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Killing Isn't Good

I'm not just saying this because I'm a pastor. But I think killing pastors is wrong. There should be a rule. I know, I know, we got that rule about not murdering. It seems to me that, despite the absoluteness of the wording, it has gotten a tad convoluted over time. That's why I think we need this new rule. No killing pastors.

This comes to mind as I am reading through 1 Samuel and came across chapter 22. King Saul is going nuts looking for David, so he can kill him. (It should be noted that heirs to the kingdom shouldn't be killed either.) Saul finds out that some priests helped David out. So Saul killed them all. It should have made Saul take pause, though, because when he first gave the order, the soldiers said no. When men trained to be killing machines say no to killing, you may want to rethink your orders. But along came a guy who had no inhibitions about killing priests...and he did.

Listen, I'm not protecting any potential king. I know some guys who would make good city council members, but I am not aware of anyone trying to off them. And I realize there are some people out there using the pastor title that are saying and doing some crazy things. But I don't think we should kill them either.

While we're at it, I don't think we should advocate killing non-pastors either. I know that non-pastors say some crazy things and do even crazier things. But if we're not going to kill pastors for this kind of thing, we probably shouldn't kill non-pastors as well.

What do you know? Perhaps the absoluteness of the original rule is still good enough.
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