I don’t know about you, but generally, every time I read or hear a C.S. Lewis quote I think wow that’s brilliant, and generally just have no doubt in it. However, at the moment I’m reading Mere Christianity and this morning came across this quote:
If you had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war, and I still think so now that we are at peace.
A bit different, hey? He continues:
It is no good quoting “Thou shalt not kill.” There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when Christ quote that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery.
So I’ve never read anything like this before – I’d be interested in your opinions! Any thoughts?!
I would suggest that by having two meanings of “kill”, and only thinking one is wrong, it enables God to kill lots of people without criticism?
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html