“Thou shalt not kill.” Those who believe in the Bible call that the sixth commandment. It’s first found in Exodus 20 verse 13. Somehow I doubt the kid in South Carolina was considering the moral or spiritual evils of his acts of murder. Instead, he was more likely thinking like Cain who slew his brother Able.
I believe it’s wrong to murder. I also believe that those words (“thou shalt not kill”), found in the King James version of the Bible, were written by the finger of Jehovah to the prophet Moses. Moses then delivered it to the Israelites. I believe that commandment, as well as others, are still in effect today.
While I subscribe more to the Hebrew translation using the word “murder” instead of “kill” for that scriptural passage, nevertheless, the fact remains, that death by the hands of another human being can generate poignant emotional feelings. For instance, I wish I had been in that church in South Carolina before that kid started shooting.
I wish for a lot of things. For instance, I wish there were more people who loved God and their neighbor. I could use a bit more of that myself. Maybe then, we’d all be more like the Good Samaritan, who despite never having a good relationship with the Jews, went out of his way to help the injured Jew in Jesus’ parable.
I wish that racism didn’t exist and that so many people, not the least the President of the United States, wouldn’t exacerbate the problem by focusing on the murderer’s “access to guns.” The politics of the gun debate naturally seem to get tangled around tragic events like this, but is it really a time for that? No. It’s a time to be gentler, kinder and more loving. For those who knew the victims, it’s a time to mourn.
It’s not time to fight. The fighting is over. Now, the criminal justice processes begins.
But, had it been time to fight, I wish I would have been there because there’s definitely “a time to kill,” but now is “a time to heal” (Ecclesiastes 3:3).
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of Guns.com.
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