Exodus 20:13 Study Guide: Do Not Murder

Community Group Study Guide — The Sixth Commandment - Do Not Murder
Exodus 20:13

Study Information:
The Sixth Commandment: “do not murder” prohibits the taking of another life and points to God’s love of life and desire to protect it. Out of all the commandments, this one comes with the most number of complicated ethical situations attached to it. Does this apply to wartime scenarios, how about medical procedures that may terminate life and what about Jesus’s interpretation of the command to include prohibitions on anger and hatred? When we step back and look at our world and our culture in general, we see that our culture does not value life the same way God does. To not murder is not enough, followers of Jesus also need to actively pursue and protect life. 

Do Not Murder
Exodus 20:13
The Hebrew word for murder in the sixth commandment  is not the same word as “kill” in the Bible. Murder is the unlawful or unauthorized taking over another life. For example this word is not used to describe death during war or even capital punishment in the scripture. We read in the scripture that there are times when God commands death and other times when we’re told that it is in the power of human governments to use the sword to protect and execute justice (Romans 13:3-4). God in his infinite wisdom and justice will sometimes bring about the end of life and he has also established human government, though flawed, to protect and avenge. In either scenarios, it is not within an individual’s power or authority to end another person’s life. 

God prohibits murder because human life is a gift from God and no one person can decide whether that human life should end. We are to protect and value human life because humans uniquely reflect the image God (Genesis 1:27, 9:5-6). There is infinite dignity and worth in every human being and life should be loved and protected. 

Our world does not model this value because of sin’s presence and because Satan hates life. The first great sin outside the Garden of Eden was the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Genesis 4 shows us the end outcome of this type of violence with a song from one of Cain’s descendants celebrating how powerful and strong he was that he could kill a man for wounding him (Genesis 4:23-24). This was an example of retaliatory violence that permeated the ancient near east. In many nations that surrounded Israel, you could kill a man for wounding you, but God limited retaliation to “an eye for an eye,” rather than “a life for an eye.”

Today we get bombarded with headlines about city streets filled with senseless gun violence, we’ve made it easy to end a human life through abortion and we are moving towards the ability to legally end life early when we deem suffering is too great or someone no longer wants to live. We know that many people make these decisions because of cultural pressure or a lack of hope. Many do not make a decision to pull the trigger of a gun or to go to the doctor for an abortion without thinking at some level it was the only option for them at the time. If you’ve been there before, God gives grace and forgiveness and your past sin does not have to define your life forever. Likewise we should cling to the hope of the gospel that we can be made new in and through Christ. Yet when we look at the world around us it should cause us to wonder, “what would it be like to have our entire culture and world focused on loving and protecting life?”

How can we promote and love life?

First, Do Not Tolerate Anger or Hate in Your Heart
You may read the command “do not murder” and think, “great! I’ve kept this one.” But we need only to hear Jesus speak on the commandment to know how we’ve failed to keep it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke to the heart attitude behind the law to show us how we all fall short of the glory of God and need a new kind of righteousness, one that comes from faith and our union in Christ. Jesus said that if we are angry with our brother we have broken the command “do not murder (Matthew 5:22).” 

We can fall into the pattern of entertaining anger for other people created in God’s image and end up killing them a hundred times over in our heart. This reminds us that the Ten Commandments always point back to the heart and our need for God’s grace. What should we do when we are angry with our brother or sister? Jesus taught that instead of fueling the anger we need to pursue restoration (Matthew 5:24). This does not mean that you become best friends or give someone full trust, but as much as we can we live peaceably with them (Romans 12:19).

Second, Actively Pursue Love for Others
1 John 3:11-18
We are not only to avoid hate, but actively pursue love. John pointed back to the sixth commandment and said that if you hate your brother you are a murderer! Many of us would be content to just avoiding murder, but how do you deal with hate for others? John’s admonition is we need to actively pursue love, even for those we are inclined to hate. The message from God from the beginning, “love one another.” John then pointed his readers back to the Cain and Abel story to make his point that to hate is to give into murder (1 John 3:15). This may seem extreme to call people who hate “murderers”, but we already looked at how Jesus connected anger to this commandment. Unchecked antagonism towards others leads to us pursuing the worst for them rather than protecting and loving life. 

How can we actively pursue love for others? Notice the positive side of John’s appeal to us, “we know that we have passed out of death to life, because we love the brothers (1 John 3:14). John tells us that to love includes Christ-like sacrifice, opening up our hearts to the needs of others and pursuing it with word and action (1 John 3:16-18). As citizens in America, we should promote and pursue legislation that causes flourishing and life. As Christians, it should start with us, we can support one another with material goods, open up our homes to vulnerable children, minister to the incarcerated and volunteer with organizations that promote life. To actively love others will come at a cost, but how else will a culture change if it does not first start with the people of God?  

At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week? 

Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 20:13

How would the commandment “do not murder” set the Israelites apart when compared to the rest of the Ancient Near East?

What are some reasons Jesus spoke to our anger and John to our tendency towards hatred as a way to keep the commandment “do not murder?”

Do you think our culture actively promotes protecting and loving life? Why or why not?

Read 1 John 3:11-18. John connects an active call to love others as a way to avoid breaking the sixth commandment. What are some examples given by John? What is God calling you to do to protect and love life?