Good Morning! Today in our Ecclesiastes 3 blog post series we are going to focus on verse 3…
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up. Eccl. 3:3
OK…i understand that this is a passage that can be a little controversial. Especially with what is happening in our world in terms of guns and mass killings. The politics in our country, and all over the world, are fighting over this very subject, among others things. A time to heal, tear down then build back up again…those are more acceptable, but the real kicker is a time to kill.
I have had to take a great look at this one and decide for myself which view I hold… is it OK for Christians to carry guns for self-defense? For me biblically I have decided that this is permissible. Don’t worry, this will NOT be a blog post about persuading you to be pro conceal and carry. I would not push my views on this, or any subject, onto anyone. I am just writing how I believe God wants us to read His Word.
A time to kill…
Obviously there are times it is permissible by God to kill. God gives us those examples in Scripture… in times of war would be one. To understand this myself I had to do a lot of questioning, a lot of searching Scripture for the answers.
There is a distinct difference between killing and murdering. God tells us in His Commandments in Exodus that we should not murder. The original Hebrew word for murder literally means, “the intentional, premeditated killing of another person with malice.”
I read in another blog post called Cold Case Christianity about this distinction and it says this…
Malice is a form of evil intent that separates “murder” from “killing”. Even today there are acceptable forms of killing that lack this kind of evil intent, and these forms of killing exist as exceptions in the murder laws of the United States. In California, for example, a homicide is justified (according to Penal Code sections 187, 196 and 197) if one of the following conditions is met:
A person kills someone accidentally
A person is trying to defend him or herself and prevent his or her own murder (self-defense)
A person is trying to prevent someone from entering his or her house to commit some violent felony
A person is trying to prevent the murder of someone else (protecting an innocent)In all these situations, killing is actually legal and justifiable, and exceptions of this nature exist in the Penal Codes of every state in America. Even those who don’t accept the existence of God or the authority of the Bible recognize the necessity for laws like these; laws that allow for deadly force to be used to accomplish some greater good.
With all that is happening in our world today, I am a conceal and carry proponent. After all my studying, I see that it really isn’t the guns that make the distinction between killing and murder, but rather the person’s intent behind the gun.
What are your thoughts? Ultimately you have to make decisions like these based on what you interpret God’s Word to say… and God’s word does say there is time to kill.
God loves you and so do I,
Leslie
Lutheran Ladies Connection 