Thou Shalt not kill

There was once a Sunday school teacher that was teaching a Bible lesson to her class.  Upon finishing she asked if there was a bible verse that taught how family members should treat each other.  One child raised his hand and answered “thou shalt not kill”.

At face value this seems to be a very easy answer on killing, but quite another on how we should talk to and treat our brothers and sisters.  The fact of the matter is that many people truly do not know the proper meanings of scriptures.  No, I do not claim to have some “exclusive apostolic prophetic” meanings.  I only mean that if we compare scripture with scripture in it’s context and dispensation we will see various scriptures that agree with a certain direction.  That is basically how the central doctrines of the Bible came to be!

My point today to tell you a story about a family member . . . For the purposes of this blog we will refer to them as “Fred”.  Consider these points:

• Is it wrong to fight back?

• How hard do you hit?

Is it wrong to fight back?

Fred is in an abusive relationship and is uncomfortable with fighting back, for fear of the consequences that would follow.  He is able to fight, but has no desire.  By the way this is a verbal confrontation not a physical one. 
 It seemed to me that this is a conundrum that is faced by Christian and martial artist alike.  The famous general Sun Tzu said that to win a fight without fighting was a greater victory.  Another old adage in Karate is “There is no first strike (initiative) in Karate”
The problem with fighting is knowing when to fight and when not.  In Fred’s case he is too nice and the time has come, in my opinion, to fight.
Normally I do not get involved in such things, but I had to speak my peace, because it strung a deep chord within myself about how people can be manipulative and controlling over another person.  It usually starts with minor control, then escalates.  This is the case with Fred.  As I understand it, he has been controlled for quite some time.  My (listened to but perhaps not wanted) advice was, if you want peace, you must strike back with one good hit to the “chops” and the other person will back off.  A bully is a bully because someone facilitates him/her.

How hard do you hit?

When we look at scripture we see two verses in Proverbs that agree with this:

• Ecclesiastes 3:1
• Proverbs 26:4-5

There is a time and place for everything, even to rebuke a fool!
A definite stopping action to a bully will usually cause the bully to back off.  Just because were grown ups doesn’t mean that people cannot be bullies!

It also means that even adults need to be ready to respond back to stop it as well.

What do you think?