Text for the Week: Endorsing Life

Scripture: 1 John 3:11-18

¹¹ This is the message you have heard from the beginning: Love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own works were evil, while those of his brother were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. ¹⁶ This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ Whoever has worldly wealth and sees his brother in need but closes his heart against him—how can God’s love remain in him? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.

Questions

1. What is John’s definition of murder, how does John’s view of murder interact with our legal system with all of our different definitions for murder and manslaughter?
2. What does hate mean in this passage that it is equated explicitly with murder?
3. How does this passage relate to and expand on the command to not kill in Exodus 20?
4. John seems to be very black and white either we are hating people or we love them, how accurate is this black and white understanding to our daily lives?
5. How do we move from hatred to indifference to love in our daily lives?

Background

Related Scriptures: Genesis 4:1-16; Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 15:7-8; Matthew 5:21-22

John is building his argument from the premise that we do not simply identify as God’s children we are in a real way God’s children (3:1) so everything we do should come from our Divine DNA—the moving of the Spirit within us.

John assumes that hatred is a passive relationship toward another person while love is an active relationship. To hate someone is to be indifferent about their situation, to love someone is to be active in helping them in life.

The term used in Exodus 20:13 often translated “murder” is a generic word that simply means “kill”, and the word used in 1 John 3:15 is similarly “human killer” the fact these passages use such generic concepts is meant to make us think about what actually constitutes a murder so that we can place more value on human life.

The stark black and white way of writing in this chapter is meant to help us meditate on how we are set against the mentality of the world and call us to focus on unequivocally acting like Jesus.

The connection between hatred and murder is meant to show us that we are to value human life to a point that if we are not actively engaging in helping others we are not valuing their lives.

John’s ethic is rooted in Jesus who chose to be killed to bring us life when we did not value our own lives and were in death.

Reflection

One phrase that I remind myself of frequently is, “translation shapes interpretation”, what that means is that our preferred translation of the Bible will set us up for how we think about the Bible and the messages we draw from it. And one verse that I think illustrates this motto is Exodus 20:13 where most translations say “Do not murder”. The Hebrew word in that verse is very generic and simply means “to kill” but within the context most translators render the verb murder, why? The answer is because the context of Exodus 20 is creating a just society and so within that context it makes more sense that the Bible is speaking against murder rather than simply any taking of human life. And on one level this makes complete sense, however when we think about Exodus 20 the way John is (and Jesus in Matthew 5) we come to a somewhat different understanding.

For some people this might seem like I am creating a distinction without a difference, but the reason I am pointing this out is that when we think of murder our minds go to a legal structure that condemns the intentional taking of human life. Murder to us is a premeditated killing of another person, but for John hatred is the equivalent to murder, and this is cuts against such legal understandings. John’s way of thinking is extremely concerned with life, and in his mind if we are not concerned with life then we may as well be murders. This might sound like an extremist position but he is trying to get us to meditate on what it means to be pro-life. John wants us to consider that Jesus was so concerned with our lives that he came to us and rather than do us harm he was killed so that we might live. This self-sacrificial love is the basis for our approach to life. And if we are going to follow Jesus’ example then we are going to be concerned for the lives and welfare of others. John uses hyperbole in his comments that some may think extreme, equating a failure to love not with passivity but with hate and equating hate with murder. Read in a very literal way John could be taken to be saying that if we are not active in our concern for others we are as good as murdering them. But that is not what John intends for us to see, he is not trying to create a new law that says if we hate, or worse unconcerned with, another person we are to be tried as murders. John is trying to get us to meditate on how we value the others around us, do we value them the way Jesus did, self-sacrificial love or are we unconcerned if they live or die? John’s point, much like the original verse in Exodus, is for us to think about the value of human life and what it means for human life to end. He is trying to get us to see that we cannot say we love our neighbors if we are not in some way active in protecting their lives.

When we come to these passages it is not enough to say, “I’ve never taken a human life.” We must also consider how our lives are intertwined with the community around us and ask am I concerned with the lives of others. A common accusation against Christians today is that we are pro-life so long as the life is in the womb, but once that person is born we stop caring. John would be very troubled by this accusation, and he would wonder why such an accusation can be leveled at Christians. Why is it that people today do not think we care about people after they are born, are we not showing love for neighbors, are we not concerned with their standard of living, are we not concerned with their salvation? What is allowing this sentiment to persist in our culture. And this is a reality we must face up to, we must ask ourselves why is it is people think we hate our neighbors, and how can we work to change that perception. When we consider what Exodus means in “do not kill” we should look beyond the simple words and think through what standard God is trying to help us realize. For John just like Jesus this standard is not simply avoiding taking life, it is about how we promote life in our world. Are we the people who reach out into the world to bring life or are we the people who turn away from others indifferent to their plight?