“How Does the Bible Show Abortion is Murder?”

In my “Introduction to Ethics” class, the topic for the night was abortion. As the discussion progressed, people all around me were saying that an abortion is good to do under any situation (rape, too young, the woman’s choice) and I argued my point on that abortion is murder. I stated that the Bible had claimed to that statement also. The teacher then told me that I have to prove to him and the class that the Bible says abortion is murder. Can you help me with verses, or anything I could possibly use to make my point valid?

Glad you asked!

The perspective that abortion is murder depends on two points: 1) The Bible condemns murder (taking the life of another human being), and 2) The unborn baby is a person—a human being.

Point #1: What is murder?

Exodus 20:13, usually translated “Thou shalt not kill,” one of the Ten Commandments, actually means “Thou shalt not murder.” (There is a difference. Taking the life of another person in war, for example, is not the same thing as murder.)

Point #2: The humanity of the unborn

1. Both Hebrew and Greek (the languages of the Bible) do not make a distinction between pre-born and born babies. Whether they live inside or outside the womb is not important as to their value or personhood.

2. For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in
my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully
and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know
that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I
was made in the secret place. When I was woven
together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my
unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written
in Your book before one of them came to be. (Ps. 139:13-16)

This portion of scripture is written about the unborn baby.

3. The Lord called me from the womb;
from the body of my mother He named me. (Is. 49:1)

The prophet Isaiah says he received God’s calling and naming while still in the womb.

4. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)

The psalmist states that he was a spiritual being from the point of conception. This isn’t saying that he sinned while in the womb, but that he recognizes that from the earliest part of life, he was a sinner.

5. Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and
before you were born I consecrated you; I have
appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer. 1:4-5)

Jeremiah declares that God knew him, consecrated him (set him apart), and appointed him a prophet before he was even conceived! From God’s perspective, Jeremiah’s humanity began even before conception.

6. At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town
in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s
home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I
so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As
soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in
my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:39-44)

The unborn John the Baptist had a physical reaction to the presence of Mary and ESPECIALLY her unborn Child. At this point, Jesus was probably only a week- or two-old embryo. (Scripture tells us that as soon as the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary about God’s plan for the Holy Spirit to overshadow her and conceive the Messiah in her and she consented, she hurried to see Elizabeth, who lived about 70 or so miles from Nazareth.)

I believe that these verses indicate that abortion is murder, but all you can do is offer the light they provide. Some people who don’t want to believe that abortion is murder or that an unborn baby is anything more than a “potential human being” can and will refuse to accept it. (Remember what the Word says in Jeremiah 17:9—”The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”) Your job is to pray for God to open the eyes of the hearts of the others in your class, humbly offer the truth, and leave the results to God.

Hope this helps!

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries


“Is It Always Wrong to Kill? Even During War?”

I read your answer in your article “Is It Always Wrong to Lie? Even During War?” The last paragraph created another question in my own mind. The paragraph read, “Saving one’s own or someone else’s neck is not always the highest goal. Obedience and aligning ourselves with God’s heart and character is. Hebrews 11 has a list of people who chose martyrdom over doing what was expedient to save their lives, and they wear a crown of glory in heaven. There are better things than lying to stay out of trouble.”

My question is this — in light of your answer based upon the Ten Commandments — Is it always wrong to kill even during war?

No, because the word used in the 10 Commandments that we usually read “Thou shalt not kill” is actually the word for “murder.” There is a personal and deliberate aspect to murder that is not present in wartime killing. This difference is seen in the distinction between a cancer surgeon and a gang member who stabs someone in a fight. Both of them use knives to cut into people, but for completely different reasons with different motivations.

I hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries


“Can the Truly Saved Commit Such Sins as Adultery and Murder?”

I wanted to ask if a truly saved person can fall into the sin of fornication, adultery or murder…. Wouldn’t the Holy Spirit deal with a truly saved person if he/she is tempted? Please explain in detail. Thanks and God bless you!

Yes, a truly saved person can indeed fall prey to such sins. A good example is King David. He was truly saved and yet committed the grievous sins of adultery (2 Samuel 11:2-5) and murder (2 Samuel 11:6-17). Because of his sins, God sent Nathan the prophet to rebuke David and he repented (2 Samuel 12:1-13). Nathan told David that the Lord had taken away his sin, but that there would still be negative consequences for it (2 Samuel 12:13-14).

It’s important to realize that, like believers today, David was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We know this because, in Psalm 51 (David’s psalm of repentance), He prays that the Lord will not take His Holy Spirit away from him (see v. 11). Of course, today believers are permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17), but this was not so in David’s day. Hence, David’s request in Psalm 51:11.

Of course, the Holy Spirit will certainly convict us when we sinand it is God’s desire that we so depend on the Holy Spirit that we do not sin (Galatians 5:16-26). Furthermore, God always provides a way of escape when we are tempted (1 Cor. 10:13). Thus, if we avail ourselves of God’s provision, and rely on the Holy Spirit, we can resist our fleshly desires. We need not fall into such sins as fornication, adultery or murder. And we need to be ever mindful, and appropriately fearful, of future judgment (2 Cor. 5:11). But if we do sin, we have an advocate who pleads the blood of Christ on our behalf (1 John 2:1).

Shalom,

Michael Gleghorn

© 2007 Probe Ministries


Kids Killing Kids

Not so long ago the biggest problem kids faced was getting a flat tire on their bikes or having a mean teacher assign homework over the weekend. How times have changed. Who would have guessed that one of the perennial stories would be kids killing kids?

In this essay we’re going to talk about the issue of school shootings and the broader issue of kids killing kids. Why is this happening? What can be done to stem the tide of violence on campus and society? We’ll look at such topics as video games, teenage rebellion, and tolerance. And we’ll also look at the spiritual aspects as well.

Each time we hear about gunshots on a high school campus we are once again reminded that we are living in a different world. The body count of students and teachers causes us to shake our heads and wonder what is going on. In some cases the shooters are teenagers with elaborate plans and evil desires. But sometimes the hail of bullets comes from impulsive kids as young as eleven years old.

In the past, when we did talk about kids killing kids, it was in an urban setting. Gangland battles between the Bloods and the Crips reminded us that life in the inner city was hard and ruthless. But the latest battlegrounds have not been Watts, the Bronx, or Cabrini-Green. These violent confrontations have taken place in rural, idyllic towns with names like Pearl, Mississippi and Paducah, Kentucky and Jonesboro, Arkansas and Littleton, Colorado.

We are shocked and surprised. We open our newspapers to see the faces of kids caught up in the occult and we wonder how they were attracted to such evil. We open those newspapers again and we see the faces of Opie and Beaver look-alikes charged with five counts of murder and we wonder if they even understood what they were doing.

The answers from pundits have been many. Young people are desensitized to violence, and they learn to kill by using point- and-shoot video games. Teenagers are rebellious, and they are looking for a way to defy authority. In the past, that was easier to accomplish by merely violating the dress code. Today, in a society that values tolerance, trying to come up with a behavior that is shocking is getting harder and harder to do. And the social and spiritual climate that our kids live in is hardly conducive to moral living.

Kids killing kids, I believe, is the best evidence yet of a culture in chaos that has turned its back on God’s moral law. Do we really believe that children can see thousands of TV murders or play violent computer games and not be tempted to act out that violence in real life? Do we think we can lower societal standards and not have kids act out in very bizarre ways? Do we think we can pull God from the schools and prayer from the classroom and see no difference in the behavior of children? We shouldn’t be surprised. Kids killing kids is evidence of a nation in moral free fall.

The Media and Video Games

I would like to begin with a look at the influence of the media and video games. In the past, we have talked about the impact of violent media on our society. We shouldn’t be surprised that it is having an effect on our kids.

One of the people who knows this only so well is Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. He is a retired West Point psychology professor, Army Ranger, and an expert in the study of violence in war and killing. He is also an instructor at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, and was one of the first on the scene of the Jonesboro, Arkansas shootings. He has a lot to say.

He saw the devastation wrought by the shootings–not just the five dead and ten wounded. He saw what happens when violence intrudes into everyday life. And, where he’s been, he sees where the violence comes from. He says, “Anywhere television appears, fifteen years later, the murder rate doubles.”{1}

He says, “In the video games, in the movies, on the television, the one behavior that is consistently depicted in glamorous terms and consistently rewarded is killing.” He believes that media violence was a significant factor in the killings in Pearl, Mississippi, in West Paducah, Kentucky, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in Springfield, Oregon, and in Littleton, Colorado.

He also says that the combination of a sense of inferiority and the exposure to violence can provoke violence in young boys who are “wannabes.” Sometimes they see violence as a route to fame, and one has to wonder whether all the media exposure of these school shootings will spawn even more.

Consider the 1995 movie, The Basketball Diaries. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio (also of Titanic fame) goes into a schoolroom and shoots numerous children and teachers. In doing so, he became a role model for young boys who are “wannabes.”

The parents of three students killed in Paducah, Kentucky have brought a lawsuit against the company that distributed the film The Basketball Diaries. The parents’ lawyer points out that Michael Carneal, who opened fire on a group of students in Kentucky, viewed the film and honed his shooting skills by playing computer games such as Doom and Redneck Rampage.

Dave Grossman goes into some detail in showing how violence in films, videos, and television can affect us. The parallels in his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society{2} and what is happening in the media today are chilling. Two factors are desensitization and operant conditioning. Show soldiers (or children) enough visual images of violence and they will become desensitized to it. Practice shooting targets of people and conditioning will eventually take over. In some ways it doesn’t matter whether it’s soldiers doing target practice at a range or kids using point-and-shoot video games. The chilling result is the same: the creation of a killing machine.

But you don’t need to read Grossman’s book to see the parallels. Young people today are exposed to violent images that desensitize them and make it possible for some to act out these violent images in real life. And video games help them hone their shooting skills and overcome their hesitation to kill. Dave Grossman has seen it in war, and now he is seeing it in everyday life.

Violence and Teenage Rebellion

So many words have been spoken in the last few months about school shootings that it’s often difficult to hear sound commentary in the midst of the cacophony. But one voice that deserves a hearing is Jonathan Cohen who wrote a commentary in the New York Post entitled “Defining Rebellion Up.”{3}

Years ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a seminal piece in an academic journal entitled “Defining Deviancy Down.”{4} It was his contention that in the midst of cultural chaos we tend to redefine what is normal. When the crime rate goes through the roof, we say that crime is inevitable in a free society. When the illegitimate birth rate quadruples, we say that maybe two parents in a home aren’t really necessary after all. In essence, what society has done is follow the pattern in Isaiah 5:20 of calling evil good and good evil.

Jonathan Cohen picks up on that theme and extends it to our current crisis. He says that when America became willing to define deviancy down, it simultaneously defined rebellion up. He says, “Anti-social teens are nothing new, but as deviancy has been made normal, we have made it increasingly difficult for teenagers to rebel.”

Adults are no longer offended or outraged by behavior that would have sent our parents through the roof. Unfortunately, we have learned the lessons of tolerance well. We tolerate just about everything from tattoos to black nail polish to metal pierced eyebrows.

Jonathan Cohen says, “We have raised the threshold of rebellion so high that it is practically beyond reach. To be recognized, to get attention, to stir anyone in authority to lift a finger, whether it is a parent, a teacher, a principal, or a sheriff, a rebel has to go to very great lengths these days. One must send letter bombs, blow up office buildings or gun down children.”

If a young person is trying to defy authority, it does take quite a bit to be recognized. Just a few decades ago, when dress codes were still in effect a student could be somewhat rebellious without getting into too much trouble or hurting other people. Today, it apparently takes quite a bit to run afoul of those in authority.

Jonathan Cohen asks, “And what of the teachers at Columbine High? It seemed they were not disturbed at all by the boys’ odd conduct. In fact, one instructor actually helped them make a video dramatizing their death-and-destruction fantasy. For all we know, he may well have commended himself for being so nonjudgmental.”

This surfaces an important issue. The highest value in our society today has become tolerance. We are not to judge others. When you put this trend of rising rebellion with increased tolerance together, you end up with a lethal mixture.

Jonathan Cohen concludes by wondering if all of this might have been different. He says, “If teachers had forbidden their students from coming to class wearing black trenchcoats, fingernail polish and makeup, Littleton likely would not be a name on everyone’s lips. If the principal had had the common sense to ban a group of boys from coming to school sporting Nazi regalia, marching though the corridors in military fashion and calling themselves the Trench Coat Mafia, Columbine High School might not be behind a police line.”

Tolerance

Tolerance has become the highest value in our society today, and I believe that it may explain why we miss the signals that something is wrong with our kids.

After the school shooting in Colorado, an editorial appeared in the New York Post.{5} The editorial writers said, “The Littleton massacre could prove a turning point in American society–one of those moments when the entire culture changes course.” Who knows if that will be the case. Only time will tell. The editorial writers believe that one of the things that must change is our contemporary view of tolerance.

The editorial was entitled “Too Much Tolerance?” While other pundits focused on guns, video games, and other cultural phenomena, these editorial writers said the real cause was “inattention.”

After all, the killers in Colorado were sending out signals of an impending calamity. It’s just that no one was paying attention. For example, one Littleton parent went to the police twice about threats made on his son’s life by Eric Harris. His pleas were to no avail. The cops didn’t pay attention.

These kids in the Trench Coat Mafia gave each other Hitler salutes at a local bowling alley. But the community didn’t pay attention.

These same kids marched down the hallways and got into fights with jocks and other kids after school. But the school didn’t pay attention.

One kid’s mother works with disabled kids, but seemed unaware that her own son had a fascination with Adolf Hitler and spent a year planning the destruction of the high school. Again parents didn’t pay attention.

Throughout the article the editorial writers recount all the things these kids did. They conclude that while they “were doing everything they could to offend the community they lived in, the community chose to pay them no heed.”

Why? I believe that this tragic lack of attention is the sorry harvest of tolerance and diversity preached in the nation’s classrooms every day. We are not to judge others. The only sin in society is the sin of judgmentalism. We cannot judge hairstyles or lifestyles, manners or morals. We may think another person’s dress, actions, or lifestyles are a bit different, but we are told not to judge. Everything must be tolerated. And so we decide to ignore in the name of tolerance. In essence, inattention is the fruit of a message of tolerance and diversity.

In decades past, boundaries existed, school dress codes were enforced, and certain behavior was not allowed. As the boundaries were dropped and the lines blurred, teachers and parents learned to cope by paying less attention.

The editorial writers therefore conclude (and please excuse the bluntness of their statement) that, “The only way Americans can live like this is to tune out, to ignore, to refuse to pay attention. In the name of broad-mindedness, Littleton allowed Harris and Klebold to fall through the cracks straight to Hell.”

So why do we have kids killing kids? There are lots of reasons: the moral breakdown of society, video games, rebellion. But another reason is tolerance. We have been taught for decades not to judge, and this has given adults a license to be inattentive.

Spiritual Issues

I would like to conclude this essay by looking at some spiritual issues associated with so many of these school shootings.

Perhaps the best way to begin is to quote former Education Secretary Bill Bennett. He was on one of the talking-head shows discussing the tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. All of a sudden he turned directly to the television camera and said, “Hello?”

That was the attention-getter. But what he said afterward should also get our attention. He pointed out that these kids were walking the halls in trench coats, and apparently that didn’t really get the attention of the teachers and administrators. But, he said, if a kid walked the halls with a Bible, that would probably get their attention. Something is very wrong with a society and a school system that would admonish a school kid for carrying a Bible and spreading the good news while ignoring a group of kids wearing trench coats and spreading hate.

In her Wall Street Journal column{6}, former presidential speech writer Peggy Noonan talked about “The Culture of Death” our children live in. She quoted headlines from news stories and frankly I can’t even repeat what she quoted. Our kids are up to their necks in really awful stuff, and it comes to them day after day on television, in the movies, and in the newspapers.

She then asked, Who counters this culture of death? Well, parents do and churches do. But they aren’t really given much of a place in our society today. In fact, Peggy Noonan told a story to illustrate her point.

She said, “A man called into Christian radio this morning and said a true thing. He said, and I am paraphrasing: Those kids were sick and sad, and if a teacher had talked to one of them and said, ‘Listen, there’s a way out, there really is love out there that will never stop loving you, there’s a real God and I want to be able to talk to you about him’–if that teacher had intervened that way, he would have been hauled into court.”

You know that man who called that radio station is right. A few years ago, a very famous case made its way through the Colorado courts. A high school teacher in Colorado was taken to court merely because he had a Bible on his desk. If you haven’t heard the story, I guess the conclusion wouldn’t surprise you. The teacher lost the case and lost it again on appeal.

As we’ve talked about the disturbing phenomenon of kids killing kids, we have discussed the breakdown of society, video games, rebellion, and tolerance. But we shouldn’t forget the spiritual dimension. We are reaping the harvest of a secular society.

Kids kill other kids and so we wonder why. We throw God out of the classroom, we throw the Bible out of the classroom, we throw prayer out of the classroom, and we even throw the Ten Commandments out of the classroom.

Maybe we shouldn’t wonder why any longer. Maybe we should be surprised the society isn’t more barbaric given the fact that so many positive, spiritual influences have been thrown out. The ultimate solution to the problem of kids killing kids is for the nation to return to God.

Notes

1. Andrea Billups and Jerry Seper, “Experts Hit Permissiveness in Schools, Violence on TV,” The Washington Times, 22 April, 1999.

2. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (New York: Little,Brown, 1996).

3. Jonathan Cohen, “Defining Rebellion Up,” New York Post, 27 April 1999.

4. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Defining Deviancy Down,” The American Spectator, Winter 1993.

5.”Too Much Tolerance?” New York Post, 27 April 1999.

6. Peggy Noonan, “The Culture of Death,” Wall Street Journal, 22 April 1999.

© 1999 Probe Ministries International