Proverbs 3:27
“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” (Proverbs 3:27)
By including anger and verbal abuse in the category of murder, Jesus did not say nor mean that they were as evil as murder. But they are the same variety of sin and may not be excused as mere human weakness. In fact, all sin, including murder, is rather like an onion. Beneath the final act are lesser acts, and beneath all the acts is a corrupt heart. Murder is highly visible, the full-grown sin, but when the outer layer is peeled away, various levels of violence are seen as part of the same “onion,” and beneath the physical and verbal abuse is the heart of anger, hatred, or failing to love. If the core of inadequate love is planted and allowed to grow, the hateful activity will follow. And all of it falls under the judgment of God. Murder is not just physical. While there are multiple ways to murder today. Let’s consider a few ways a normal Christian might not have in the forefront of their thinking.
One way to harm is by doing and saying nothing when a word or an action would keep from harm. Failure to put a balustrade around a flat rooftop brought blood guiltiness if someone fell from the roof (Deut. 22:8). Failure to do good, when in one’s power to do so, is sin (Prov. 3:27-28). So the poor, the helpless, and the starving are my responsibility to the extent I have ability to help. To be silent when another is falsely accused, whether in a court of law or in the presence of private gossip, is to participate in the harm. Neglect, then, is one form of murder (see also Exod. 21:29-31).
Violence in the home has been the underreported and largely ignored crime of a society preoccupied with appearances. The murder of O. J. Simpson’s wife has alerted many for the first time to the alarming extent of wife beating in America. The district attorney’s office in Los Angeles reported that in his city domestic violence was responsible for an average of one homicide every nine days.
Christ’s commentary on the sixth commandment emphasized verbal abuse. James (1:26; 3:1-12) and Solomon[63] had a great deal to say about sins of the tongue, but the rest of Scripture is strong on the subject as well. James says that the tongue is like wildfire and poison. It not only poisons relationships and burns up the lives of others; it consumes the one himself whose tongue is not disciplined by the Spirit (James 3).
A direct attack on a person with carping criticism or biting depreciation, sarcastic humor, or subtle insinuation can destroy something in that person. But just as deadly is the criticism spoken about a person to others. The law of love seals the lips. Any word that harms another is murder, unless spoken in love to that person or spoken only to another who is responsible to correct the wrong (Matt. 18:15-18). The absent person is just as safe with the Spirit-directed child of God as the one who is present with him.
Racism technically refers to the idea that certain nonracial characteristics, especially cultural patterns, are the result of race. An example would be to generalize from the behavior of some people of a given race, assigning that kind of behavior to all belonging to the same race. The result is often hatred, intolerance, or unjust discrimination. Since this attitude is often expressed more freely and forcefully by the majority race in a given community, the label “racist” is often assigned to those who consider their own race superior and oppress others. But racist attitudes and actions are quite possible among an oppressed minority, even when the assumption of their own inferiority is accepted. No people group is immune to the virus of racism, ungodly attitudes based on racial differences. Of course, the same kind of sinful attitudes and behavior can be based on differences of culture, education, physical abilities, language, tribe, socially defined class or caste, as well as on race.
Christ’s commentary on the sixth commandment emphasized verbal abuse. James (1:26; 3:1-12) and Solomon (Prov. 13:3; 15:1, 4, 23; 17:28; 18:8, 13; 21:23; 29:20) had a great deal to say about sins of the tongue, but the rest of Scripture is strong on the subject as well. James says that the tongue is like wildfire and poison. It not only poisons relationships and burns up the lives of others; it consumes the one himself whose tongue is not disciplined by the Spirit (James 3).
The law of love seals the lips. Any word that harms another is murder, unless spoken in love to that person or spoken only to another who is responsible to correct the wrong (Matt. 18:15-18).
Murder is highly visible, the full-grown sin, but when the outer layer is peeled away, various levels of violence are seen as part of the same “onion,” and beneath the physical and verbal abuse is the heart of anger, hatred, or failing to love. If the core of inadequate love is planted and allowed to grow, the hateful activity will follow. And all of it falls under the judgment of God.[64]
[63] Prov. 13:3; 15:1, 4, 23; 17:28; 18:8, 13; 21:23; 29:20
[64] IBE (2014), 351.