional wisdom can arrive at similar points to Jesus but for bad reasons.

The Gospel and Evil in the World

Yesterday, I wrote about how I am not obligated to speak on every instance of evil that occurs. However, since I brought it up, and did condemn the actions that took place in Charlottesville, I wanted to add a little more. The Christian story—and the hope of the Gospel—has a lot to say in various areas that get varying levels of attention. We ought to speak on each of these kinds of issues.

First, there is the issue of abortion. Lost in much of the hectic day-to-day for many is the idea that a holocaust is taking place, something that represents modern-day slavery in terms of America’s moral shame: the killing of unborn babies. Children are precious in the sight of God (Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27, Luke 18:16, Matthew 18:6), and harming them by putting them to death is an atrocity that must be spoken out against.

Second, there is the issue of human trafficking. Much of human trafficking is done as indentured servitude, and quite a bit as sex slavery as well. Would-be immigrants are offered “jobs” for transport and shelter for not enough money to pay all the bills. In return, the traffickers “rescue” the people, and they are fundamentally forced to stay in these conditions. The Bible does have a bit to say on this form of servitude, and it wouldn’t be correct to say it condones it. On Israelite servanthood, the issue was about protecting both the lender (who was not to charge interest on his countrymen) and the borrower in the event he could not pay. Human trafficking fails to treat people as human beings made in the image of God (Gen. 1), and so ought to be opposed vigorously.

The third issue I would like to discuss is that of bigotry. Bigotry exists against various groups, and to varying degrees. Believing that one race is inferior to another, inherently, is a fundamental denial of the creation part of the human story. We are all made in the image of God, and we ought to seek racial reconciliation, peace, and justice for those who are oppressed. The Old Testament is replete with references to peace and justice, and how we treat the poor and oppressed tends to say a lot about us.

I don’t have all the answers on all of these things. I don’t know all of what we should do. I do know that I am constantly trying to learn; I want to be in an attitude of learning and prayer. May God use us to right these three major types of wrongs, by bringing the Gospel to the people in an intentional and contextual way, letting the transforming power of the Spirit work, and doing what we can in our communities today.

Bible Reading for Easter

Today, the day before Easter, perhaps reflect on these texts (it will probably take you 15-20 minutes to read): Matthew 27:1-2, 11-66; Mark 15:1-39; Luke 23:1-55; John 18:28-19:42.

Now reflect silently on what it would mean if you were one of the remaining eleven disciples. How would you feel? What would you think? What would you do next? How could God have allowed you to be so misled concerning the Messiah? Or did he?

After a few minutes of this, read the following: Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-9; Acts 1:6-11.

Ask yourself these questions:

1.     How would you feel as a disciple of Christ with all of these events in consideration?

2.     What attitudes will you cultivate as a result of reading and thinking about these passages?

3.     What will you do as a result of reading and thinking about these passages? What is one small step you can take even today?

Keeping the Seventh Commandment

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve written, and I apologize. The holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) as well as end of semester issues (for all of teaching, grading, and being a student) helped contribute to that. However, I’d like to pick back up where I left off: the series on the Ten Commandments. I am on the Seventh Commandment, which is “thou shalt not commit adultery.”

This commandment, like the sixth one, is in one way quite straightforward: don’t cheat on your wife, or take your neighbor’s wife. It is also considered to undergird the idea that sexual relations are made for the marital relationship. When this is considered, however, a few more applications open up. First, if the reason for the prohibition on extramarital sex is that God created sexual relationships to be an intimate act between a husband and wife, then we can see that engaging in sexual relationships outside of marriage (whether one is actually married or not) is abusing the gift that God gave. This is scandalous to the modern mind, since, for them, sex is something that exists as a tool to be used for pleasing oneself, and satisfying one’s own desires. Hence, inasmuch as society allows, or as much as they can get away with it, or as much as they can overcome their own consciences, sex is something to be pursued whenever and with whomever one desires (usually provided that the other is at least consenting, of course). But being countercultural is not itself an indication of truth or falsehood.[1] Thus, we must recognize and keep sacred the sexual intimacy that takes place between a man and a woman as intended for the marital relationship.

What about within the marital relationship? Well, remember, we were designed for intimacy between genders. Physically (and even to some degree emotionally) speaking, we aren’t designed to discriminate much. That is to say, if one is not careful, he or she can find themselves thinking about, or even engaging in, either a physical or emotional affair. This is why Jesus implores us in Matthew 5:27-32 to take our marital relationships (or lack thereof seriously), and that we are to take drastic measures to avoid submitting to lusts in one’s heart. I once had an undergraduate professor use this metaphor: you can’t always control a picture that pops into your head to tempt you. You can control if it turns into a movie. The idea is that temptations are not in and of themselves sin. However, your reaction to that temptation determines if it becomes sin.

Why should we avoid adultery? Because intimacy is designed by God to be between a man and a woman, in a marital relationship, and because we were designed to help one another in our relationship with God. This is how the seventh commandment can be kept by those who are single as well as married. In our current society, we need all the help and spiritual support we can get!

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[1] Actually, in some contexts, it might be!

Keeping the Sixth Commandment

The Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue states “Thou shalt not kill.” Most people have understood this not to be purely pacifistic (as other parts of the Law, and the Old Testament itself, contradict this interpretation), but rather more like “You shall not murder,” which is definitely more distinct for our society (they would not have been confused).

So how can we keep the commandment not to murder? “Easy,” you might say, “Don’t kill anyone!” And that seems obvious enough. And it is true. However, that is not all there is. Why is it wrong to take a life impermissibly? Well, because, you are not permitted to do it! That is true but altogether unhelpful. Why is it that it is impermissible?

Jesus gives us a clue in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says if someone has hated his brother in his heart, he has violated the Sixth Commandment. This always struck me as austere. Is it really the same thing if I get unduly upset with my brother or if I stab him to death? This interpretation results in people saying things like, “If you hate your brother, you might as well go ahead and kill him!” This is wrong for two reasons. First, killing him would be an additional wrong, not the same instance of wrong, so at the very least there would be more sin in acting on the intention than merely the intention itself. Second, it genuinely seems worse to kill someone in action than in the mind. Note, I’m not saying it’s permissible.

But how then can we reconcile this? I think we reconcile our moral intuitions with the teaching of Jesus by understanding why the prohibition in the Sixth Commandment was made. Human beings are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26, 2:7). There is no higher being that could ever be other than God; to the extent we reflect him, then, we are in that sense priceless. Thus, to kill a fellow human unjustly is to disregard the image of God in him, and thus is an affront to God himself (after all, what is rejected in image is a rejection of the one behind the image [to burn something in effigy is nothing else but to wish harm upon the one being caricatured; so to despise the image of God is nothing else but to despise God himself]). If we agree that God is the most holy, and he alone is to be worshipped and not supplanted, then the image of God in all human beings must be respected.

But this means that you cannot hate in your heart your fellow man. Why? Because that too fails to recognize the image of God in man (or worse, explicitly despises it) and thus does violence to the sacredness of God. Thus, whenever you hate your brother in your heart, you are despising the One who created him. So we can see a positive command in the prohibition: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (sound familiar? This is linked to the First Commandment, and is called the greatest by Jesus!). Another implication: we are to respect all of our fellow human beings as created in the image of God, not just in word but in thought and deed. It can be expressed like this: Love your neighbor as yourself (sound familiar? Jesus taught this as the second-greatest commandment. Both of these can also be found in Deuteronomy 6). Thus, the Sixth Commandment is intricately involved with the issues of human life: worship toward God and love toward man.

Keeping the Fifth Commandment: Honor Your Parents

In continuing this series on the Ten Commandments, since I’ve already done one on the Fourth Commandment, I want to proceed on to the Fifth. This one is the one that children dread and parents love: honor your father and mother. (Disclaimer: This, and Ephesians 6:1, served as my parents’ all-time favorite verses!) Notice something right off the bat: the commandment is not addressed to “children.” Though it obviously goes without saying that anyone who is instructed to honor his parents is the child of his parents, the “children” part would have served to identify the demographic (as it does, for example, in Ephesians 6:1, coming as it does in the immediate sub-context of familial relationships). Thus, we can conclude age is not of primary import.

So what does this mean for us? Some have taken it to mean that one is to obey his parents regardless of his age. Thus, if a son in his early 30s wants to marry, but his parents order him not to, he is under biblical obligation to obey. This sounds nice (actually it doesn’t sound nice at all, but whatever), but the language doesn’t bear this argument out. “Honor” in Hebrew is not the same word as “obey,” nor does it necessarily contain the same idea (although it may). The word for “honor” is kabad, and in the particular stem in which it appears in Exodus 20 it means something like, “to make honorable, honor, glorify.”[1]

The principle of bringing honor may indicate obedience, as it does for children who are under the care or supervision of their parents. Think about it: is it really honorable for a child to disobey the instruction of his parents? Absolutely not! But it would (and should) go further than this. For, as Proverbs tells us, the wise one should heed his parents’ instruction (or wise instruction at all, for that matter). Thus, merely following the letter of our parents’ instruction is not always sufficient. So, for a child under his parents’ care, taking to heart their wisdom is honoring to them as well (and it would be dishonoring one’s parents to ignore or otherwise not profit from their wisdom).

So what about those of us who are no longer under our parents’ care or supervision? What about adults? Do we need to obey them? Not necessarily; we are no longer under their care, and are expected to be responsible for ourselves. However, we can still profit from their wisdom. Thus, if they give us wise instruction, it is honoring to them to live that out (even if we end up living it out better or worse than they did—it is an honor to try to live out their wisdom).

What if we have parents who are not wise, or even not “worthy” of honor? How can we honor them? First, we can treat them well. Second, we can choose to take care of them. I always joke with my mom that she can’t come live with me when she is old (that’s why I have brothers—live with them!), but the honest truth is that if putting your parents in a home is your primary objective when they become dependent, that’s not honoring them. And no, I’m not talking about people whose parents have severe or extenuating issues. I’m speaking to those who could take care of their parents (it’s not too serious or severe as to require a higher or professional level of care) but they don’t want to.

Before anyone gets upset, let me give the non-legalistic illustration/interpretation of this commandment. Jesus is answering the Pharisees legalistic interpretation of the Law in Matthew 15:4-6 when he says, “For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor thy father and mother,’ and ‘He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.’ But ye say, ‘Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, ‘It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me,’ And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free.’ Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.”

What was the point? Jesus references the Fifth Commandment, but the Pharisees found a “loophole.” Israelites well knew that the honoring of parents in the fifth commandment included taking care of them financially and providentially in their old age. However, the Pharisees came up with an ingenious idea: we just tell our parents that what we would have given to them to take care of them we gave to the Temple instead, and that relieves the obligation (since giving to the Temple is good, and we cannot be expected to give what we do not have!). To make it explicit, this did not even entail actually giving one’s goods to the Temple: it was the idea of dedicating one’s whole self and possessions to the Temple in an idealistic sense, and thus they are “unavailable” to be used by one’s parents. What kind of a son or daughter would do that? One who does not honor their parents, that’s what kind!

We can see that God gave us parents to take care of us, so that when they are old and need care, we would care for them (in any way we can, financial, health, etc.). And hopefully, if we become parents, when we are old, our children will take care of us. Mom, you still need to live with Tim. ;)

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[1] Thanks, blueletterbible.org