December 19, 2024 • 45 mins
TJBHpodcast@gmail.com
As we navigate through nuanced discussions about justice and law, we examine the intricate balance between divine commands and state laws. By exploring scenarios like self-defense and state-sanctioned actions, we dissect the conditions under which taking a life aligns with divine intention. Our conversation is enriched by references to Exodus 22 and Romans 13, shedding light on the role of government as an instrument for divine justice, and the sanctity of life through the lens of Imago Dei. This segment also reflects on historical figures and events, pondering how societies devoid of divine guidance have often spiraled into tyranny and chaos.
Rounding off our episode, we dig into the ethical frameworks underpinning capital punishment and the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. By drawing parallels to modern societal issues like abortion and assisted suicide, we underscore the ongoing relevance of biblical commandments in our current moral and societal landscapes. Our dialogue calls for a deeper understanding of ancient teachings and their impact on justice and governance today. So sit back and reflect with us on how these timeless principles continue to influence our world and the leaders we choose to follow.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
Justin's here, what's up, myman and Josiah's here.
I'm back, we got him back.
We got the Josie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He was here for our Sabbath talk.
I was begging at the door eversince.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hey, when you have nieces and nephews, you're going
to make them call you Uncle Si.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Uncle Si, yeah, and I'll be drinking my sweet tea Is
Si short for Josiah?
Yeah, and I'll be drinking mysweet tea Is Sigh short for
Josiah See what.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm saying, and then he could just do.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hey, you know, I want to call you Sigh from now on.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Dude, that's exactly right you should call you Josie,
but Sigh sounds cool.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You can call him Sigh .
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, I don't want to do that.
He's like please don't do thatto me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
He'll catch months.
Everybody would be calling youthat after, so it's usually what
happens.
You are a trendsetter, so I amyes, yes, all right, moving on
to commandment number six, thesixth commandment now real quick
.
I've heard this commandment twodifferent ways.
Okay, thou shall not kill, thoushall not commit murder.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, which one is it murder.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
like those two are different Murder, murder murder,
just to be clear.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, so the King James translated this kill and
there was just some it's just a.
It's a, let's say, interpretivedifficulty.
That was around this where theymade a statement and, in that
day and age, assumed people knewwith regard to murder, because
the context of the whole Biblehas just punishment and taking
(01:27):
of life in lots of differentareas, and so we have people who
took the 10 commandments andremoved them from the context of
everything else that was said,and then we're reinterpreting
that, and then you had all thesepacifists and things that were
coming out.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Didn't make sense.
I was thinking of that movie,hacksaw Ridge.
Yeah, desmond Dawes, you knowI'm not supposed to kill.
I can't kill Exactly.
Yeah, I don't think it saysthat.
Yeah, well, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's like, hey, you should read the rest of the book
.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It got a contradiction right after where
it's like put this person todeath.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, Exactly so yeah , so there are some translations
that will say thou shalt notkill.
It very much is murder, andmurder is the unjust taking of
life, unjust taking specificallyof human life.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But yeah, and if you go ahead, Can I just make one
comment on this?
They didn't have a word formurder in the original language.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, the context here is king.
It's in the context of what isbeing stated the killing, taking
of life.
With regards to what this isstating, it is interpreted via
the context of everything elseGod gives us in his law and book
, so it interprets for us in alarge way what this commandment
means in light of everythingelse that is taught.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So is it more like the reason behind why you're
killing somebody?
Yeah, exactly why you'rekilling somebody.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, exactly when does taking life become wrong
according to God?
Because there's lots of placeswhere he commands that you take
life right.
Oh, hundreds, yeah.
So we would say, yeah, goddoesn't contradict himself.
The statement here is withregards to an unjust taking of
human life.
That's what we're looking at.
It's unjust.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
What was the point of giving this commandment to
Moses then, at that time?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
To make sure that the people had a clear moral and
civil reality or perspective onwhat God desired for people to
do.
So, tim, it would be wrong foryou to kill someone else right,
unjustly, unjustly.
But what makes it?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
would be wrong for you to kill someone else, right
Unjustly, Tim Draper Unjustlybut what makes it just Tim
Draper?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Great question when is it appropriate to take human
life?
It's appropriate to take humanlife in self-defense.
It's appropriate to take humanlife on a grand scale, or let's
say a civic layer for takinglife and as a punishment for
somebody else.
So let's think of some fun onesthat we could jump into right
(03:54):
away.
If you're interested.
This is Exodus 22.
If the thief is caught whilebreaking in and is struck so
that he dies, there will be noblood guiltiness on his account.
Okay, so here's your make myday law right here in Exodus.
This is where it's coming from.
It's saying hey, if somebodybreaks in and he gets killed
while you're defending yourfamily or your property, you are
(04:16):
not guilty of any sin.
Why?
Because you were defending andprotecting what God has called
you to defend and protect.
This then applies to a larger,like government scale as well.
If the government or, let's say, a state, is invaded or has a
large enemy that is seeking todestroy, take life, take
(04:36):
property, take whatever theirgoal is to defend on a larger
scale, the house, so thisprinciple gets applied in a
larger sense, if you want, tosocieties themselves and the
state system.
This is why, for instance, inRomans 13, it says the
government is given a sword forthe sole purpose of going to war
(05:01):
with those who are doing evil,those who are attacking what God
has called good.
They're literally to wield thesword and accomplish God's
justice.
Vengeance is actually the word,which is awesome.
It says they're an avengingservant.
What's interesting that peopleneed to correlate is this In
Romans 12, I think it's verse19,.
(05:23):
It says Vengeance is mine, saysthe Lord, I will repay.
And then it's like a coupleverses later in chapter 13,
which is not a different letter,and those numbers weren't there
before.
There's not a separation.
He's talking about the statebeing God's avenging servant to
carry out his vengeance.
So when God says vengeance ismine, well, how is he going to
(05:43):
carry that out?
Then he says you know how Icarried that out, through godly
state systems that arefulfilling and accomplishing the
law that I've put in place.
That is the arm of the Lord ina civic sense to accomplish the
vengeance that belongs to him.
So, tim, why am I not out doing, let's say, vigilante nonsense?
(06:03):
I love Batman as much as thenext guy.
The Bible actually prohibitsthis.
You are not to take the placeof God's avenging servant unless
you are actually uniquely inthat role that God has ordained
for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So the avenging servant, meaning like officials,
like the police, the state,yeah yeah, exactly, the state
itself.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The state yeah, yeah, exactly the state itself is
called to uniquely bring aboutand uphold, let's say, restrain
wickedness and uphold thestandard of God, the law that
he's given to us through thestate.
And some of that means, like weread in these places.
That means, let's say, going towar with eminent threats and
people who are doing wickednesson a large scale to defend what
(06:42):
God has given us.
That means putting to death insome cases.
There's a bunch we could getinto here, but when the
punishment fits the crime, youwould take someone's life as a
payment, as a covering, as partof the standard that God has
given.
What is this?
Genesis 9-6, where he says thisif man takes life, then by man
(07:05):
your blood must be shed.
It's kind of this whole pictureof if you do this, this is what
you get in return.
In the same way, it talks aboutthe wages of sin.
Is death right?
The picture there is that, yeah, if somebody takes somebody's
life, you have to take theirlife in payment for what they
did.
Now, was it Rush Dooney man whohad this awesome picture?
(07:25):
He was making the point that,look, human life or humanity
itself, we would say is made inthe image of God.
We call this the Imago Dei.
Okay, the image of God.
They carry this and his pointwas the Imago Dei is such an
important thing that if somebodytakes the life of somebody who
is made in the image of God, youwould have to take their life
(07:47):
on principle, because theirsalvation and if they're right
or not before God is um is soserious that you would need to
send them up to a higher courtfor God to decide the verdict on
their life.
Wow, so he's saying you um andthis is what I'm trying to think
of who the people said in thecrusades, like, get in there and
God will sort them out.
You know what I mean.
Like it's not a one-for-onethere.
(08:08):
But his point literally was man, if somebody takes somebody
else's life, especially onpurpose, it is your duty to send
them up to a higher court forGod to decide where their
standing actually is, which isso interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But yeah, unless you're defending your property
and your family.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, unless you're defending your property and your
family.
Well, that's kind of so.
That's kind of.
The whole point is at thatpoint the man is taking his life
into his own hands and he's insin, doing something he should
not be doing, and you are calledto defend and protect what God
has given to you.
So, yeah, those are kind of thethree areas Self-defense,
capital punishment and to upholdthe standard that God has
called us to in any givenenvironment.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Okay, you look like you have something to say there,
josiah.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I had a lot of things to say.
Jump in buddy, no, it's reallygood.
I would say that the I meanobviously we have to address
this.
I mean Paul's underlyingassumption there.
When he's talking about Romans13, what kind of government is
he assuming?
The civil magistrate at thattime?
I don't want to get too much inthe weeds of that, but when
he's saying that they're meantto be a terror to the wrongdoer,
(09:08):
I mean, what's the wrongdoer inPaul's worldview?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
The one who's breaking God's law.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
God's law exactly.
It's not some arbitrary systemwhere you can have a tyrannical
government that then startsexecuting everybody.
And this is very importantbecause you'll get guys in
history, say, adolf Hitler, whodecided that he should
exterminate an entire race ofpeople because he saw them as
parasites.
(09:36):
And what's ironic about AdolfHitler.
I believe it's Joe Booth thatquotes this in the Mission of
God amazing book, by the way.
But Hitler said that the curseof mankind was on Mount Sinai.
And it's interesting because hehated and abhorred God's law.
And you see how that literallymanifested in the way that he
ruled, where he would justexterminate groups and races of
people.
Because he's ruling on anarbitrary standard his own
standard.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
People that want to be God really hate that.
God exists and has alreadyspoken.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, and what you find fascinating is like a lot
of people can get abhorredbecause they look at the Old
Testament.
They're like, oh man, there'sall these capital punishments
and there's all these executionsthat have to go on.
But, man, if you look at anyother system that completely
rejects any Christian foundation, you see far more rabid
wickedness going on.
I mean, we just consider for amoment Mao's ruling and how many
(10:24):
hundreds of millions of his owncitizens were killed and
executed, stalin, for instance.
I mean all these atheisticsystems that just liquidated and
murdered their own peopleunjustly because they completely
abandoned God's standards forhuman rights.
And what's happening now in theUnited States?
(10:49):
I mean, this one was obviouslygoing to come up at some point,
but we've abandoned God'sstandard here in the US and now
we're murdering unborn children.
And so you see what begins tohappen If people want to
complain about the Old Testament, the laws in the Old Testament.
You see throughout history, asman begins to depart from the
human rights that God affordshim in his laws, that man
actually goes beyond, godbecomes far more tyrannical.
Not that God is tyrannical inany sense, but he becomes far
(11:12):
more wicked and he takes humanlife all the more without God's
law, and so I think that that'san interesting point to caveat
on.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's worth making point, too, that the whole
picture of the Bible is Godworking through the mess to
bring about peace.
And even the standards, therules, the things that he gives
us with regard to justly takinglife are for the purpose of
ultimately bringing about peaceand restoring safety where it
didn't exist before.
So when you have taking of life, that's not for the purpose of
(11:43):
ultimately restoring peace orsomething else.
Then you have things like jihad.
It's a lawful system let's say,if you're a Muslim to take life
but it's not for the purpose ofrestoring peace, it's for
taking over the world.
All of this now belongs to me,right, and I'll kill people to
get it.
That is not a biblicalprinciple.
That's nothing in the lawstating anything like that
either.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So, just to be clear, what about stuff like the death
penalty?
I mean, is that a biblicalstance too, there?
That sounds like it would be.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, yes, I quoted Genesis 9, 6 earlier.
Right, if a man takes, you know, sheds blood by man, his blood
must be shed.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
God makes it pretty clear there's um what about,
like doing it in a humane?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
way, or 16 reasons for capital punishment.
Uh, in the old Testament, likedifferent things that we would
say hey, if you do this, the the.
Let's say that the extent ofthe law could be capital
punishment.
That's worth noting.
Like one of these, Tim is hey,if your son is drunken and
unruly, you could stone him todeath.
(12:44):
Hey, if your son is drunken andunruly, you could stone him to
death.
Okay, and it's also worthnoting that historically, there
is no history of that actuallybeing used to the nth degree.
So it seems like there's somelaws that God gives that it
could be up to this if it wasthat bad of a situation, or as a
reminder to society.
It is really important that youobey and take care of your kids
(13:05):
.
However, yeah, there's a lot ofdifferent things in scripture
where God says in some of thesescenarios, like I said, I think
it's 16 or 18 different thingsthat the Bible says could
deserve the death penalty insome situation.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, and I want to add on to that point that it's
the supreme punishment could becapital punishment.
But there seems to be anindication.
I just pulled it up here, butit's Numbers 35-31.
And it's Joe Boot that actuallymade this analysis, and we've
seen this throughout churchhistory as well.
With this interpretation itsays Moreover, you shall accept
no ransom for the life of amurderer who is guilty of death
(13:41):
but he shall be put to death, isguilty of death but he shall be
put to death.
And what's fascinating aboutthis is that there's an
implication here that you couldransom people out of other
crimes that were deserving ofcapital, but potentially
deserving of capital punishment,but it was murder, was the one
crime you could not ransomanybody out of.
So again, this is important tounderstand that God, when he's
(14:04):
saying that you shall put thisperson to death, it's not in all
cases, it's up until, like,that's the maximum punishment
that it could go for.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Right Kind of like our own court system.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So this gets thrown out because I had somebody I was
talking to talking about this.
Well, if a teenage daughtergoes out and gets pregnant and
has an abortion, are weimmediately saying death penalty
?
And I would say no.
I think there's someconversation around.
What were the circumstances?
Where is that person atmentally?
Would we execute minors?
(14:35):
What's the standard around this?
Are there some circumstanceswhere there should be death
penalty for something like that?
According to the Bible, 100%there is penalty for something
like that according to the Bible, 100% there is.
But not every circumstancewhere it says you would surely
put this person to death meansthat you would immediately do
that, because this is a case lawsystem.
It's saying this is theprinciple you would derive and
up to this standard, you wouldexecute on it.
No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He just keeps using capital punishment.
What are you talking about whenyou say that execution?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Capital punishment is the taking of somebody's life
theoretically, in a just sense.
I don't know if you want to dothis, Tim.
I wrote down knowing that wewere going to jump into this.
Let's say some Christian, justwar theory, just the principles.
From this you want to hear thisreal quick, I don't know if
you'd be interested, but theBible lays out some standards
(15:26):
and these have been heldthroughout church history.
This is not Justin's list, okay.
These have been pretty solidthings that have been
established by scripture andused throughout history.
There's seven of them.
Some people will say there'ssix, some are like these are the
big four, but I'll list themfor you.
The first one is just cause,just the principle, principle of
just cause.
There has to be an actualreason for going to war, for for
(15:50):
for uh entering into this kindof battle or something in the
situation to say, if this islegit, all right, I E what we
had talked about before, um,like, is that our lives being
taken?
Are we under some kind ofserious assault?
Um, is this?
Is there a real reason to sureuh, reason to go into this and
make sure this thing happens?
The second is last resort, theprinciple of last resort, which
(16:13):
means is there a potential forpeace instead of just going to
war?
If you can solve this with apen, do you have to use the
sword?
If you can sit down and getguys to chill out, you should do
everything that you can to dothat before you go to taking the
life of somebody who bears theimage of God.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It shouldn't be the first thing you do Right, right,
it should be so it's like do Ihave a just cause to do this?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Maybe you have a just cause.
Is there a better way to takecare of it instead of war?
Okay, let's do that first.
Let's see whatever else we cando.
Let's see whatever else we cando.
Three is legitimate authority.
Like I said earlier, you can'thave vigilantism.
You can't have a bunch ofpeople saying, well, I think we
should.
This is why guys like JamesBrown and things who are killing
(16:57):
people who are, who believed indifferent things like slave
trade and things like this, andthey're taking it into their own
hands, you're not a legitimateauthority.
If God is the avenging servant,then the civil magistrate is
the one who actually has toenact the law or walk those
things out.
Some people want to take thoseinto your own hands, so somebody
can't declare war.
That isn't a legitimateauthority given by God for that
(17:18):
purpose.
Fourth is a successful prospect.
You would not enter into aChristian war unless you were
going to lose more lives andmore people in general by doing
this, then then finding anotherpattern until something was
actually, you know, a reasonable, a reasonable approach to
something.
So like if, if you know, hey, ifI, if we go to war with these
(17:40):
guys, every but more people aregoing to die than if we didn't,
and and we're not actually goingto succeed then you wouldn't do
that Because human life is toovaluable to do something just
because there would need to bethe outcome of peace and safety
and everything else for that tobe the case.
Peaceful objective again Ibrought up earlier that's the
(18:00):
principle of a peacefulobjective.
It means ultimately, the goalis not just to obtain more land
for yourself or get moreresources for yourself or get
the stuff that you want.
The goal actually is more peaceand more safety, and if that
isn't the ultimate goal of ofwhat you're doing, then you
shouldn't go to war in the firstplace.
Proportionate means um, somepeople call this this would be
(18:21):
lex talionis.
Tim say lex talionis.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Lex talionis Lex talionis.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
This is the law of proportion.
What you're saying is it has tofit the crime.
You cannot.
This is a big question.
Like, okay, so when the UnitedStates dropped nukes on people,
okay, the question of LexTalionis comes up.
Was what we did proportionateor reasonable considering what
(18:44):
they did to us?
Was this an eye for an eye orwas this an eye for a family?
It's a reasonable question toask and it's a serious one, and
a lot of people would be.
You know, Cobra Kai, strikefirst, strike hard you know what
I mean, it's okay.
Right, right, and there's aChristian war theory here that
we should be paying attention tosaying did the punishment match
(19:05):
the crime here, or did wedouble down or triple down in
this area?
The seventh would be civilianimmunity, and this doesn't mean
that civilians are never goingto get hurt in the process.
It means they can't be anintentional part of the strategy
or you intentionally harmingcivilians because they don't
matter.
(19:25):
The goal would be to eliminatethe amount of civilians that are
hurt in any kind of process.
Trying to eliminate the actualissue, like going into gaza,
right, this is one of thosethings where it comes up, where
it's like man, this is trickybecause you have all these
people who don't have any kindof just war theory and they
think, yeah, if they're going toabide by this law, then I'm
going to do everything that Ican to leverage their own law
against them.
I'll take, take these people,I'll use them as shields,
(19:47):
everything else In thosecircumstances.
There's not a way to mitigatethat or get around it.
But ultimately, you're notgoing to bomb a bunch of areas
that just have civilians to findone person who doesn't.
The goal would be we want toeliminate civilians and make
them immune from this as much aswe can in given circumstances.
So there's a whole theoryaround when is it appropriate to
(20:09):
go to war?
When is battle actually a thingthat you should consider, and
the Bible actually has a lot tosay about it, and I don't think
most Christians in the last 50years have even like tapped this
on the shoulder because thishasn't been a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
No, they haven't.
Yeah, I think and this has beenaround for a long time that
this has been articulated.
It was St Augustine of Hippo.
It was the 5th century.
Yeah, I think he died.
It was 430 AD or something likethat, but he articulated these
things.
We've been using it ever since.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Well, people who have been immersed in war have had
to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
They've had to think about it, and what's fascinating
is that you've totally lostthis understanding, because what
we've made, the maxim you couldsay, is humanism, and that can
be whatever you and yourrelativism, arbitrary ideas
think it should be, whether it'sjust pacifism all the way out
and there should never be a war.
(21:02):
But the problem is, christiansstop thinking like Christians.
We stopped depending on whatGod has spoken and we started
depending on how we feel, andit's very feeling-based with how
we feel about war, and war isnever good.
And the problem is, I mean,ultimately St Augustine went as
far as to say that war there aretimes that it's necessary
(21:22):
because of the fall, and so Idon't know.
I think we would be a muchbetter society if Christians got
back to understanding theseprinciples from scripture.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, based off that list, and you kind of brought
this up too, before we evenstarted recording.
But this isn't just aboutsomebody taking someone else's
life.
This is also kind of defendinglife as much as you can.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So, every one of the Ten Commandments, you want to
think about the inverse of whatit is too, because whether it's
a positive or negative statementthat God is making about
something, generally speaking,the inverse is what you're
teaching on as well, right?
So if I'm saying murder iswrong, what am I to infer from
that?
That life is valuable, that I'mfighting for life, that I want
(22:04):
to defend life.
If I'm saying, hey, lying iswrong, which we'll get to, what
am I saying?
The truth is valuable and youshould fight for it.
If I'm teaching, remember theSabbath day, make it holy, don't
break that, what am I saying?
It's really important that youapply that in your life.
Everything has a negative and apositive that you should be
(22:26):
looking at.
Now there's some details inboth those areas.
You can take them to an extremeand make that unhelpful.
Yeah, the ultimately, thiscommandment is saying the Imago
Dei, the life that God has given, is really important, and when
you take life, you had betterhave a great reason for it.
If you don't, it's murder.
This is why abortion is murder.
It's an unjust taking of humanlife.
(22:46):
Another area where this bugs meis assisted suicide.
We have so many people now thatare like oh, this person's old
or they have this going on, orthey've been in a hospital.
I mean, dude, canada is crazy.
Now they just recommend topeople oh, would you like us to
assist with this?
Basically right, I'm trying tothink of the word they have.
They don't say assisted suicideanymore, they have a whole
(23:10):
vernacular built around it, butthis is a legitimate
recommendation they make.
I think this is the case.
You have to check me on this.
I was hearing somebody talkabout this now in Canada.
Like a young kid, like children, can say I don't want to live
anymore, and it is a legitimateoption for them to go and end
(23:31):
their own life without anyrepercussions.
If somebody signs off and says,yes, they have this legitimate
thing, they want this to be done, kids can just go and their
life, I mean it's, it's.
It's horrifying because wedon't value what God has stated
and where God has said there isvalue.
Now To Josiah's point.
It becomes humanism, whereashumans decide what they think is
(23:51):
best, and this can go a varietyof ways.
Either you become a tyrant andwants to take everyone else's
life, or you think you have somekind of selective sovereignty
and say I can take my own lifewhenever I want or whenever it's
convenient.
And just as abhorrent to me asabortion is, which is this
taking of innocent life?
Is this idea that you think it'sokay to take your own if the
circumstances feel like thatshould be the case, and that's
(24:14):
equally disgusting to God, butultimately a consequence of a
world that doesn't care aboutthe sixth commandment and loves
to find ways around.
There's movies now, too, aboutthis person who had this
terrible life, and it's hisright to take his own life if he
doesn't want to live anymore.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
God says here's my standard.
I've given you this.
You don't get to decide whenyou want to do that or not,
(24:36):
because God has spoken andeverybody wants to come up with
some emotional case for why whatGod said shouldn't be followed
and it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Along that kind of same vein.
What about people who are sickand, hey, this surgery could
save your life, could not, andthey refuse to do it and then
they end up dying?
Is that another form?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Yeah, so I would even apply some of the same
principle there from when wewere talking about, like, going
to war.
Is the purpose of doing this tobring about peace and safety?
Yeah, and is it a dangerousthing to do?
Could it go south?
Yes.
Is it a reasonable success?
Yes.
Is it for the purpose of godlyoutcome?
Yes, okay, then I'm within mybounds to do this, to see this
(25:18):
happen, if I know, if I do thisI'm probably going to die.
It's not worth it.
No, I wouldn't apply that.
No, I wouldn't apply that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Also say that you as a person have a moral obligation
to be a good steward of yourbody so that you can continue to
live, to continue to advanceGod's kingdom.
So if you're in any way tryingto shorten that and play God,
then I think that there's anissue.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
How does this stuff get so distorted?
Well, I'll tell you where Ithink it starts.
I mean, there's probably abunch of other places, but you
brought something up at the verybeginning of the episode, okay,
like is it murder or kill?
Yeah, all right, we brought upconscientious objectors in the
world who are like the Biblesays don't kill.
And you read a lot of otherplaces in the Bible that
apparently we just don't payattention to.
(26:04):
Or simple stuff like Jesus.
Jesus talks about later inMatthew five right, if somebody
strikes you on the cheek,turning him the other, a lot of
people like what that means is,if somebody hits me or murders
me, I'm not supposed to doanything back.
And I would say well, you haveto do.
To do that is ignore chunks ofthe Bible that are far more
(26:26):
explicit about that particularsituation to elevate that text.
Now, we brought up this textbefore.
This is talking about an insultor a challenge.
God's saying hey, if you canavoid it, it's the same
principles we talked about.
If there's another means, usethat other means that you can
clear this up without going towar, then clear it up without
going to war.
But I'll tell you right nowI've never heard anybody apply
(26:47):
that principle in this situation.
Somebody comes into your houseand I'm a conscious as a, you
know I'm an objector, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do this.
So Jesus says turn the othercheek.
Do you believe that in the caseof rape, do you would?
You, are you serious, like somethat's happening to somebody
and you're like you know what?
Turn the other cheek Badmetaphor there.
But I'm trying to make thepoint Like that's horrifying.
(27:09):
Nobody, actually I don't knowanybody who would apply that to
other forms of violence orthings that are happening, or
child abuse or whatever else.
They would never say no, no, no, go ahead, hit the kid.
It's really sad that he's doingthat.
But God tells us to turn theother cheek.
So tell your six-year-old who'sbeing abused or something that
it's totally fine.
Or sexual assault or thingslike that, right, like it's
deplorable.
(27:30):
So if you read the rest ofscripture, the Bible has a lot
to say about when to act, whennot to act.
But people have takenprinciples from scripture,
removed them, especially fromold Testament teaching, them
especially from Old Testamentteaching, amplified specific
(27:50):
teachings that Jesus said out ofcontext and recreated a
humanitarian type of Jesus who'smore interested in people's
feelings, happiness and, let'ssay, general emotional state in
the moment.
That is not really what Jesuswas talking about from the
cultural or biblical contextitself.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Love your neighbor, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, and I think it's more of a hijacking of
Jesus.
It's kind of like hippies youknow what I mean Going around
saying you know, make love, notwar, okay.
Or like coming up with thisidea of who Jesus was he's the
original flower child.
It's like this is not it's notaccurate.
This is not what he was saying.
And so if you have, let's say,a humanist perspective, which is
(28:29):
ultimately whatever is good forhumanity is what's good for me,
and everybody should do thingsthat are ultimately just good
for what I think is best forhumanity because I've abandoned
what God's saying is best isactually what's best for
humanity Then I will go back toscripture.
I'll find the teachings thatseem to line up with what I
think is the case, I'll makethose louder than anything else
(28:49):
in scripture and then I'll justcontinue to run that.
Eventually I can create a typeof Christianity that doesn't
have any bedrock or anchoring tothe things that God actually
said, but leverages Jesus forplatitudes to promote a humanist
perspective instead.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
It's funny attitudes to promote a humanist
perspective instead.
It's funny my wife will show melike shorts and TikToks and
stuff people using Leviticus orDeuteronomy or all these laws
about tattoos and abortion andwhatnot you know, and he could
tell right away that thisperson's never actually read
scripture just by how theirdefense is not there.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
They're just quoting the scripture.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
The Bible says this, guys, so you know look up
something provocative it says,so I can say how crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, here's what's funny too is somebody just looks
it up and says look howhorrible this sounds.
According to what?
According to what are yousaying?
Listen to how bad this sounds,because some of these verses,
you know, if you said that in adifferent country, they would
look at you like you're a crazyperson, which means that I'm a
byproduct of my current culture.
I'm not attached to anythingthat has substance or history
(29:53):
along with it, I'm just anideologue of the current
cultural temperature.
How shallow.
You know what I mean.
And then I'm going to try tomock somebody with a
6,000-year-old history that'srich and tried and true and the
very bedrock especially ifyou're in the Western world that
built the civilization you'rein and the reason you can say
what you say and you're mockingit.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, yikes, I'm going to shake my fist in the
air and blow up the very stonesthat I'm standing on.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
That is it.
That's exactly what they do.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That is it Just to piggyback on what you were
saying earlier, Justin.
I think it's also important, Imean, when Jesus cites the
Decalogue, because a lot ofpeople go here 10 Commandments.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
The 10 Commandments, the Decalogue, the.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Decalogue when Jesus cites the 10 Commandments in the
New Testament and he goes over.
You know, if you hate yourbrother, you know if you hate
him in your heart, you'vecommitted murder in your heart.
By no means is Jesus saying oradvocating that people should be
arrested for committing murderin their heart.
Okay, If you study enough ofthe Old Testament, you will find
(30:55):
that they do make a distinctionbetween sins and crimes.
Yeah, Not every sin should bepunished as a crime.
Okay, and so the simple waywould be not every sin is a
crime, but all crimes are sin.
Okay, and so the simple waywould be not every sin is a
crime, but all crimes are sin.
Okay, and so when Jesus issaying these things, what Jesus
is trying to get to the root ofbecause the issue with the
Pharisees is that they were soconcerned with the outward guise
(31:17):
of how they would follow thetraditions of the law, but
inside they were tombs.
They were these whitewashedtombs.
You clean the outside of thecup, but inside it you're dirty.
Jesus is getting to the heart ofthe matter, that it all comes
from the heart.
Where does murder begin?
Murder begins with somebody whohates someone else enough that
(31:38):
it will then manifest into anaction.
Jesus by no means is sayingthat he's not convoluting crimes
and sins.
And if you want to say thatJesus is doing that, then Jesus
is contradicting himself as theLogos who wrote, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, the OldTestament.
That or you have to come upwith some crazy, arbitrary,
(32:01):
divisionalist system to wherethe Bible does contradict itself
in different epochs, whichwe're not obviously advocating
for here.
That's nonsense.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
But to your point it's exactly right.
Not all sin is a crime, butevery crime is a sin.
Ultimately, if you want to backit up with a biblical principle
, there's some crimes now thatshould not be crimes.
I don't want to go too deepinto the recon aspect of this,
but I do want people to knowultimately there's a just way to
(32:35):
take life, there's an unjustway to take life.
God gives us clarity on all ofthis stuff and in the Decalogue,
the Ten Commandments itself,it's making the point do not
unjustly take life.
And we know from this thateverything that God gives us in
the Ten Commandments are for ourwell-being, our benefit and so
(32:55):
that we would thrive andflourish and do well.
And what we see, tim, ultimately, as soon as we get sin enters
into the world, is that thefirst offspring are killing
themselves or you're killingeach other.
You know what I mean.
It is a natural consequencethat when sin enters into the
world, which is a spiritualdeath, that we immediately move
into a physical death that wouldaccompany that spiritual death.
(33:18):
I think it's Proverbs 8, 36,where Jesus says all who hate me
love death.
You know, all who hate God havean obsession with death.
And I think this plays outthroughout history and again,
and bring up the abortionindustry and why this is so
significant.
But people who have a desire toassault the Imago Dei
(33:39):
ultimately have no love for Godor desire to uphold his standard
.
And if you do want to hold uphis standard, it's not because
you love death, it's because youlove justice and you know God
has called you um, you know tobe a part of whatever entity
he's called you to in thatunique way, to uphold those
things.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What is it?
The Orwellian picture 1984, ofthe boot constantly stomping on
the face of mankind.
I mean, that's the atheisticsystem.
You know, that's when weabandon God, when we want to
create a humanism, a humanisticsystem.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You created a humanism, you created a humanism
.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's funny when you've created a humanistic
system, that's ultimately whatit's going to devolve into.
It hates itself and it seeks todestroy itself.
It is God is the only one whogets to establish the rights of
mankind.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, so don't be mal , don't.
I did a humanism I did ahumanism, just kidding.
No to your point.
And this is gosh.
I always forget the guy who isinterpreting art and culture
throughout history.
It's going to kill me, I can'tthink of it.
History, it's going to kill me,I can't think of it.
But, um, yeah, his, his wholepoint was in when, when, uh, a
(34:46):
nation rejects god, thegovernment becomes god right.
When the nation rejects god,the state ultimately becomes by
god, because nature abhors avacuum.
Somebody has to set thestandard for laws and everything
else.
And this was, this was umnietzsche's whole point in Thus
Begs Zarathustra, when he wastalking about the death of God
and the reality that he waspredicting that the 20th century
(35:08):
would be the bloodiest centuryever.
Because if you remove Godphilosophically from people's
minds and how they think, withevolutionary thought and all
these different kinds of things,what you ultimately do is
remove the moral need for thestandards that people have.
You make humanity, or whoeveris in the most power at that
(35:28):
moment, the arbiter of right andwrong.
And he basically said if we dothis, a lot of people are going
to die.
And it was just the bloodiestcentury ever, with Mao and
Stalin and Pol Pot and Hitler.
We just saw millions andmillions of people
systematically murdered becauseall who hate God love death.
And if you set yourself upagainst God and you put yourself
(35:50):
in the place of God, thenultimately you will attack the
image of God.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So yeah, so you probably already answered this,
but this is kind of where myhead's gone.
But when you talk about themagistrate, like the government
are the ones who should decidethese things.
What?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
if they've— I didn't say that, just so we're clear.
I said God should decide thesethings.
I think the magistrate shouldenforce what God has said.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right and when they don't—this is kind of going back
to the whole vigilante thing.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Well, the system screwed me, so now I have to
take matters in my own hands,type of thing.
Yeah, yeah, what is that Greatquestion.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Okay, so great question.
So there's something called thedoctrine of the lesser
magistrate.
That is very important.
What this is saying is peoplewho are in the state system also
have an obligation to upholdthe law when other people won't.
Okay, so think about it thisway.
Won't Okay, so think about itthis way.
(36:48):
When somebody who is, let's say, in some kind of state position
, decides to go the oppositedirection, he is not above the
law and he is not the law.
He doesn't get to decide thosethings.
He is to establish and continueto uphold the law.
So if that person stops doingthat, what you would want to do
is find somebody who will upholdthe law in this righteous way
and help get behind what he'sdoing to bring about the, let's
(37:08):
say, the redevelopment or theretaking of this system.
Get yourself into a godlysystem and find people who you
can follow, who are upholdingthe law of God, to call those
people to repentance and to getback to what God has called them
to do.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Not just turn into Judge Dredd.
So think about it this way yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So think about it this way.
Let's say, you have a smalltown or something.
Okay, who's the mayor?
Find the mayor, and if the guythree steps above the mayor is
being ungodly, then I'm going toultimately follow the godly
let's say, civil magistrate whois upholding God's law, and my
obligation is first to theperson that is upholding God's
law and second, to the personwho is not All right.
(37:47):
So let's take this intoconsider, and you can get really
into the weeds with this.
Let's take into considerationthe fact that everyone who wrote
during the first century abouta bank, government paying tax,
all that stuff were under aregime that was actively killing
Christians.
Okay, so it wasn't like it wassome perfect environment where
they were just making somepoints about some things.
(38:09):
It was rough.
Let's be honest, though.
Every single one of theapostles died as an enemy of the
state.
Well, it's not like they weresaying we're supposed to obey
everything that the governmentsays in these areas, even if
they're wrong.
No, they understood obeyeverything that the government
says in these areas, even ifthey're wrong.
No, they understood wherethey're wrong.
You're not supposed to obeythem.
They also understood that Godhas instituted government and
where it is godly and upholdingwhat God has said, then we
(38:30):
should follow that and get afterit.
He actually brings us up, Ithink it's what is it Second
Peter or first Peter?
Where he talks about godlygovernment and what that's
supposed to look like, andthey're carrying out the law of
God.
So, yeah, thoughts about that.
Josie.
Doctrine of lesser magistrate.
Yeah, I mean I've got nothing toadd on that one Basically find
someone solid who will go to waragainst the person who is not
(38:54):
solid to bring reformation inthat area and get back to what
God has called you to do.
Nice, All right.
Yeah, hey, just to bring thisdown to a practical level, yeah,
here's what I would say.
Not to be cliche here, thistopic can be used a lot to make
it just as a spiritual, etherealthing that doesn't actually
affect the world around us.
This commandment is huge andGod has spoken a lot about this
(39:19):
particular topic and when peopledo this thing where they're
like, just boil it down to well,God said hating somebody is the
same as murder.
You're eliminating so much ofwhat the Bible has to say about
this.
Yes, To hate somebody in yourheart is not good and it is the
sinful equivalent of murder.
It is not the, let's say, theexternal, lawful equivalent of
murder.
But a lot of people are carryingthis stuff around and I saw a
(39:41):
statistic that was somethinglike the average kid today, by
the time they're 15, sees like120,000 murders through media,
Like 120,000 murders, whetherit's video games that they're
playing, movies that they'rewatching clips that they've seen
, whatever.
We have a culture that has beentotally desensitized to the
(40:02):
assault on the image of God andI don't think we think about the
repercussions of that.
I don't think we have.
So if you show people again andagain and again the thing
that's supposed to be made inthe image of God being killed
and destroyed and murdered andwhatever else, there's something
in us that becomes desensitizedto that and leads to more of
that kind of thing.
There's another reason why Ilove to you know if I haven't
(40:25):
pissed anybody off about thisalready.
When you're watching horrormovies and everything else,
what's always happening peoplewho are made in the image of God
being destroyed and killed andmangled and everything else and
I would say it's not just sinfor them to do it, it's sin for
you to revel in that or takepart of it in some kind of way.
That is not wholesome.
Now there's some movies you'regoing to watch where it's
depicting a war and somethingawful.
(40:46):
This is what was happening andwe need you to know and see.
Like Saving Private Ryan isthis crazy movie where it's
showing you how awful war is andwhat men had to sacrifice and
what it had to do.
That's different thanmeaningless killing, which is
what a lot of things are doingand as we're medicating more
people with psychotropic drugsand all kinds of stuff, as we're
(41:07):
desensitizing people with theamount of murders and things
that they're seeing, and aswe're constantly removing God
and laws from people'sphilosophical worldviews and
from the system in which theythink they should follow, we can
only see this number continueto spike unless we see revival
and people turn back to a deeplove for scripture.
His law and ultimately, the 10commandments are the thing that
(41:30):
we should look to again as anexpression of who Christ said he
is and what he wants us to doto reform some of these things
in our life.
But I would say from apsychological standpoint, this
commandment is 100% under attackin a million different areas
and we're seeing therepercussions of this and I only
see this getting worse, notbetter.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's sad.
Final thoughts there, cy.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Oh, this is going to stick, isn't it?
I would say just study whatGod's Word says.
Use it as your ultimatestandard.
Don't, again.
I mean, the temptation here isto run into a maxim saying well,
god is love, so I just need tolove, love, love.
Don't read the rest of theBible.
God's the one who gets todefine what love is.
(42:18):
And God, I mean the ultimatestandard.
I mean you have to harmonize.
Why did Jesus tell hisdisciples to buy a sword?
Why didn't he chastise Peter inthe Garden of Gethsemane when
he cut off the ear of the?
Well, I mean, he chastised himfor cutting off the ear of the
servant of the high priest, buthe didn't chastise Peter for
owning the sword.
At least we don't see evidenceof that.
I mean Peter was commanded toeven get one.
(42:40):
And so you have to harmonizethese things.
And again, the maxim is whathas God said?
If you don't know what God hassaid in his word, then you are
ill-equipped to handle judgments.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
You're a slave to Instagram girls trying to
slanderously say things aboutLevitical law.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
And you'll buy it up and think they're totally right.
Laziness is the enemy of depthin your life.
Okay, read, learn what God hashad to say, pay attention to
what people have writtenthroughout history and
ultimately served the LordChrist.
And when you see peopleabandoning God, abandoning the
(43:21):
law that he's given to us,abandoning the moral standards
that we're supposed to have,arbitrarily subjecting their
children and their families tomurderous images and a dulling
of the sharpness that thatshould give to us, and then the
mass medication, everything elseeverybody is being put on man.
I want you to see a world.
(43:42):
That is exactly what I saidearlier from Proverbs 8, right,
it's this.
All who hate God love death, andwe have a culture that is kind
of obsessed with death and itstarted with, you know, let's
say, different people killingdifferent people.
Then it went to killingchildren, and now it's going to
killing teenagers and anybodywho's sick and kind of feels
like they just don't want tolive anymore.
And it's going to killingteenagers and anybody who's sick
(44:04):
and kind of feels like theyjust don't want to live anymore,
and it's a.
I mean, a suicide is a pandemic, mental illness is a pandemic.
This, this commandment, is abig deal, and I think it would
just do well for us to put thispodcast on the map, help people
start thinking about it andremember the positive
perspective on this.
You are to love and defend lifebecause it represents the Imago
Dei.
It's carrying that and you needto be somebody who's a champion
(44:27):
for that in a world of peoplewho no longer are.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, that's good.
One final thing to add I wouldalso say that you don't have to
do this alone and isolateyourself with studying the Word
of God.
God's given you 2,000 years ofchurch history that has helped
articulate these things, and soit would be beneficial for you
to also investigate that.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
One of my favorite things— Anything on the Crusades
.
It is.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
John Cotton's Laws in 1641 for Massachusetts, I think
is a helpful reference point.
I don't agree with all of hisinterpretation of it, but it's
certainly a solid place to go ifyou want to see how this stuff
began to influence Westernculture.
But, yeah, other than thatthat's all I got Amen.
Well, thanks for being here,Josiah.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Have a good week everybody.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Catch you all next time.
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
Justin's here, what's up, myman and Josiah's here.
I'm back, we got him back.
We got the Josie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He was here for our Sabbath talk.
I was begging at the door eversince.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hey, when you have nieces and nephews, you're going
to make them call you Uncle Si.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Uncle Si, yeah, and I'll be drinking my sweet tea Is
Si short for Josiah?
Yeah, and I'll be drinking mysweet tea Is Sigh short for
Josiah See what.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm saying, and then he could just do.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hey, you know, I want to call you Sigh from now on.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Dude, that's exactly right you should call you Josie,
but Sigh sounds cool.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
You can call him Sigh .
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, I don't want to do that.
He's like please don't do thatto me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
He'll catch months.
Everybody would be calling youthat after, so it's usually what
happens.
You are a trendsetter, so I amyes, yes, all right, moving on
to commandment number six, thesixth commandment now real quick
.
I've heard this commandment twodifferent ways.
Okay, thou shall not kill, thoushall not commit murder.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, which one is it murder.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
like those two are different Murder, murder murder,
just to be clear.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, so the King James translated this kill and
there was just some it's just a.
It's a, let's say, interpretivedifficulty.
That was around this where theymade a statement and, in that
day and age, assumed people knewwith regard to murder, because
the context of the whole Biblehas just punishment and taking
(01:27):
of life in lots of differentareas, and so we have people who
took the 10 commandments andremoved them from the context of
everything else that was said,and then we're reinterpreting
that, and then you had all thesepacifists and things that were
coming out.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Didn't make sense.
I was thinking of that movie,hacksaw Ridge.
Yeah, desmond Dawes, you knowI'm not supposed to kill.
I can't kill Exactly.
Yeah, I don't think it saysthat.
Yeah, well, it's funny.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's like, hey, you should read the rest of the book
.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It got a contradiction right after where
it's like put this person todeath.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, Exactly so yeah , so there are some translations
that will say thou shalt notkill.
It very much is murder, andmurder is the unjust taking of
life, unjust taking specificallyof human life.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But yeah, and if you go ahead, Can I just make one
comment on this?
They didn't have a word formurder in the original language.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, the context here is king.
It's in the context of what isbeing stated the killing, taking
of life.
With regards to what this isstating, it is interpreted via
the context of everything elseGod gives us in his law and book
, so it interprets for us in alarge way what this commandment
means in light of everythingelse that is taught.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So is it more like the reason behind why you're
killing somebody?
Yeah, exactly why you'rekilling somebody.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, exactly when does taking life become wrong
according to God?
Because there's lots of placeswhere he commands that you take
life right.
Oh, hundreds, yeah.
So we would say, yeah, goddoesn't contradict himself.
The statement here is withregards to an unjust taking of
human life.
That's what we're looking at.
It's unjust.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
What was the point of giving this commandment to
Moses then, at that time?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
To make sure that the people had a clear moral and
civil reality or perspective onwhat God desired for people to
do.
So, tim, it would be wrong foryou to kill someone else right,
unjustly, unjustly.
But what makes it?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
would be wrong for you to kill someone else, right
Unjustly, Tim Draper Unjustlybut what makes it just Tim
Draper?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Great question when is it appropriate to take human
life?
It's appropriate to take humanlife in self-defense.
It's appropriate to take humanlife on a grand scale, or let's
say a civic layer for takinglife and as a punishment for
somebody else.
So let's think of some fun onesthat we could jump into right
(03:54):
away.
If you're interested.
This is Exodus 22.
If the thief is caught whilebreaking in and is struck so
that he dies, there will be noblood guiltiness on his account.
Okay, so here's your make myday law right here in Exodus.
This is where it's coming from.
It's saying hey, if somebodybreaks in and he gets killed
while you're defending yourfamily or your property, you are
(04:16):
not guilty of any sin.
Why?
Because you were defending andprotecting what God has called
you to defend and protect.
This then applies to a larger,like government scale as well.
If the government or, let's say, a state, is invaded or has a
large enemy that is seeking todestroy, take life, take
(04:36):
property, take whatever theirgoal is to defend on a larger
scale, the house, so thisprinciple gets applied in a
larger sense, if you want, tosocieties themselves and the
state system.
This is why, for instance, inRomans 13, it says the
government is given a sword forthe sole purpose of going to war
(05:01):
with those who are doing evil,those who are attacking what God
has called good.
They're literally to wield thesword and accomplish God's
justice.
Vengeance is actually the word,which is awesome.
It says they're an avengingservant.
What's interesting that peopleneed to correlate is this In
Romans 12, I think it's verse19,.
(05:23):
It says Vengeance is mine, saysthe Lord, I will repay.
And then it's like a coupleverses later in chapter 13,
which is not a different letter,and those numbers weren't there
before.
There's not a separation.
He's talking about the statebeing God's avenging servant to
carry out his vengeance.
So when God says vengeance ismine, well, how is he going to
(05:43):
carry that out?
Then he says you know how Icarried that out, through godly
state systems that arefulfilling and accomplishing the
law that I've put in place.
That is the arm of the Lord ina civic sense to accomplish the
vengeance that belongs to him.
So, tim, why am I not out doing, let's say, vigilante nonsense?
(06:03):
I love Batman as much as thenext guy.
The Bible actually prohibitsthis.
You are not to take the placeof God's avenging servant unless
you are actually uniquely inthat role that God has ordained
for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So the avenging servant, meaning like officials,
like the police, the state,yeah yeah, exactly, the state
itself.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The state yeah, yeah, exactly the state itself is
called to uniquely bring aboutand uphold, let's say, restrain
wickedness and uphold thestandard of God, the law that
he's given to us through thestate.
And some of that means, like weread in these places.
That means, let's say, going towar with eminent threats and
people who are doing wickednesson a large scale to defend what
(06:42):
God has given us.
That means putting to death insome cases.
There's a bunch we could getinto here, but when the
punishment fits the crime, youwould take someone's life as a
payment, as a covering, as partof the standard that God has
given.
What is this?
Genesis 9-6, where he says thisif man takes life, then by man
(07:05):
your blood must be shed.
It's kind of this whole pictureof if you do this, this is what
you get in return.
In the same way, it talks aboutthe wages of sin.
Is death right?
The picture there is that, yeah, if somebody takes somebody's
life, you have to take theirlife in payment for what they
did.
Now, was it Rush Dooney man whohad this awesome picture?
(07:25):
He was making the point that,look, human life or humanity
itself, we would say is made inthe image of God.
We call this the Imago Dei.
Okay, the image of God.
They carry this and his pointwas the Imago Dei is such an
important thing that if somebodytakes the life of somebody who
is made in the image of God, youwould have to take their life
(07:47):
on principle, because theirsalvation and if they're right
or not before God is um is soserious that you would need to
send them up to a higher courtfor God to decide the verdict on
their life.
Wow, so he's saying you um andthis is what I'm trying to think
of who the people said in thecrusades, like, get in there and
God will sort them out.
You know what I mean.
Like it's not a one-for-onethere.
(08:08):
But his point literally was man, if somebody takes somebody
else's life, especially onpurpose, it is your duty to send
them up to a higher court forGod to decide where their
standing actually is, which isso interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But yeah, unless you're defending your property
and your family.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, unless you're defending your property and your
family.
Well, that's kind of so.
That's kind of.
The whole point is at thatpoint the man is taking his life
into his own hands and he's insin, doing something he should
not be doing, and you are calledto defend and protect what God
has given to you.
So, yeah, those are kind of thethree areas Self-defense,
capital punishment and to upholdthe standard that God has
called us to in any givenenvironment.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Okay, you look like you have something to say there,
josiah.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I had a lot of things to say.
Jump in buddy, no, it's reallygood.
I would say that the I meanobviously we have to address
this.
I mean Paul's underlyingassumption there.
When he's talking about Romans13, what kind of government is
he assuming?
The civil magistrate at thattime?
I don't want to get too much inthe weeds of that, but when
he's saying that they're meantto be a terror to the wrongdoer,
(09:08):
I mean, what's the wrongdoer inPaul's worldview?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
The one who's breaking God's law.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
God's law exactly.
It's not some arbitrary systemwhere you can have a tyrannical
government that then startsexecuting everybody.
And this is very importantbecause you'll get guys in
history, say, adolf Hitler, whodecided that he should
exterminate an entire race ofpeople because he saw them as
parasites.
(09:36):
And what's ironic about AdolfHitler.
I believe it's Joe Booth thatquotes this in the Mission of
God amazing book, by the way.
But Hitler said that the curseof mankind was on Mount Sinai.
And it's interesting because hehated and abhorred God's law.
And you see how that literallymanifested in the way that he
ruled, where he would justexterminate groups and races of
people.
Because he's ruling on anarbitrary standard his own
standard.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
People that want to be God really hate that.
God exists and has alreadyspoken.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, and what you find fascinating is like a lot
of people can get abhorredbecause they look at the Old
Testament.
They're like, oh man, there'sall these capital punishments
and there's all these executionsthat have to go on.
But, man, if you look at anyother system that completely
rejects any Christian foundation, you see far more rabid
wickedness going on.
I mean, we just consider for amoment Mao's ruling and how many
(10:24):
hundreds of millions of his owncitizens were killed and
executed, stalin, for instance.
I mean all these atheisticsystems that just liquidated and
murdered their own peopleunjustly because they completely
abandoned God's standards forhuman rights.
And what's happening now in theUnited States?
(10:49):
I mean, this one was obviouslygoing to come up at some point,
but we've abandoned God'sstandard here in the US and now
we're murdering unborn children.
And so you see what begins tohappen If people want to
complain about the Old Testament, the laws in the Old Testament.
You see throughout history, asman begins to depart from the
human rights that God affordshim in his laws, that man
actually goes beyond, godbecomes far more tyrannical.
Not that God is tyrannical inany sense, but he becomes far
(11:12):
more wicked and he takes humanlife all the more without God's
law, and so I think that that'san interesting point to caveat
on.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's worth making point, too, that the whole
picture of the Bible is Godworking through the mess to
bring about peace.
And even the standards, therules, the things that he gives
us with regard to justly takinglife are for the purpose of
ultimately bringing about peaceand restoring safety where it
didn't exist before.
So when you have taking of life, that's not for the purpose of
(11:43):
ultimately restoring peace orsomething else.
Then you have things like jihad.
It's a lawful system let's say,if you're a Muslim to take life
but it's not for the purpose ofrestoring peace, it's for
taking over the world.
All of this now belongs to me,right, and I'll kill people to
get it.
That is not a biblicalprinciple.
That's nothing in the lawstating anything like that
either.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So, just to be clear, what about stuff like the death
penalty?
I mean, is that a biblicalstance too, there?
That sounds like it would be.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, yes, I quoted Genesis 9, 6 earlier.
Right, if a man takes, you know, sheds blood by man, his blood
must be shed.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
God makes it pretty clear there's um what about,
like doing it in a humane?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
way, or 16 reasons for capital punishment.
Uh, in the old Testament, likedifferent things that we would
say hey, if you do this, the the.
Let's say that the extent ofthe law could be capital
punishment.
That's worth noting.
Like one of these, Tim is hey,if your son is drunken and
unruly, you could stone him todeath.
(12:44):
Hey, if your son is drunken andunruly, you could stone him to
death.
Okay, and it's also worthnoting that historically, there
is no history of that actuallybeing used to the nth degree.
So it seems like there's somelaws that God gives that it
could be up to this if it wasthat bad of a situation, or as a
reminder to society.
It is really important that youobey and take care of your kids
(13:05):
.
However, yeah, there's a lot ofdifferent things in scripture
where God says in some of thesescenarios, like I said, I think
it's 16 or 18 different thingsthat the Bible says could
deserve the death penalty insome situation.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, and I want to add on to that point that it's
the supreme punishment could becapital punishment.
But there seems to be anindication.
I just pulled it up here, butit's Numbers 35-31.
And it's Joe Boot that actuallymade this analysis, and we've
seen this throughout churchhistory as well.
With this interpretation itsays Moreover, you shall accept
no ransom for the life of amurderer who is guilty of death
(13:41):
but he shall be put to death, isguilty of death but he shall be
put to death.
And what's fascinating aboutthis is that there's an
implication here that you couldransom people out of other
crimes that were deserving ofcapital, but potentially
deserving of capital punishment,but it was murder, was the one
crime you could not ransomanybody out of.
So again, this is important tounderstand that God, when he's
(14:04):
saying that you shall put thisperson to death, it's not in all
cases, it's up until, like,that's the maximum punishment
that it could go for.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Right Kind of like our own court system.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So this gets thrown out because I had somebody I was
talking to talking about this.
Well, if a teenage daughtergoes out and gets pregnant and
has an abortion, are weimmediately saying death penalty
?
And I would say no.
I think there's someconversation around.
What were the circumstances?
Where is that person atmentally?
Would we execute minors?
(14:35):
What's the standard around this?
Are there some circumstanceswhere there should be death
penalty for something like that?
According to the Bible, 100%there is penalty for something
like that according to the Bible, 100% there is.
But not every circumstancewhere it says you would surely
put this person to death meansthat you would immediately do
that, because this is a case lawsystem.
It's saying this is theprinciple you would derive and
up to this standard, you wouldexecute on it.
No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He just keeps using capital punishment.
What are you talking about whenyou say that execution?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Capital punishment is the taking of somebody's life
theoretically, in a just sense.
I don't know if you want to dothis, Tim.
I wrote down knowing that wewere going to jump into this.
Let's say some Christian, justwar theory, just the principles.
From this you want to hear thisreal quick, I don't know if
you'd be interested, but theBible lays out some standards
(15:26):
and these have been heldthroughout church history.
This is not Justin's list, okay.
These have been pretty solidthings that have been
established by scripture andused throughout history.
There's seven of them.
Some people will say there'ssix, some are like these are the
big four, but I'll list themfor you.
The first one is just cause,just the principle, principle of
just cause.
There has to be an actualreason for going to war, for for
(15:50):
for uh entering into this kindof battle or something in the
situation to say, if this islegit, all right, I E what we
had talked about before, um,like, is that our lives being
taken?
Are we under some kind ofserious assault?
Um, is this?
Is there a real reason to sureuh, reason to go into this and
make sure this thing happens?
The second is last resort, theprinciple of last resort, which
(16:13):
means is there a potential forpeace instead of just going to
war?
If you can solve this with apen, do you have to use the
sword?
If you can sit down and getguys to chill out, you should do
everything that you can to dothat before you go to taking the
life of somebody who bears theimage of God.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It shouldn't be the first thing you do Right, right,
it should be so it's like do Ihave a just cause to do this?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Maybe you have a just cause.
Is there a better way to takecare of it instead of war?
Okay, let's do that first.
Let's see whatever else we cando.
Let's see whatever else we cando.
Three is legitimate authority.
Like I said earlier, you can'thave vigilantism.
You can't have a bunch ofpeople saying, well, I think we
should.
This is why guys like JamesBrown and things who are killing
(16:57):
people who are, who believed indifferent things like slave
trade and things like this, andthey're taking it into their own
hands, you're not a legitimateauthority.
If God is the avenging servant,then the civil magistrate is
the one who actually has toenact the law or walk those
things out.
Some people want to take thoseinto your own hands, so somebody
can't declare war.
That isn't a legitimateauthority given by God for that
(17:18):
purpose.
Fourth is a successful prospect.
You would not enter into aChristian war unless you were
going to lose more lives andmore people in general by doing
this, then then finding anotherpattern until something was
actually, you know, a reasonable, a reasonable approach to
something.
So like if, if you know, hey, ifI, if we go to war with these
(17:40):
guys, every but more people aregoing to die than if we didn't,
and and we're not actually goingto succeed then you wouldn't do
that Because human life is toovaluable to do something just
because there would need to bethe outcome of peace and safety
and everything else for that tobe the case.
Peaceful objective again Ibrought up earlier that's the
(18:00):
principle of a peacefulobjective.
It means ultimately, the goalis not just to obtain more land
for yourself or get moreresources for yourself or get
the stuff that you want.
The goal actually is more peaceand more safety, and if that
isn't the ultimate goal of ofwhat you're doing, then you
shouldn't go to war in the firstplace.
Proportionate means um, somepeople call this this would be
(18:21):
lex talionis.
Tim say lex talionis.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Lex talionis Lex talionis.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
This is the law of proportion.
What you're saying is it has tofit the crime.
You cannot.
This is a big question.
Like, okay, so when the UnitedStates dropped nukes on people,
okay, the question of LexTalionis comes up.
Was what we did proportionateor reasonable considering what
(18:44):
they did to us?
Was this an eye for an eye orwas this an eye for a family?
It's a reasonable question toask and it's a serious one, and
a lot of people would be.
You know, Cobra Kai, strikefirst, strike hard you know what
I mean, it's okay.
Right, right, and there's aChristian war theory here that
we should be paying attention tosaying did the punishment match
(19:05):
the crime here, or did wedouble down or triple down in
this area?
The seventh would be civilianimmunity, and this doesn't mean
that civilians are never goingto get hurt in the process.
It means they can't be anintentional part of the strategy
or you intentionally harmingcivilians because they don't
matter.
(19:25):
The goal would be to eliminatethe amount of civilians that are
hurt in any kind of process.
Trying to eliminate the actualissue, like going into gaza,
right, this is one of thosethings where it comes up, where
it's like man, this is trickybecause you have all these
people who don't have any kindof just war theory and they
think, yeah, if they're going toabide by this law, then I'm
going to do everything that Ican to leverage their own law
against them.
I'll take, take these people,I'll use them as shields,
(19:47):
everything else In thosecircumstances.
There's not a way to mitigatethat or get around it.
But ultimately, you're notgoing to bomb a bunch of areas
that just have civilians to findone person who doesn't.
The goal would be we want toeliminate civilians and make
them immune from this as much aswe can in given circumstances.
So there's a whole theoryaround when is it appropriate to
(20:09):
go to war?
When is battle actually a thingthat you should consider, and
the Bible actually has a lot tosay about it, and I don't think
most Christians in the last 50years have even like tapped this
on the shoulder because thishasn't been a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
No, they haven't.
Yeah, I think and this has beenaround for a long time that
this has been articulated.
It was St Augustine of Hippo.
It was the 5th century.
Yeah, I think he died.
It was 430 AD or something likethat, but he articulated these
things.
We've been using it ever since.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Well, people who have been immersed in war have had
to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
They've had to think about it, and what's fascinating
is that you've totally lostthis understanding, because what
we've made, the maxim you couldsay, is humanism, and that can
be whatever you and yourrelativism, arbitrary ideas
think it should be, whether it'sjust pacifism all the way out
and there should never be a war.
(21:02):
But the problem is, christiansstop thinking like Christians.
We stopped depending on whatGod has spoken and we started
depending on how we feel, andit's very feeling-based with how
we feel about war, and war isnever good.
And the problem is, I mean,ultimately St Augustine went as
far as to say that war there aretimes that it's necessary
(21:22):
because of the fall, and so Idon't know.
I think we would be a muchbetter society if Christians got
back to understanding theseprinciples from scripture.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, based off that list, and you kind of brought
this up too, before we evenstarted recording.
But this isn't just aboutsomebody taking someone else's
life.
This is also kind of defendinglife as much as you can.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So, every one of the Ten Commandments, you want to
think about the inverse of whatit is too, because whether it's
a positive or negative statementthat God is making about
something, generally speaking,the inverse is what you're
teaching on as well, right?
So if I'm saying murder iswrong, what am I to infer from
that?
That life is valuable, that I'mfighting for life, that I want
(22:04):
to defend life.
If I'm saying, hey, lying iswrong, which we'll get to, what
am I saying?
The truth is valuable and youshould fight for it.
If I'm teaching, remember theSabbath day, make it holy, don't
break that, what am I saying?
It's really important that youapply that in your life.
Everything has a negative and apositive that you should be
(22:26):
looking at.
Now there's some details inboth those areas.
You can take them to an extremeand make that unhelpful.
Yeah, the ultimately, thiscommandment is saying the Imago
Dei, the life that God has given, is really important, and when
you take life, you had betterhave a great reason for it.
If you don't, it's murder.
This is why abortion is murder.
It's an unjust taking of humanlife.
(22:46):
Another area where this bugs meis assisted suicide.
We have so many people now thatare like oh, this person's old
or they have this going on, orthey've been in a hospital.
I mean, dude, canada is crazy.
Now they just recommend topeople oh, would you like us to
assist with this?
Basically right, I'm trying tothink of the word they have.
They don't say assisted suicideanymore, they have a whole
(23:10):
vernacular built around it, butthis is a legitimate
recommendation they make.
I think this is the case.
You have to check me on this.
I was hearing somebody talkabout this now in Canada.
Like a young kid, like children, can say I don't want to live
anymore, and it is a legitimateoption for them to go and end
(23:31):
their own life without anyrepercussions.
If somebody signs off and says,yes, they have this legitimate
thing, they want this to be done, kids can just go and their
life, I mean it's, it's.
It's horrifying because wedon't value what God has stated
and where God has said there isvalue.
Now To Josiah's point.
It becomes humanism, whereashumans decide what they think is
(23:51):
best, and this can go a varietyof ways.
Either you become a tyrant andwants to take everyone else's
life, or you think you have somekind of selective sovereignty
and say I can take my own lifewhenever I want or whenever it's
convenient.
And just as abhorrent to me asabortion is, which is this
taking of innocent life?
Is this idea that you think it'sokay to take your own if the
circumstances feel like thatshould be the case, and that's
(24:14):
equally disgusting to God, butultimately a consequence of a
world that doesn't care aboutthe sixth commandment and loves
to find ways around.
There's movies now, too, aboutthis person who had this
terrible life, and it's hisright to take his own life if he
doesn't want to live anymore.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
God says here's my standard.
I've given you this.
You don't get to decide whenyou want to do that or not,
(24:36):
because God has spoken andeverybody wants to come up with
some emotional case for why whatGod said shouldn't be followed
and it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Along that kind of same vein.
What about people who are sickand, hey, this surgery could
save your life, could not, andthey refuse to do it and then
they end up dying?
Is that another form?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Yeah, so I would even apply some of the same
principle there from when wewere talking about, like, going
to war.
Is the purpose of doing this tobring about peace and safety?
Yeah, and is it a dangerousthing to do?
Could it go south?
Yes.
Is it a reasonable success?
Yes.
Is it for the purpose of godlyoutcome?
Yes, okay, then I'm within mybounds to do this, to see this
(25:18):
happen, if I know, if I do thisI'm probably going to die.
It's not worth it.
No, I wouldn't apply that.
No, I wouldn't apply that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Also say that you as a person have a moral obligation
to be a good steward of yourbody so that you can continue to
live, to continue to advanceGod's kingdom.
So if you're in any way tryingto shorten that and play God,
then I think that there's anissue.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
How does this stuff get so distorted?
Well, I'll tell you where Ithink it starts.
I mean, there's probably abunch of other places, but you
brought something up at the verybeginning of the episode, okay,
like is it murder or kill?
Yeah, all right, we brought upconscientious objectors in the
world who are like the Biblesays don't kill.
And you read a lot of otherplaces in the Bible that
apparently we just don't payattention to.
(26:04):
Or simple stuff like Jesus.
Jesus talks about later inMatthew five right, if somebody
strikes you on the cheek,turning him the other, a lot of
people like what that means is,if somebody hits me or murders
me, I'm not supposed to doanything back.
And I would say well, you haveto do.
To do that is ignore chunks ofthe Bible that are far more
(26:26):
explicit about that particularsituation to elevate that text.
Now, we brought up this textbefore.
This is talking about an insultor a challenge.
God's saying hey, if you canavoid it, it's the same
principles we talked about.
If there's another means, usethat other means that you can
clear this up without going towar, then clear it up without
going to war.
But I'll tell you right nowI've never heard anybody apply
(26:47):
that principle in this situation.
Somebody comes into your houseand I'm a conscious as a, you
know I'm an objector, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do this.
So Jesus says turn the othercheek.
Do you believe that in the caseof rape, do you would?
You, are you serious, like somethat's happening to somebody
and you're like you know what?
Turn the other cheek Badmetaphor there.
But I'm trying to make thepoint Like that's horrifying.
(27:09):
Nobody, actually I don't knowanybody who would apply that to
other forms of violence orthings that are happening, or
child abuse or whatever else.
They would never say no, no, no, go ahead, hit the kid.
It's really sad that he's doingthat.
But God tells us to turn theother cheek.
So tell your six-year-old who'sbeing abused or something that
it's totally fine.
Or sexual assault or thingslike that, right, like it's
deplorable.
(27:30):
So if you read the rest ofscripture, the Bible has a lot
to say about when to act, whennot to act.
But people have takenprinciples from scripture,
removed them, especially fromold Testament teaching, them
especially from Old Testamentteaching, amplified specific
(27:50):
teachings that Jesus said out ofcontext and recreated a
humanitarian type of Jesus who'smore interested in people's
feelings, happiness and, let'ssay, general emotional state in
the moment.
That is not really what Jesuswas talking about from the
cultural or biblical contextitself.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Love your neighbor, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, and I think it's more of a hijacking of
Jesus.
It's kind of like hippies youknow what I mean Going around
saying you know, make love, notwar, okay.
Or like coming up with thisidea of who Jesus was he's the
original flower child.
It's like this is not it's notaccurate.
This is not what he was saying.
And so if you have, let's say,a humanist perspective, which is
(28:29):
ultimately whatever is good forhumanity is what's good for me,
and everybody should do thingsthat are ultimately just good
for what I think is best forhumanity because I've abandoned
what God's saying is best isactually what's best for
humanity Then I will go back toscripture.
I'll find the teachings thatseem to line up with what I
think is the case, I'll makethose louder than anything else
(28:49):
in scripture and then I'll justcontinue to run that.
Eventually I can create a typeof Christianity that doesn't
have any bedrock or anchoring tothe things that God actually
said, but leverages Jesus forplatitudes to promote a humanist
perspective instead.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
It's funny attitudes to promote a humanist
perspective instead.
It's funny my wife will show melike shorts and TikToks and
stuff people using Leviticus orDeuteronomy or all these laws
about tattoos and abortion andwhatnot you know, and he could
tell right away that thisperson's never actually read
scripture just by how theirdefense is not there.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
They're just quoting the scripture.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
The Bible says this, guys, so you know look up
something provocative it says,so I can say how crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Well, here's what's funny too is somebody just looks
it up and says look howhorrible this sounds.
According to what?
According to what are yousaying?
Listen to how bad this sounds,because some of these verses,
you know, if you said that in adifferent country, they would
look at you like you're a crazyperson, which means that I'm a
byproduct of my current culture.
I'm not attached to anythingthat has substance or history
(29:53):
along with it, I'm just anideologue of the current
cultural temperature.
How shallow.
You know what I mean.
And then I'm going to try tomock somebody with a
6,000-year-old history that'srich and tried and true and the
very bedrock especially ifyou're in the Western world that
built the civilization you'rein and the reason you can say
what you say and you're mockingit.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, yikes, I'm going to shake my fist in the
air and blow up the very stonesthat I'm standing on.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
That is it.
That's exactly what they do.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That is it Just to piggyback on what you were
saying earlier, Justin.
I think it's also important, Imean, when Jesus cites the
Decalogue, because a lot ofpeople go here 10 Commandments.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
The 10 Commandments, the Decalogue, the.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Decalogue when Jesus cites the 10 Commandments in the
New Testament and he goes over.
You know, if you hate yourbrother, you know if you hate
him in your heart, you'vecommitted murder in your heart.
By no means is Jesus saying oradvocating that people should be
arrested for committing murderin their heart.
Okay, If you study enough ofthe Old Testament, you will find
(30:55):
that they do make a distinctionbetween sins and crimes.
Yeah, Not every sin should bepunished as a crime.
Okay, and so the simple waywould be not every sin is a
crime, but all crimes are sin.
Okay, and so the simple waywould be not every sin is a
crime, but all crimes are sin.
Okay, and so when Jesus issaying these things, what Jesus
is trying to get to the root ofbecause the issue with the
Pharisees is that they were soconcerned with the outward guise
(31:17):
of how they would follow thetraditions of the law, but
inside they were tombs.
They were these whitewashedtombs.
You clean the outside of thecup, but inside it you're dirty.
Jesus is getting to the heart ofthe matter, that it all comes
from the heart.
Where does murder begin?
Murder begins with somebody whohates someone else enough that
(31:38):
it will then manifest into anaction.
Jesus by no means is sayingthat he's not convoluting crimes
and sins.
And if you want to say thatJesus is doing that, then Jesus
is contradicting himself as theLogos who wrote, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, the OldTestament.
That or you have to come upwith some crazy, arbitrary,
(32:01):
divisionalist system to wherethe Bible does contradict itself
in different epochs, whichwe're not obviously advocating
for here.
That's nonsense.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
But to your point it's exactly right.
Not all sin is a crime, butevery crime is a sin.
Ultimately, if you want to backit up with a biblical principle
, there's some crimes now thatshould not be crimes.
I don't want to go too deepinto the recon aspect of this,
but I do want people to knowultimately there's a just way to
(32:35):
take life, there's an unjustway to take life.
God gives us clarity on all ofthis stuff and in the Decalogue,
the Ten Commandments itself,it's making the point do not
unjustly take life.
And we know from this thateverything that God gives us in
the Ten Commandments are for ourwell-being, our benefit and so
(32:55):
that we would thrive andflourish and do well.
And what we see, tim, ultimately, as soon as we get sin enters
into the world, is that thefirst offspring are killing
themselves or you're killingeach other.
You know what I mean.
It is a natural consequencethat when sin enters into the
world, which is a spiritualdeath, that we immediately move
into a physical death that wouldaccompany that spiritual death.
(33:18):
I think it's Proverbs 8, 36,where Jesus says all who hate me
love death.
You know, all who hate God havean obsession with death.
And I think this plays outthroughout history and again,
and bring up the abortionindustry and why this is so
significant.
But people who have a desire toassault the Imago Dei
(33:39):
ultimately have no love for Godor desire to uphold his standard
.
And if you do want to hold uphis standard, it's not because
you love death, it's because youlove justice and you know God
has called you um, you know tobe a part of whatever entity
he's called you to in thatunique way, to uphold those
things.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What is it?
The Orwellian picture 1984, ofthe boot constantly stomping on
the face of mankind.
I mean, that's the atheisticsystem.
You know, that's when weabandon God, when we want to
create a humanism, a humanisticsystem.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You created a humanism, you created a humanism
.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's funny when you've created a humanistic
system, that's ultimately whatit's going to devolve into.
It hates itself and it seeks todestroy itself.
It is God is the only one whogets to establish the rights of
mankind.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, so don't be mal , don't.
I did a humanism I did ahumanism, just kidding.
No to your point.
And this is gosh.
I always forget the guy who isinterpreting art and culture
throughout history.
It's going to kill me, I can'tthink of it.
History, it's going to kill me,I can't think of it.
But, um, yeah, his, his wholepoint was in when, when, uh, a
(34:46):
nation rejects god, thegovernment becomes god right.
When the nation rejects god,the state ultimately becomes by
god, because nature abhors avacuum.
Somebody has to set thestandard for laws and everything
else.
And this was, this was umnietzsche's whole point in Thus
Begs Zarathustra, when he wastalking about the death of God
and the reality that he waspredicting that the 20th century
(35:08):
would be the bloodiest centuryever.
Because if you remove Godphilosophically from people's
minds and how they think, withevolutionary thought and all
these different kinds of things,what you ultimately do is
remove the moral need for thestandards that people have.
You make humanity, or whoeveris in the most power at that
(35:28):
moment, the arbiter of right andwrong.
And he basically said if we dothis, a lot of people are going
to die.
And it was just the bloodiestcentury ever, with Mao and
Stalin and Pol Pot and Hitler.
We just saw millions andmillions of people
systematically murdered becauseall who hate God love death.
And if you set yourself upagainst God and you put yourself
(35:50):
in the place of God, thenultimately you will attack the
image of God.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
So yeah, so you probably already answered this,
but this is kind of where myhead's gone.
But when you talk about themagistrate, like the government
are the ones who should decidethese things.
What?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
if they've— I didn't say that, just so we're clear.
I said God should decide thesethings.
I think the magistrate shouldenforce what God has said.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right and when they don't—this is kind of going back
to the whole vigilante thing.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Well, the system screwed me, so now I have to
take matters in my own hands,type of thing.
Yeah, yeah, what is that Greatquestion.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Okay, so great question.
So there's something called thedoctrine of the lesser
magistrate.
That is very important.
What this is saying is peoplewho are in the state system also
have an obligation to upholdthe law when other people won't.
Okay, so think about it thisway.
Won't Okay, so think about itthis way.
(36:48):
When somebody who is, let's say, in some kind of state position
, decides to go the oppositedirection, he is not above the
law and he is not the law.
He doesn't get to decide thosethings.
He is to establish and continueto uphold the law.
So if that person stops doingthat, what you would want to do
is find somebody who will upholdthe law in this righteous way
and help get behind what he'sdoing to bring about the, let's
(37:08):
say, the redevelopment or theretaking of this system.
Get yourself into a godlysystem and find people who you
can follow, who are upholdingthe law of God, to call those
people to repentance and to getback to what God has called them
to do.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Not just turn into Judge Dredd.
So think about it this way yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So think about it this way.
Let's say, you have a smalltown or something.
Okay, who's the mayor?
Find the mayor, and if the guythree steps above the mayor is
being ungodly, then I'm going toultimately follow the godly
let's say, civil magistrate whois upholding God's law, and my
obligation is first to theperson that is upholding God's
law and second, to the personwho is not All right.
(37:47):
So let's take this intoconsider, and you can get really
into the weeds with this.
Let's take into considerationthe fact that everyone who wrote
during the first century abouta bank, government paying tax,
all that stuff were under aregime that was actively killing
Christians.
Okay, so it wasn't like it wassome perfect environment where
they were just making somepoints about some things.
(38:09):
It was rough.
Let's be honest, though.
Every single one of theapostles died as an enemy of the
state.
Well, it's not like they weresaying we're supposed to obey
everything that the governmentsays in these areas, even if
they're wrong.
No, they understood obeyeverything that the government
says in these areas, even ifthey're wrong.
No, they understood wherethey're wrong.
You're not supposed to obeythem.
They also understood that Godhas instituted government and
where it is godly and upholdingwhat God has said, then we
(38:30):
should follow that and get afterit.
He actually brings us up, Ithink it's what is it Second
Peter or first Peter?
Where he talks about godlygovernment and what that's
supposed to look like, andthey're carrying out the law of
God.
So, yeah, thoughts about that.
Josie.
Doctrine of lesser magistrate.
Yeah, I mean I've got nothing toadd on that one Basically find
someone solid who will go to waragainst the person who is not
(38:54):
solid to bring reformation inthat area and get back to what
God has called you to do.
Nice, All right.
Yeah, hey, just to bring thisdown to a practical level, yeah,
here's what I would say.
Not to be cliche here, thistopic can be used a lot to make
it just as a spiritual, etherealthing that doesn't actually
affect the world around us.
This commandment is huge andGod has spoken a lot about this
(39:19):
particular topic and when peopledo this thing where they're
like, just boil it down to well,God said hating somebody is the
same as murder.
You're eliminating so much ofwhat the Bible has to say about
this.
Yes, To hate somebody in yourheart is not good and it is the
sinful equivalent of murder.
It is not the, let's say, theexternal, lawful equivalent of
murder.
But a lot of people are carryingthis stuff around and I saw a
(39:41):
statistic that was somethinglike the average kid today, by
the time they're 15, sees like120,000 murders through media,
Like 120,000 murders, whetherit's video games that they're
playing, movies that they'rewatching clips that they've seen
, whatever.
We have a culture that has beentotally desensitized to the
(40:02):
assault on the image of God andI don't think we think about the
repercussions of that.
I don't think we have.
So if you show people again andagain and again the thing
that's supposed to be made inthe image of God being killed
and destroyed and murdered andwhatever else, there's something
in us that becomes desensitizedto that and leads to more of
that kind of thing.
There's another reason why Ilove to you know if I haven't
(40:25):
pissed anybody off about thisalready.
When you're watching horrormovies and everything else,
what's always happening peoplewho are made in the image of God
being destroyed and killed andmangled and everything else and
I would say it's not just sinfor them to do it, it's sin for
you to revel in that or takepart of it in some kind of way.
That is not wholesome.
Now there's some movies you'regoing to watch where it's
depicting a war and somethingawful.
(40:46):
This is what was happening andwe need you to know and see.
Like Saving Private Ryan isthis crazy movie where it's
showing you how awful war is andwhat men had to sacrifice and
what it had to do.
That's different thanmeaningless killing, which is
what a lot of things are doingand as we're medicating more
people with psychotropic drugsand all kinds of stuff, as we're
(41:07):
desensitizing people with theamount of murders and things
that they're seeing, and aswe're constantly removing God
and laws from people'sphilosophical worldviews and
from the system in which theythink they should follow, we can
only see this number continueto spike unless we see revival
and people turn back to a deeplove for scripture.
His law and ultimately, the 10commandments are the thing that
(41:30):
we should look to again as anexpression of who Christ said he
is and what he wants us to doto reform some of these things
in our life.
But I would say from apsychological standpoint, this
commandment is 100% under attackin a million different areas
and we're seeing therepercussions of this and I only
see this getting worse, notbetter.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's sad.
Final thoughts there, cy.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Oh, this is going to stick, isn't it?
I would say just study whatGod's Word says.
Use it as your ultimatestandard.
Don't, again.
I mean, the temptation here isto run into a maxim saying well,
god is love, so I just need tolove, love, love.
Don't read the rest of theBible.
God's the one who gets todefine what love is.
(42:18):
And God, I mean the ultimatestandard.
I mean you have to harmonize.
Why did Jesus tell hisdisciples to buy a sword?
Why didn't he chastise Peter inthe Garden of Gethsemane when
he cut off the ear of the?
Well, I mean, he chastised himfor cutting off the ear of the
servant of the high priest, buthe didn't chastise Peter for
owning the sword.
At least we don't see evidenceof that.
I mean Peter was commanded toeven get one.
(42:40):
And so you have to harmonizethese things.
And again, the maxim is whathas God said?
If you don't know what God hassaid in his word, then you are
ill-equipped to handle judgments.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
You're a slave to Instagram girls trying to
slanderously say things aboutLevitical law.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
And you'll buy it up and think they're totally right.
Laziness is the enemy of depthin your life.
Okay, read, learn what God hashad to say, pay attention to
what people have writtenthroughout history and
ultimately served the LordChrist.
And when you see peopleabandoning God, abandoning the
(43:21):
law that he's given to us,abandoning the moral standards
that we're supposed to have,arbitrarily subjecting their
children and their families tomurderous images and a dulling
of the sharpness that thatshould give to us, and then the
mass medication, everything elseeverybody is being put on man.
I want you to see a world.
(43:42):
That is exactly what I saidearlier from Proverbs 8, right,
it's this.
All who hate God love death, andwe have a culture that is kind
of obsessed with death and itstarted with, you know, let's
say, different people killingdifferent people.
Then it went to killingchildren, and now it's going to
killing teenagers and anybodywho's sick and kind of feels
like they just don't want tolive anymore.
And it's going to killingteenagers and anybody who's sick
(44:04):
and kind of feels like theyjust don't want to live anymore,
and it's a.
I mean, a suicide is a pandemic, mental illness is a pandemic.
This, this commandment, is abig deal, and I think it would
just do well for us to put thispodcast on the map, help people
start thinking about it andremember the positive
perspective on this.
You are to love and defend lifebecause it represents the Imago
Dei.
It's carrying that and you needto be somebody who's a champion
(44:27):
for that in a world of peoplewho no longer are.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, that's good.
One final thing to add I wouldalso say that you don't have to
do this alone and isolateyourself with studying the Word
of God.
God's given you 2,000 years ofchurch history that has helped
articulate these things, and soit would be beneficial for you
to also investigate that.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
One of my favorite things— Anything on the Crusades
.
It is.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
John Cotton's Laws in 1641 for Massachusetts, I think
is a helpful reference point.
I don't agree with all of hisinterpretation of it, but it's
certainly a solid place to go ifyou want to see how this stuff
began to influence Westernculture.
But, yeah, other than thatthat's all I got Amen.
Well, thanks for being here,Josiah.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Have a good week everybody.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Catch you all next time.
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