THOU SHALT NOT MURDER

THOU SHALT NOT MURDER

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

1Corinthian [ESV] 2:12-14 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Jude 1:1-3 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

  In 1957 the USA homicide rate was 4.0 per 100,000, now 5+ according to cross referencing several statistical websites. “The number of homicides in the country's 50 largest cities rose nearly 17 percent last year, the greatest increase in lethal violence in a quarter century.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/2015-homicides/ ) (These stats don’t include any increases in gunshot survivors as they are not recorded as a category.)

  In the past year murders in Chicago increased over 50%, to at least 762 victims, the highest count since 1996. St Louis rose from 85 last year to 136 so far this year. Baltimore shot up to 215 by the summer of 2015. Though some cities, typically smaller ones like Omaha, have decreased numbers, other towns have and are experiencing increased numbers.

  Why?

  The experts list a number of causes. I list in no particular order as the experts debate primary causes.

·         Heroin and other drugs, including widespread abuse of legal opiates.

·         Broken homes, single parents, gangs replacing family.

·         Deep social upheaval.

·         Conditioning by violent video games, movies, TV, rap music.

·         Lead poisoning contributing to developmental problems in adolescents.

·         Low unemployment rates in some communities.

·         Changes in sentencing, the death penalty not enforced.

·         Lax and/or fearful politicians and police departments.

·         Other causes.

·         Frank Zimring, law professor, Berkeley UOC, thinks the pattern can’t exactly be explained.

  Being a born-again follower of the Word living and written, having kingdom sight, I see differently. Consequently I think and decide unnaturally. (Jn.1:1; 3:3; Rom.12:1-3; 1Cor.2:14; 2Cor.5:17)

  What do I see as the major reason for murder whether the first (Gen.4:8), historically past unto the present, and the final murder yet to be?

  It’s not that the experts’ ideas are not contributing factors, for they can be but only as the individual or group murderers make use of them to justify their mindset and actions. I too have had such thought sans action in my history as a “natural man”. Possibly you also, as some have shared with me, have entertained such thinking sans implementation, or not?

  As God’s son (Jn.1:12), one of His priests (1Pet.2:1-10) and citizen of His kingdom (Phil.3:20), with His authority I contend that the reasons for murder are the lack of fearing God and the paucity of charitable love . . . and these being the two underlying reasons for what the natural-thinkers list. (Gen.20:11; Eccl.12:13; Mt.22:36-40; 1Cor.13; 1Pet.2:17)

EBB4