Capital Punishment and Biblical Justice

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Your co host Will Harrop, joined as always by Joe and Jack Wilkey. We really enjoyed last week's episode. If you did not get a chance to listen, we did our Bible character hot takes episode. A little bit of a lighter episode but still a very biblical one because we were looking at different Bible characters, maybe some more obscure ones, and kind of sharing what are some maybe different takes that we had for each one. I think each of us brought a couple of Bible caterers. Some of them ended up delving into more like just Bible, you know, story type hot takes and such like that. And then at the end of the episode we read several comments that we got on Facebook from other people and their their hot takes for the Bible or Bible cater. So very interesting. If you didn't get a chance to listen, I'd encourage you to go back and listen. Taking a bit more of a serious approach with today's episod. As you can tell from the title, talking about criminal justice, talking about a biblical view of justice, we're going to spend a lot of time on the death penalty. Is this something that Christians should support? Obviously there has long been heavy debate surrounding the death penalty, capital punishment, all those things. We want to talk about justice from a biblical perspective. Talk about prison. Is prison biblical? We have not really devoted a full episode to any of these things. So it was Jack that brought the idea to the table. Some of this was spurred on. There's the very unfortunate news story that if you have not heard, good for you. But I am going to mention it here because it's relevant. Just a couple days ago actually a Texas jury sentenced a former FedEx driver Tanner Horner to the death penalty for the murder of seven year old Athena Strand, a little girl that he kidnapped and brutally murdered. And they sentenced him to the death penalty. That was just a couple days ago based off of the as of this recording. So that's got people talking. Jack, I think you got a message that I'll let you get to here in just a second. But even apart from just recent events, I know this is a, maybe not a struggle, but a question that a lot of Christians have is should we support capital punishment? Is the death penalty something that's okay for Christians Board? In fact, I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine the other day who does not support capital punishment, does not think that Christians should be in favor of it and so it should be a good discussion. It will be kind of heavy, obviously Talking about criminal justice and biblical justice, but should be a great discussion. So, yeah, that very unfortunate case about Tanner Horner brought this to kind of the forefront for us. And then, Jack, I know you got a message, so I'll kind of turn [00:02:34] Speaker C: it over to you. [00:02:35] Speaker B: You were the one that brought this episode. I did it to the table. What introductory thoughts do you have? [00:02:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to thank Scott, one of our listeners, for sending this in. It was a question. He sent a post in and kind of asking our take on it. And the post was making the case that the. The way we handle criminals and crime in this country, the prison system is not biblical at all, that it's just we stash people away, we pay insane amounts of money to keep them clothed, fed, housed, and all of these things. And what comes of it? It says that in the post that he sent, it said it now costs 75,560 per year to house a prisoner in California. This is more than the cost of attending Harvard. What's even more amazing, we spend all this money on prisoners and end up with pretty much zero rehabilitation and massive recidivism, which we're going to get into some of the stats on that. But you can very much make the case this doesn't work. This doesn't correct criminals. And asking the question, what does the Bible, how does the Bible view crime? How does the Bible view the punishment of crime, whether it's the restitution, whether it's service, whether it's debtors, prison, things like that, versus all the way up to the death penalty? And I would very much argue that our system is not at all built on biblical principles in that sense, like it was intended to be that way and it started that way, but it has grown in the way it's been lawyered to death. And all of the solutions we've come up with and the attempts to be humane have gotten us away to where it's almost good to be a criminal in this country, you're better off sometimes. [00:04:08] Speaker B: It's not a deterrent anymore. [00:04:10] Speaker C: It's not a deterrent at all. And when you look at the biblical principles, and we're not arguing to just take the old law and live by the old law, but the principles found in the old law create a very good system of how to punish things, how restitution is made and all of that, there's a lot to get into here. It's a pretty hefty outline. And so I don't want to jump the gun on a couple of things. I was about to bring up. So, Joe, do you have any opening thoughts? [00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, we just. We know if something's from God, it's going to work. If we are doing it God's way, it works. It's. It's as it's intended to work, because God cannot create anything that is not good. Is our prison system working? No. So this can't be what God intended, because if this is what God intended, we wouldn't be, you know, we wouldn't have the problems we do. But I mean, just that post, like, $75,000 a year on criminals. That's more than Harvard. That's more than, you know, that's more than, like, that's where the most people make in America. $75,000 a year going out toward criminals, toward people that are. And this is in California. But just think about the billions of dollars a year it takes to keep these people. Our system is broken. And so just from a political, like, not even a political standpoint, but just from a societal, social, like, sociological standpoint, it's a disaster. So even from then, we can look at it as. That's not good. Okay, well, what do we biblically do about it? And that's why I'm excited for this episode. Jack, you got a great outline and Will, you've added some good stuff because it's a. I think there. There are biblical principles we can take to. Look, we're a little tiny podcast. We're not about to fix the entire prison system. On the other hand, I think we can critique it from the outside looking in and really critique it from a biblical perspective to say, this can't be what God intended. What would God intend in 21st century America? What might that look like? And this is a. To that end. Yeah, there's an idealism to this. Yes. There's kind of just a think tank type episode. We're just throwing this around. We'd love to know your thoughts. Make sure to jump into the deep end, get your comments and thoughts to us. Because, no, we're not solving it today, but we really do want to engage with some of these biblical principles for what it looks like today. Like you said, we can't just bring the old law forward, but there are principles for sure at play. So I'm excited for the episode. [00:06:21] Speaker C: All right, so I want to start by getting into the principles of biblical justice. What you see in the law itself. And one of the things that you do see is restorative justice. That rather than. Because honestly, the prison system is sit in time out. That's with, with your kids. It's, it's as if time out for adults, right? Yeah, it's time out for adults. If your kid steals a toy from your other kid, you, the, the parent takes the toy and hangs on to the toy and puts the kid in timeout. But the kid who had the toy stolen from them like nothing happened. Like. And sometimes it's given back. But that's not really how this usually works. The lawyers get involved, they don't end up with anything. If you get your thing stolen, it's just gone. Whereas in the Bible you have these. If you kill the other guy's ox, you're buying them an ox. You take, you're repaying back. And Jesus brings up the concept of the debtors prisons in Matthew 5, 38 and 39. Or no, not 38 and 39 earlier in that chapter in the Sermon on the Mount. That you will be in there until you've paid up 25, 26, 25 and 26. Thank you. That you'll be until you paid up the last cent that the person that you offend against, you owe it to them to make it right to them. That's the concept there. It's restorative for crime between people. So there's a duty to individuals in the crime. When you commit crime against an individual. But the question is, and this is the kind of the libertarian view, well, crimes can only be committed against individuals. Well that's not true. You can commit crimes against the community in a sense. You can commit crimes that where you are, you're liable to everybody in a sense. And I think the Bible takes that view as well. [00:07:59] Speaker B: I was going to ask Jack, what would be an example of a community versus an individual crime, if that question makes sense. [00:08:07] Speaker C: So in the Bible, the things, you know, the guys that were put to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, they didn't transgress against any individual person. But it was a, hey, this is how we do things here. And you know, we cannot have people here who violate the Sabbath. So they were put to death. Obviously that's a religious observance, so we don't have things like that. But so again the libertarian argument is, man, if a guy wants to go shoot up heroin in the park, you know he's free to do that. No he's not. Actually there's, there's an obligation to have safe places for our kids, to have drug free places that you just can't do these kinds of things. And so the, the biblical idea very much supports the you owe the people around you something. [00:08:49] Speaker B: And I, yeah, I would fully subscribe to that. It's interesting. Tell me, I know you are a former libertarian thinker since coming out of that. [00:08:56] Speaker C: Recovering. [00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, recovering, yeah, that's the word I was looking for. Yeah. Because obviously when you talk about the heroin example, that is you are adding or you are taking away value from a community by first of all, you just being a person who's shooting up heroin. But also there's the what type of atmosphere are you creating, other people seeing the products of that or whatever it is. I wanted to ask one quick question about the prison aspect because everything you're saying about the Bible's view of justice, the Old Testament being mainly restorative. We'll get to the death penalty stuff here in just a second. That there are things deserving of death. The old law lays that out time and time again. Is there anything, you know from, from, from your perspective and Joe, of course bring you in on this where you forfeit your right to freedom? Because I think that's where, you know, the idea of prison, you know, kind of serves its purpose. And obviously I'll be the first to tell you that I think for a lot of people prison is kind of a win because it's like, man, I get to, I get to watch as much sports as I want. I get to work out a ton in prison. I get like the accommodations, get food. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Right, health care. Right. [00:10:10] Speaker B: It's like a low end Airbnb essentially is what it is for a lot of people. And so I fully understand that. However, I feel like the point of prison is you get you for your, you have forfeited your right to freedom, which again, there's a question I've got later on about, you know, at what point has someone forfeited their right to life? Again, that's more the death penalty discussion. But the freedom aspect, I was curious Yalls thoughts on that because again, I agree. I don't think that the way we've got it now works all that well, but I think that's the spirit behind it is like you get your freedom taken away because of the choice that you made. What are Yalls thoughts on that? Joe, again, we can bring you in here if you want to answer that first, but that was a question I wanted to ask. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Well, I think consequences are a key part of any problem. And so you look at things like even the cities of refuge that you have in the Old Testament. Well, why should I have to give up my right to my house? It's like, well, because he killed him even if you didn't. [00:11:07] Speaker C: Right. [00:11:07] Speaker B: It was accidental killings is what the cities of refuge. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Right. Accidental killings, but still consequences. Right. So do you lose your freedom? [00:11:13] Speaker B: No. [00:11:13] Speaker A: But you start, you lose your house, you lose your family, you lose people like that because there are consequences to actions. I think losing freedom is a consequence to action. The struggle is. What would that look like today? Indentured servitude is what they had where it's restitution. Yeah, you work for me until you've paid it back from what you stole or whatever it may be. And so there's a restorative element to that, whereas there is no restorative element to our modern prison system where they have to give back. If you steal, if you've been caught stealing and you go to prison for five years or whatever, like, okay, you come out and you probably steal some more rather than, I'm going to work till I pay every last cent. That's the debtor's prison type idea that we see. But even then again, the indentured servitude, we're not going to get back to a system like that. But it's the concept of, yes, you lose your freedoms if you end up committing crimes. It's just consequences. You don't have a right to freedom. It is something that is given to us in, in our country, given to us by, you know, the laws of the land. And if you violate the laws of the land, you have given that up, in my opinion. Chuck, what are your thoughts, though? [00:12:13] Speaker C: Yeah, the loss of freedom as far as, like, you're just locked in a room. It's so weird. Again, like, what is the stated goal, of course, is that they learn their lesson, but, I mean, do they. The other thing about this, and you brought up kind of the, the low scale Airbnb, there is that side of it, but there's the other side. The constant jokes about, like, what happens to people in prison. Is that humane? Like, is this, you know, that's kind of a cruel and unusual punishment thing. If you're gonna be throw somebody in there to be assaulted regularly, like, that's. We'd be better off just making them pay back, work it off, whatever it may be, to be an indentured servant for a while rather than be thrown in a place where there, you know, some unpleasant things might happen that really aren't. That's not a punishment handed down by the state, but it's something that happens. Like, that's not okay. And I don't know how often that happens or anything like that. But it's kind of the trope of that's something you might face in prison. That might be a difficulty that you have. Well, that's. That's horrible. And so we'd be so much better off making it restorative. But I think one of the other things you see is it's not. It's not just restorative. It's not always, okay, you've just got to go and pay it back to the person that, you know, you steal a thousand bucks from somebody, you got to do that. You have the concept of beatings. And I think Deuteronomy 25, it kind of puts the limitations on the beatings. But people could be beaten. And you see that carry into the New Testament, the Romans had those things the beaten with, you know, 39 stripes or whatever lashes. And verse 2 of 20, Deuteronomy 25, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. And that's not restorative. If you steal money from me and you get beaten over, that doesn't help me at all. That. That's the. You're supposed to learn from this. And so you've got beatings, literal beatings. And it's funny that this sounds so barbaric in our day and age where we think, oh, just. Just go put them in the room and hope they learn their lesson. There are places around the world where they still do this. And I'm not just talking about Islam. Like, what's it, Singapore, where they've got, you know, kind of a multicultural society over there. And one of the only things that's kind of keeping their social cohesion together is you step out of line, you're going to be can't. Like, you're in big trouble. You're going to be beaten hard. And it works. And the. Again, the inhumane claims come out, but it's like, what are we trying to do here? Is the questions under it. [00:14:39] Speaker B: The parallels with spanking are very interesting here with child versus discipline, because, yeah, [00:14:44] Speaker C: you brought up the time gentle parent adults. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Like adult or timeout clearly does not work, never has for kids. Joe, I know you've got a rant on that, so I'll save that for you. But yeah, and then like, obviously there's always been opponents of physical discipline for children, how you shouldn't hit your children and things like that. But those parallels are very interesting in that you think about if we brought that back essentially in American justice of, you know, maybe not call it torture, but you, you're going to. There's going to be physical pain, pain inflicted upon you beyond, you know, as you said, just going to prison and chilling for a bit. How much more of a deterrent would that be? And I tend to think that would be a stronger deterrent. You know, there are things that, you know, once again, for anybody who's an opponent of child discipline, you know, as far as physical discipline, you could see that same parallel being made for criminals. But there's that question once again of how much is what we currently have? How much does it work? And it doesn't work a lot. It doesn't work very well, I would say. And so, Joe, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on kind of that child discipline kind of parallel that we're seeing here before we get into some other stuff. [00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah, because we assume it's the same as with a kid. Well, you need to go think about what you've done. It's like, well, if the thinking was skewed to begin with, why do I think they're going to come to it on their own? Why do I think they're going to be able to, you know, correct their own thinking? [00:16:08] Speaker B: And that's assuming they haven't had a seared conscience at that point. [00:16:12] Speaker A: Correct. [00:16:13] Speaker B: That's all taking that for granted, essentially. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Why do you think sometimes running the [00:16:17] Speaker C: calculations of like, yeah, that was worth it? Like, yeah, you know, yeah, exactly. [00:16:21] Speaker A: And then I get to be on my own. Right. And some kids really do enjoy that. They do enjoy being on their own. So they do what they want and then they get to be on their own and get to go play in their room. You see this with adults. They do what they want and then they get to go and have once again healthcare and food and everything paid for and, you know, provided for them every single day. There's another element to this that I think is really important. Jackie had on the outline, Ecclesiastes 8, 11, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly. Therefore, the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. When we're putting them in timeout. And it's just a long, drawn out process. When we're putting them in the prison and it's a 10 year sentence, have they really learned their lesson? You know, after 10 years, it's like you'd think that the amount of time, it doesn't really work that way. It's the same with kids. Well, if I ground them for three weeks, then they're really going to understand. It's like, yeah, but after five seconds they say, and really they go off the age. Right. We talked about it before. So if you have a five year old, if you're, if your discipline is outside of the five minutes, it's really difficult for the kid to grasp what exactly did I do? And so you want it to be immediate. That's why spankings work. And all the science and all of the therapists and everybody go, no, it doesn't work. And all the, the stats. I'm sorry. When done appropriately and when done with love, it does actually work. And so this isn't a spanking episode, but it's the same concept that, that so will, I'm glad you pointed this out of like swift justice. Let's just make it, let's make it painful, let's make it fast, let's deter it immediately. Prolonging it the same way that giving a five year old three weeks of being grounded doesn't work because he stopped thinking about it in about five minutes, maybe an hour later, not even knowing what he did. Well, 10 years later. I know adults work differently, but still it's like, is this the best use of our time? Whereas if you told a guy you can either go to prison for 10 years or we're going to beat you severely for what you did and then you're going to get better, you're going to recover, you're going to learn your lesson and get back to society and if you do it again, you're going to get beaten severely again. Like, what do you think is the greater deterrent? And what do you think that would be the appropriate decision? Go live Cushli for 10 years. And I know, kush, look, I get it, it's still prison, but still go do that. Or do you take it just very quickly? Yes, it's very painful, but at least you get to go back to living your life. I mean, I think the more humane thing is the beating in this situation. [00:18:37] Speaker B: Well, and we probably should have gotten out ahead of it a little bit earlier in the episode. But we're very much will acknowledge, obviously there are people who have turned their lives around in prison, who have repented, who obeyed the gospel, who. There's great prison ministries and stuff like that that are awesome. We're speaking a little bit generically in the sense of for every one story of a guy who completely prison did work, essentially he turned his life around. Felt remorse, was contrite, changed his life. For every one of those stories, how many stories are there of 20 of the other. Exactly. Of guys that just did not. That did not. Because there is a teaching element to this of like, what are you teaching? You know, I think again, just last time I'll go back to the kid example of discipline. My four year old, we are still trying to teach him, you know, right and wrong and you know, why you do certain things, why you don't do certain things. If I tell him, hey, you didn't, you shouldn't do that, go sit in your room for the next 30 minutes. What teaching is going on there? As you said, Joe, like that. Obviously again, adults are different. But like there is a, an element of you have to make sure that the punishment that you're enacting is serving the purpose of you know exactly what you're trying to get it to do. And with timeout for children, that just doesn't work. And so then we have to once again examine for adults how does that, you know, what are we teaching them? And I think for a lot of adults is where it's different. I don't think you're doing a lot of teaching. I don't think that punishment necessarily is about teaching them that what they did. Most people, most 27 year olds, they know what they did was wrong. 35, like again, the age doesn't matter. But if you're an adult, you know what you did was wrong, you have a conscience. And so it's less than, it's way less teaching than a child as an example. But that's something that the question of, oh, reform and people that change their lives in prison, it just doesn't happen very much. [00:20:31] Speaker C: A much neglected and almost completely unknown portion of church history is finally given the attention it deserves. Out of the Shadows Women of the Restoration Movement tells the story of the many women who helped the church grow during the 1800s and early 1900s. Whether through writing, teaching, adopting, encouraging, raising children or supporting their husbands, these women impacted generations of faithful followers of God. Angela Mabe has produced a well researched, easy to read and extremely encouraging book showing that you don't have to be a preacher to be important in the church. Each chapter has a series of questions for reflection to encourage ladies especially to look for ways to serve the Lord in the family, the community and the church, all while staying faithful to God's commands. Out of the Shadows Women of the Restoration Movement is available on Amazon. A few things here. One that comes to mind is actually the Confrontation of elders in First Timothy 5:20, where he's told to rebuke them in the presence of all, not just for their sake, but it says so. The rest also will be fearful of sinning. If you see an elder get called out in front of everybody, hey, don't do that. Everybody else is gonna go, yeah, that's not. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to like. I don't want me to have the spotlight on me. That is the purpose of these deterrents. I mean, everything we're talking about here is incentives. And so I pulled up stats on this. Somewhere in the range of 70%. It's between 68 and 83 is different. Surveys of released prisoners are rearrested within nine years. Within nine years, they're back in prison. Almost three out of four of them are in the range of three out of four. 63.8% of violent offenders get arrested for new crimes or violate their supervision conditions. So well over half, almost two thirds of them, 20% of the offending population account for over 80% of the crime. So you've got the percent of your population that is criminals is a small percentage of that percentage. One out of every five is responsible for 80% of all crime committed in this country. That's insane. That's. We're just letting these people get away with it. There was the case last year of the guy who stabbed the poor Ukrainian girl on the subway in Charlotte in North Carolina. And I think he was considered incompetent and let go again. It was like his 14th arrest. And they just keep letting this happen. How is this kind to anybody? How is this okay? And so much of this discussion is focused on him and what are we going to do for him? What are we going to. But think about what you're doing to everybody else when it comes to these things. Think about what it's telling everybody else about how much we care about them, how much their government cares about them, how much the judges care about them. When we're just letting this person roam the streets, it's insane. [00:23:10] Speaker B: That's the question I would ask for all those. And I know we're about to get to the death penalty, but the. Well, you know, how humane is it? Or, you know, is it the right thing to do? It's like, what about the right thing to do for the victim? What about the right thing to do for society? As you spoke to earlier, for the community that, you know, Irena, I forget what her last name was, but yes, the girl that was stabbed. Yeah, something like that. That was stabbed on the subway. Was it the right thing to do, to release him seven times or whatever it was so that he could be back on the streets? Was that the right thing to do for her and her family? No, of course not. And so that's where I think people's brains get shut off here with some of this stuff is like, for somebody like that and again, about to get into the death penalty here, what is the right thing to do? Is it, you know, let's really try to reform them and make sure that they learn from their actions? Like, no, the right thing to do is to make sure that person is punished to the point where they might. They're not going to have the opportunity to do that again. [00:24:06] Speaker A: These are not. This isn't in a vacuum, you know, these things do affect the culture. I'm going to be a little less likely to step on the subway. Well, that might, that might. As dumb as this sounds, okay, now I'm going to take my car. Well, everybody else is having the same thoughts. So now track patterns are created. Now there's going to be a lot more wrecks because people don't want to take the subway because of crime. I mean, the, the reverberating effects, it's a butterfly effect. So that may sound dumb, but genuinely, when you're not taking care of crime, there's so many things that goes to Rudy Giuliani's broken glass, you know, broken window thing of like, hey, we're going to start getting the petty crime because we know it grows from there. But this concept, it's the same thing as immigration. Well, don't you care about those people? It's like, well, I actually care about my family and my neighbors more than I care about some guy from some country that just wants to come here. Sorry. He doesn't just get to come in and steal our way of life and change our way of life as Americans. And because he just wants to. Oh, that's nice. It's like, well, then come in legally. Figure out how to come in legally, but you're not gonna come in illegally. Well, don't you care about life? Like, yes, the people around me. Well, don't you care? Hey, that's really, you know, terrible to put him in prison for these crimes or to even consider the death penalty for these crimes. Like, well, I care about, you know, Mrs. Irena. I care about all of these other people that are absolutely affected day in and day out by the, the crime choices of what's going on. You look in New York, you look in Chicago, you look in la, all these places that are riddled with crime. Are we really better off by going light on all of this punishment and the idea of just, you know, filling up the prison system so these people can become better criminals and learn from the other criminals inside so that when their prison sentence ends in seven years, they come out and they're twice as bad as they were before. Let's rethink this, you know, like. And let's think about the. Jack, going back to your point a little earlier of the societal effect that this has on people. And that's why I think, once again, I'd stand on my point of view. If this were what God wanted, it'd work, it would have worked. And it's not working. So there's no way that this is God's intended purpose. So, fellas, unless you got other thoughts [00:25:59] Speaker C: on that, I want to add on that just real quick, you want people to ask, like, which one is it? Is there zero cost to everybody else to let this keep happening, to not harshly deal with these people and put down the problem, or is there is a cost and we're all going to bear it? Like you're saying that us, our families, our neighbors, the, the people around us, that because that's the decision that has been made, is whatever cost there is, we're all good for it, we're all gonna handle it, we're all gonna take it on ourselves. And so that is that. The concept of principle we introduced at the start of, it's not just about restorative justice to the individual. It's about what you owe the community. It's what you owe everybody around you. And people owe it to everybody around them to be somebody you can live with, somebody that is not going to steal your stuff. And they talk about these countries like Japan, where, oh man, I left my laptop bag at the subway station bench. I came back the next morning and it was still there. How does that happen? How do you get a high trust society? Well, one, there's a lot of things that go into that. They're all the same people, the same values and things like that. But in places where, you know, if you touch somebody else's stuff, something that's not yours, you're in really big trouble. That's not going to happen. I mentioned the first Timothy one. I want to also look at Deuteronomy 19. So in verse 18, it talks about a false witness, a false accusation, says do to him, just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. But in verse 20, the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you. Thus you shall not show pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. You shall not show. Pity is a very interesting phrase because, you know, people might be in shock about some of the things we've said so far about, like, beating a guy versus throwing him in prison. He says, you shall not show pity for, you know. But again, the cost of that is not just to the person who did it, but it says, the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you. It's incentives, it's deterrence. It's all these kind of things that we're not good at doing. And we haven't incentivized acting, right? We haven't deterred anything. [00:28:00] Speaker B: I want to get into the death penalty next, but why are we not good at it in our society? Because we've been living in a feminized culture for decades. Because we've been living in a society where men are being, you know, have been either voluntarily stepping down, they've been feminized, they're the nice guys, whatever, and women have been taking the charge than taking the lead. Women are more compassionate. Women are typically better and kind of have a stronger ability to empathize or sympathize with somebody than men do, whereas men are like, what's the problem? Let's solve it. And here's how we can solve it. You know, that doesn't work for everything. But I think what we're seeing right now in a society where it is all about, you know, well, let's try to, you know, restore them and reform them, and, you know, there's. There's less of this. I think it's a product of a very feminized society where, you know, our. The sin of empathy, as you've talked about before, Jack, that book, that Rigney book, I think, or the point Rigney makes, I'm not sure if it's a book or not, but either way, you know, I think that's a product of, you know, domineering, you know, mothers and women, as opposed to men stepping up and saying, yeah, there it is right there. So it is book. As opposed to men taking the lead on stuff like this. Taking the lead on. No, if you do that, if you step out of line, this is what's going to happen to you. This is I mean you hear stories about that, like, and I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but you know, when, when Gen Xers were in school, it's like, yeah, I, I wasn't ever going to come out as gay because I didn't want to be basically beaten, you know, shoved into a locker type of thing. It's like there was self regulate, like there was self regulation on some of stuff like this. The more we've allowed when I'm not trying to blame all of our society's problems on women, nothing like that. My point is women are more naturally compassionate. And so if you let them take the charge on some of this criminal justice stuff, I do think that's where some of the results come in. Joe, any quick thoughts on that before we get to the death penalty? [00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they, they say that it's toxic masculinity, but in reality, masculine men leading the country, this wouldn't happen. These things would not be taking place because. [00:29:59] Speaker B: Correct, correct. [00:30:00] Speaker A: Look at scripture, Ephesians 6, you go to Hebrews 13, you know, like it's the Father 12 or 13. I always get it mixed up. Maybe 12, it's the Father that is the disciplinarian in the Bible. So yeah, the father is not intended to, you know, take a step back while the mother comes through. We have women leading the country all over the place. We have senators and House, House Representatives and things like that. This is why. Yeah, I'm a big fan of it needs to be males only because males look at problems differently and women are fantastic. Women are amazing. I don't think they're equipped to lead in this way because they are always going. You look at somebody like Ocasio Cortez or Elon Omar, you know, with World War 11 and such, and you look at their understanding of life and their understanding of people is fundamentally different because it's not really based in reality. It's fundamentally different. And I know they don't speak for all women, but it is that idea of what you're talking about, that compassion of, hey, we need to just be kind to the criminals. They're humans too. And the crazy thing is we get into the death penalty because this rides right into it. These people are some of the biggest abortion advocates and yet these are the ones that are, hey, life matters. And you know, this, this is a person, a human being. And it's like, well, you weren't doing that when you were dissecting a human being outside of the womb and sucking it out via vacuum. Like I'm sorry you didn't think about human life mattering at that point. You have a guy who just, you know, did horrible sex crimes against a child and you want to give this guy the pass. You want to give this guy a slap on the wrist, comparatively. Are you kidding me? So no, don't you ever lecture me. Don't you ever get on to us as Christians as I thought you guys were pro life. Like you don't get to talk. So all of these feminists and all [00:31:42] Speaker B: these people sit down comparing a, you know, a guy who, you know, brutally assaulted and murdered a 7 year old with an innocent unborn child. Like, yeah, those are not the same. So miss me with those comparisons like that. Just not the, again, the low IQ people that try to make those compare. I thought you guys were pro life because I think it's very clear as we're about to kind of lay out the case for and against the death penalty. All three of us are in favor of the death penalty. We'll go ahead and show our cards here. That is one of the points that people will make against it is, well, Christians are supposed to be pro life. We don't want to take lives. And I gotta say, the comparisons that they try to make, Joe, you said this very well, but the comparisons they try to make with abortion are disgusting. Like it's just a despicable to try to compare once again, heinous violent criminals taking their lives with taking the life of an unborn child, an innocent unborn child and making that a comparison. It's despicable. It's low iq, but it's also despicable. So just to get that out of the way, that is one of the things that people will say arguing against the death penalty is, hey, Christians are supposed to be pro life. We don't want to take a life. There's more to it than that. But Joe, you said that well, but I wanted to put a bow on that, man. [00:32:51] Speaker C: There's so many directions to go with this, the pro life one. We'll save that for just a minute for the death penalty thing. One of the other things I wanted to say before we got off the philosophy of this whole thing about the empathy and all of that. This is another one of the consequences. We've talked before about where Christians have been cast as the bad guys and we need to learn from the world and actually we're no different than the world and kind of that always browbeating the Christians. They've given everybody a view that everybody's like us. Everybody is like you and your family. People aren't all that different and everybody thinks the same and everybody wants the same thing. It's not true. There are evil people in the world. This has this version of Christianity, this empathetic, toxic empathy, untethered empathy, whatever you want to call, doesn't have a theory. It doesn't have a place in its formula, its calculations for evil people, for wicked people, for people who just want to kill people and steal things and do all that. And it's very much a humanist philosophy that has gone away from the concept of sin. It's gone away from the concept of wickedness and evil. Nobody's wicked, nobody's evil. They just need more education. And so that's this view of the prison system. That's the view. The anti death penalty view is, oh, they did it just because they're not educated. No, some people do it because they're bad people, because they are evil, because they are unrepentant, because they are conscious and they don't care about other people like that. That's something that Christians have to. Unfortunately, we're learning it the hard way. This is something the Bible taught us and we didn't. We allowed ourselves to be talked out of it by this culture that is kind of telling you, hey, you're no better than anybody else. Everybody. You know, these aren't Christian values. These are human values and things like that. Like. No, these are explicitly Christian values. Because cultures that don't have these, they kill babies by the millions, they do child sacrifice, they do cannibalism. There's things like that. This is what goes on around the world. And you have to have a Christianity that accounts for this because the Bible teaches this stuff. We just don't believe the Bible. We've been convinced by philosophers that the Bible is actually wrong about this stuff. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Well, it's seeped into culture. Look at all the movies, all the bad guys. It's shades of gray. You can really understand where Joker's coming from when he sets the city on fire, you know, and then all the good guys, well, Superman, he's sleeping around or, you know, he's. He's fornicating and, you know, he's conflicted. [00:35:11] Speaker B: They bring the superheroes down to like, oh, look at all their flaws. [00:35:14] Speaker A: And they elevate the village, elevate because [00:35:17] Speaker C: they want to do with, you know, church people that. There's a great clip going the other around the other day of Ben stein, the old TV personality back in the 70s or 80s or something talking about TV. And he said, look, they always make rural people out to be like, oh, every, every small town has a dark secret of the wickedness and the murders and the crime going on there and, and religious people are stupid or they're corrupt and all that. And he's like, and people came to believe this stuff. He said, look, you gotta watch this clip, he said, from 30 second advertisements. They're able to tell you, convince you that this is the toothpaste I have to have. And you watch the same show for 30 minutes every week, a murder drama show where every time the murderer is the white rural southern Christian guy, people start to believe that stuff like, oh, these are the real threat to our society as white Christian southerners. And so this is what you come to. And so it's like, well, everybody's actually, you know, these people are down here, these people are up here, and it doesn't work that way. And like there are evil people, you know, just across the board that you have to figure out what to do with them. And just saying, well, let's just educate them better is not the answer. [00:36:25] Speaker A: I was having this concept or I had this concept that I ran by you guys a little bit ago. It seems like in these people on this side of it, the, the liberals and things like that, they have a low value of life, but they have a high view of society and a high view of man's morality. We've reversed it as Christians. We have a low view of man's morality. We're all sinners, we're all wretched sinners, we're depraved. But we have a high view of value. That gets into this discussion here. As we think about death penalty, we think about consequences and such is like, we do place high value on human life. We also have a strong moral code that we see laid out in scripture and recognize man has a bent toward evil. We will go toward the things that are, that are bad for us over and over. But the therapy world and obviously everything on entertainment and you know, so many of the people on the left side of things, they're saying the exact opposite. They think we all came from pond scum. They have no idea the value that we hold as image bearers of God. But they will overcompensate by saying everybody is inherently good. And that's the problem we run into is they think that once again through education, if we get them enough help, if we give them another chance, they're going to come back around and finally get it because they don't understand morality, on the other hand, because again, we're all pond scum. What leg do they have to stand on? Well, they're inherently good. It's like, well, what. What difference does it make if we kill him? He's just a clump of cells that was just, you know, from evolution from a bazillion years ago on, according to your viewpoint. So how could you once again lecture us when why does he have any value? They're standing on Christian values of like, actually mattering and having value in order to build a case against death penalty and against prosecuting people harshly and things like that. As though people have value. So it's just a twisted viewpoint. Like they borrow from us when they need to. They take a baseball bat to us when they need to. It's a twisted viewpoint. The only thing that stands firm all the way through is Christian values. [00:38:19] Speaker B: It's a good point. That's a really good point. I want to go ahead and get into some other arguments against the death penalty here to get Yalls thoughts on. We kind of already talked about. We can revisit the pro life thing here in a second. But one of the ones that's pretty big as far as a reason why people, excuse me, oppose the death penalty is because they'll say, you're removing that person's chance for basically redemption. You're removing that person's chance to obey the gospel. You're removing any chance that anybody has to evangelize to them, to teach them the gospel, all those things. I believe this was Augustine. St. Augustine's position is that once again, any advocate of the death penalty is advocating for someone's, you know, chance to obey the gospel to be removed, essentially. What are Yalls thoughts on that? I think this is a pretty common one that gets brought up. There's an article that Jack sent us. This definitely got brought into that article. The article was about why. I think the title of it was why I oppose the death penalty. And this was brought up. What are yalls thoughts on this one, Jack? We'll go to you first. [00:39:24] Speaker C: You reach a point which you give up your opportunity to be taught that, you know, too many strikes and you're out that. And this goes, of course, the grounding of the death penalty is all the way back to Genesis 9, 6, and 7, Noah after the flood. That is exactly what God is saying. Whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made man. God gives the reason. Hey, this is a human life. This Is somebody made in God's image, that you took their life, you don't get yours anymore. That's what's given up. And so the idea of education, you know, like, well, hey, on the way to the gallows, on the way to the wherever you can try and teach them and convert them, you know, deathbed conversion, but they gotta go. And this is something wasn't just said to Noah. It was observed in the old law. This is not. It's interesting. Well, I'll save that argument here for a minute. We'll stay on the Augustine thing about teaching them. [00:40:20] Speaker B: This is. [00:40:22] Speaker C: You would love for them to come around and repent. You know Jeffrey Dahmer, right. That's somebody who repented and was baptized in prison despite his horrific crimes. That's great. The death penalty is still what he deserved according to the Bible. These arguments have to rest on going, yeah, I know God told Noah that, but I don't like when you're doing that with the scriptures. Hey folks, I wanted to tell you about our new Christian book combo. It's two books [email protected] the first is Sunday School Catch Up. It's 150 Bible basics for those that maybe didn't grow up in the church or feel like they're lacking in the fundamentals of the Bible. And then starting line by Dr. Brad Harrop and of course by Will on that one as well on the basics of the Christian life, of what it means to be a Christian, to be part of the church, why the church does what it does, some doctrinal basics and things like that. And so with those two books, we've got them at a discount on our site when you buy them together. A great starter pack for anyone who wants to know more about the Christian faith. So check that out [email protected] [00:41:24] Speaker A: what are your thoughts? If I was pushing back devil's advocate here, what are your thoughts on God letting Cain go? He sheds Abel's blood, but he does not take Cain's blood. Now he puts the mark on him, but he also says the rest. It's going to be seven times worse to the guy who kills Cain. So what are your thoughts on that? If we looked at that as okay, pre Noah, he sheds blood, but God doesn't shed his blood. [00:41:45] Speaker C: You could also look at David taking Uriah's life and it wasn't a direct murder, but he basically had a murder, basically. So there are times where God gives that grace, but in general we've got to go by the written word that's [00:41:58] Speaker B: what I was going to say. I think the principles throughout, I mean we've already covered several of them. Genesis 9 that you spoke to Jack. But I mean throughout the old law it's made clear that, you know, if you take somebody's, if you take somebody's life, your life is going to be taken. I mean Exodus 21, I wrote down just in verse, in just verses 12 through 17, there are five different actions that warrant the death penalty under the old law. 5 and that's just in that one section. Obviously Jackson, we've been in Deuteronomy a good bit. But that life for life principle is there. And so Joe, you bring up an interesting point there about Cain. I think, you know, not to speculate here, but that being a very specific example of like he was literally the third person on earth ever might kind of play into that a little bit of like the earth still needed to be populated again. He was literally the, the, the firstborn of the first couple that ever was existed. So that's one of those that I don't know that I would appeal to that. And I'm not saying you are, you're you know, playing devil's advocate here, but like that I would appeal to that as a. Oh, so you know, I guess that means the death penalty is not there. I mean, I just think there's so many examples of, you know, Old Testament, you know, the just. And even you think about what you see in the New Testament, this is very different, but Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead on the spot for doing something, for lying to the Holy Spirit. And you know, well, that was God that did it. Sure. The precedent there though is still upset that there are some things deserving of death. And while we don't have anything like that today, the chance to evangelize, teach thing or obey the gospel point, I guess just to give my answer on that, I would agree with Jack that there are at a certain point you have forfeited your right to, you know, because does that only apply to 25, 30 year olds? What about if there's an 80 year old on death row? Are you still making that same argument? Like they've had 70 plus years to decide if they're going to obey the gospel or not. They chose to do this with their life. These are the behaviors that they chose to enact or to go out and do. And so, you know, I don't think that's a good argument to make. Well, you're taking away their chance. No, they had a Chance. They absolutely had a chance to obey the gospel and they didn't take it. And so that's why I think I would fundamentally disagree with the position that you're taking away their chance. No, I'm not taking away their chance to obey the gospel. They had a chance. You know, 99% of these people that are on death row had a chance to obey the gospel, and they chose not to take it. And so that's where, you know, I think my argument would rest. [00:44:26] Speaker A: I think Romans 13 has to come into, you know, somewhere too, which is. And I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but, yeah, the government has every right to bear the sword. So when we're thinking about biblical all the way back to Noah and such, the government has been given the right. I mean, what does bear the sword mean? Like, smack him? No, bearing the sword means you're going to kill people based off of that. And that's what good governments do, because they're punishing evil and upholding the good. And so God gives them every right to do that. Now, you can get into the torture elements. You can get into a lot of different interesting things. Was Rome right to crucify people? Is that a. Is that a legitimate way? Was God okay with them crucifying people and putting criminals to death? God seems to kind of step back and let. Let nations handle it in the way that they're supposed to. [00:45:12] Speaker B: But these principles carry prophesied about. Like the crucifixion aspects were something prophesied about. Right. [00:45:17] Speaker A: But it certainly was kind of carried all the way through. And so as far as it goes, with the chance to evangelize, we have to recognize, even in Romans 1, God gave them over to a depraved mind. Like, there's times when God gives up almost. It's kind of what it seems. Now, that doesn't mean that they can't come back, but it means God is saying, you have chosen your seared conscience and I'm turning you over for that. Paul talks about that with Hymenaeus, Alexander turning them over. And so that is a biblical concept of, yeah, you have forfeited your right at some point or you have pushed past the point where you're going to accept. It doesn't mean God wouldn't accept you if he came back. I mean, I think if Hitler would have repented, God would have forgiven him, but they have chosen that path for themselves and pushed them to that point. So this idea of like, well, we got to leave room for evangelism. Sorry, You. You gave up that when you decided to go kill somebody, in my opinion. And if somebody wants to evangelize on the way to the gallows, as you said, Jack, great. If you want to repent in that moment, that's. That's fine. God is still willing you, which is for none to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But we still have to square that with bear the sword, which is, yes, you deserve death in that moment. [00:46:20] Speaker C: It's funny, the sanctity of life. We brought up the pro life thing, but the concept of the sanctity of life is invoked by both sides of this. Oh, it's life. You can't take a life. Like, oh, you're saying taking life is bad. That's what they did, you know, like, that's. It's because of the sanctity of life. To me, the death penalty is a pro life position. It is a position that says life is so precious. It's so, you know, the sanctity of life is so great that. That you have to face severe consequences if you don't respect that. And that's kind of the point of the Genesis verse about what we read about in Deuteronomy, that everyone else would fear not to do this. Everybody needs to know, we don't do this. We do not take somebody else's life. And if you do, you don't get to be around anymore. You have lost your privileges to be part of this. This is eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. But that does get into one of the other argument and the counter arguments of Jesus talking about eye for an eye for tooth for tooth. In Matthew 5, 38 and 39, you've heard that it was said. And then he comes back, as I say to you, and that's where he talks about turning the other cheek. I should have pulled it up before I started trying to read it. [00:47:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Matthew 5, 38, 39, you've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. [00:47:32] Speaker C: This is that concept we've talked about a number of times where people go, oh, see, it says it in the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore, Jesus was contradicting every other verse about this, both before and after it. He was contradicting Deuteronomy 19. He was also contradicting Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2, that talk about government, bearing the sword and punishing the evildoer and all Those things he wasn't, he was talking about a very specific situation. And this is where we go wrong is we take a specific and generally apply it. [00:48:01] Speaker B: I don't want to be insulting here. I know I've used the, the pejorative about people being low IQ already. Well, I've used up my instance of using that on this episode. But the article that Jack sent over about why I oppose the capital punishment or the death penalty had this verse in there. And I just feel like if you can't distinguish between those two, if you can't read the Context of Matthew 5 and read what Jesus specifically is talking about. To your point, Jack, of the specific example he's talking about, you know, I tell you not to resident evil person, whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him. Also he's talking about a personal disagreement that then, you know, gets to a point of very minor violence here, slapping you, saying it's an act of disrespect. He's not talking because people will go to this verse to refute self defense, to refute, you know, Christians owning guns or stuff like that. Oh, you know, turn the other cheek Jesus words. It's like, once again, no, I've already used it up. That's a low IQ position. To equate those two things when Jesus is clearly talking about, once again, a kind of a petty squabble that results in a slight physical altercation. Really an act of disrespect is what slapping somebody on the cheek back in the day was. And so you're going to use that to say, oh, there you go, Jesus was opposed to the death penalty. Like carry that logic out completely. Like, so you're saying. So again, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Jesus quotes, I tell you not to resist an evil person. So the logic carried out would be, man, if somebody kills somebody, turn around and let them kill somebody else. Like that logic doesn't follow. Again, same with the self defense. You know that people will go to this verse to refute the Christians owning guns. So somebody comes into your house middle of the night and you know, holds your wife at gunpoint, hey, here's my kid, hold them at gunpoint too. Like that's where you have to get to if you're going to carry out the logic of that argument using Matthew 5 here. And so yeah, again, I'm not trying to be insulting, I just think that's a very poor. I think there's stronger arguments to be made against the death penalty. I think this is one of the lowest on the totem pole. Joe, what thoughts do you have on kind of this particular section? [00:50:08] Speaker A: No, I think you guys handled it well. I was going to say the same thing. I don't think that's what the context is demanding. I think it's personal squabbles. We're not talking about societal issues. We're talking about a personal issue like man, wouldn't you rather. It's kind of the Paul thing. Wouldn't you rather be wronged like man, let's just seek unity. Let's try to get things. Let's try to be kind to one another, to treat one another well. And that's the whole point of it is this is coming right off the heels or right before the. Let me see, the golden rule. I think it's right after. Right. [00:50:36] Speaker C: And so it's in chapter seven. [00:50:38] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah. I was like, why is. Am I not finding. Yeah, chapter seven. That's right. Okay. Right after the judging and such. So anyway, it's in the same context of the golden rule of yeah, hey, treat others as you want to be treated on an individual level. We're talking about a societal level and how it affects everybody. You go back to something. So. So I want to kick off a discussion here on capital punishment as it pertains to non. Non violent crime. Well, I shouldn't say non violent, like non murder crimes. So we see Aiken a bit of a different situation. But Aiken and this is the little 1111's the whole lump. This goes to our societal point. But I'm curious on things like just pick your guys's brain. Sex crimes, specifically against children. So rape. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Rape. [00:51:16] Speaker A: Tanner guy. [00:51:16] Speaker B: Sure. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. This Tanner guy. There was murder involved, but if there was just a sex crime, like there's just the. I don't know if you guys saw this, that Anna Duggar forwarded an email to Josh about child pornography being a victimless crime. I don't know if you saw that. That was in the news. And yeah, somebody had sent her an email almost defending Josh. We praying for you, you know, and this kind of a victimless crime. And it's like to have child pornography. And my understanding is the, the deputy on the case or one of the guys on the case said this is one of the top five worst. [00:51:47] Speaker B: One of the worst things he's ever seen. [00:51:49] Speaker A: He's seen. And so death penalty, not death penalty. I'm all for it. I think if you were going to do that, especially crime against a child, death penalty needs to be there. It gets a little more difficult with rape. I'm still, I think I'd still be for it. But I am curious your guys thoughts on. Okay, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We're going back to. You shed man's blood all the way back to Noah, right? Blood will be shed. What about in situations like this? We can't. I think we're saying prisons aren't necessarily biblical, that this idea of an extended. I want to get your thoughts on jail here in a moment. But prisons aren't biblical. To just throw a rapist in prison for 40 years doesn't seem to be the move here. What are your thoughts though? Is this a capital punishment type thing and where would we go to prove that? [00:52:34] Speaker B: If so I think to give my answer and then some biblical backing for it. I do think sex crimes are deserving of a death penalty, personally. Might be a hot take. Joe, sounds like you agree. I think if you are violating someone in that way, forcing them, obviously children is a whole nother level that you know, my feelings are a little bit stronger on. But yeah, I would support. I mean Deuteronomy, we've already been in deuteronomy, but chapter 22, kind of a highly or hotly contested section, but chapter 22, verse 25, a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside and the man forces her and lies with her and only the man who lay with her shall die. Old law prescribed. And that's to me clearly indicating rape. Prescribed death penalty for sexual assault, for rape. And so yeah, you know, somebody can say, oh, that's old law. I think the principle is established that if you with your freedom, choose to do that to another human being, you're giving up your right to life. So again, I know that might not be a super popular take. I think those who do that to children, again, I think there should be stronger punishments and I'll leave it at that. So I would say, yeah, I think I would be in support of it. Jack, curious your thoughts. [00:53:54] Speaker C: I pulled up a list of capital crimes in the law and it's, you know, the rape as you mentioned, the murder of course, kidnapping, man stealing, child sacrifice, Adultery though is one of them. That's one of those where it's like, well, who's the kind of. Well, it's a victimless crime. It was consensual. It was those kind of things. No, it's the a. The victims were the spouses number one. But number two, like the culture, the community cannot have that kind of thing. And so then you've got the man with the in laws, you know, kind of with your mother in law, with the daughter, with the father in law. That's capital crime. There's just a lot of different things that are listed as capital crimes. And so why wouldn't this be? Now of course people are going to go, well, you're not going to get the Old Testament law. A lot of these things were treated in these ways throughout the west for a long time. It's only been in recent years that we've softened on these and made it to where only for a few things can you get the death penalty in a few states and really watered it down. And again, you just look at the incentives and the deterrence level and the recidivism rates and all that. What we're doing doesn't work. As Joey said at the start, if God gave us prescription of something, that's probably the best way to do it. And so people will say, well, so do you think people should be stoned to death for adultery? Now we're so far from that. That's not something that's going to happen in our lifetime. That's not even a discussion we need to have. There should be punishment. Yeah. The fact that there are no legal consequences for what Mike Vrabel is dragging his family through and Diana Rossini like that, that very high profile adultery other than the social shame. No, no, social shame is not enough of a consequence like they should. There should be serious consequences to that. And so yeah, the. We were not better off where we've gone soft on all these things. And so the question you raised. Yeah, there is absolutely precedent for that guy to be removed. [00:55:55] Speaker B: I don't know if we're planning on moving off the death penalty. I wanted to give a little bit more about Romans 13 here because Joe, you alluded to it and I think that's the. If you're laying out the case for the death penalty, I think that's the strongest place you can go because again, people will decry the old law. At the end of Romans 12, obviously Paul writes about you not taking personal vengeance. Verse 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the lord. And verse 21, do not be overcome with evil, but overcome with good. That goes right into chapter 13 where it's obviously the laws concerning governments. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there's no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the Authority resists the ordinance of God. And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. Verse 4. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. The whole point there being, yeah, you don't get to go out as a vigilante and take personal vengeance on people. God has put certain people in authority there to bear the sword on the behalf, on your behalf, on behalf of the citizens, on behalf of the society, of the community. I'm not sure what else bear the sword could mean. I read an article, it's like, well, it's saying that they can. It doesn't mean that they should. Very weak argument in my opinion. I think that idea of, hey, be afraid because the government can bear the sword. He's God's minister to avenge and execute wrath. Like, what do you think that's referring to there? And so Joe. I know, like I said, Joe, I know Joe mentioned that a second ago. I wanted to give the greater context to what Paul is writing there in chapter 13, because I think it's the strongest case for the death penalty. Like being God's minister to avenge and execute wrath and bear the sword seems to be a pretty clear condoning of the death penalty there from Paul. [00:57:53] Speaker C: Well, the other thing is that avenger who brings wrath, it's the same root word as before of don't take your own vengeance. Here is an avenger, here's the person who's allowed to do that, who's supposed to do that, bringing wrath on the one who practices evil. And then you can add to that the first Peter 2, 14, which is talking about the same thing, Governor, sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. They're supposed to punish and they punish with a sword. Well, a sword punishment is not a slap on the wrist. That's just not how that works. [00:58:20] Speaker A: I was going to go to first Peter 2 and in verse 13, submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do. Right, it's the same word as that. Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Sorry fellas. Am I glitching? [00:58:48] Speaker B: Yeah, Maybe pause for just a second. [00:58:50] Speaker C: Hang on. And I don't know if you heard me, but you're kind of going over the same territory I was. [00:58:55] Speaker A: Okay. Crap. Nope. [00:58:57] Speaker B: Do it. Joe, do you want to try to reset or no? [00:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we're getting close to the end. [00:59:04] Speaker B: Losing him. [00:59:06] Speaker C: I know. [00:59:07] Speaker B: We're close to time anyway. What else did you want to get into here, Jack? [00:59:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think there was much. So we could probably do closing thoughts. [00:59:15] Speaker B: Joe, are you. Joe, you're back. It looks like. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Okay, can you hear me? [00:59:19] Speaker B: You're glitching a little less. Never mind. [00:59:22] Speaker C: I mean, there was the prison question then we haven't done so. [00:59:27] Speaker B: Joe, do you need to reset anything before we fire it back up or will that shut off the recording? [00:59:34] Speaker C: Jack, he could probably come back in [00:59:41] Speaker A: if I leave. Am I there? Looks like my wi fi is back. [00:59:50] Speaker B: Okay, great. [00:59:51] Speaker A: I've got to figure this out. [00:59:52] Speaker C: I've got to figure this out. Okay. [00:59:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. [00:59:54] Speaker B: All right, you're good now. You're good, you're good. [00:59:56] Speaker C: Just go quickly and just get us to the prison question before we wrap up. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Yeah, I mean, I was going to go to first, Peter 2. Very similar to what you discovered, Jack, on, you know, that's that basically they are given as God, sent by God for the punishment of evildoers. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:17] Speaker A: And that's the same word as vengeance as binary pace. So there's a vengeance element that comes into it. I think people conflate the. Because America and the church are often hand in hand, people conflate those two. And that's the difficulty is, well, Christians can't do. It's like that's why God gives it to the government. No, Christians can't take their own vengeance. It's not a Christian thing to enact their own punishment. We give that over to the governing authorities. America is the first nation founded in Christianity. And so it becomes difficult in that moment to kind of parse that out as to how do we handle these things. But it's like it works as the same as Rome, works the same as any government, which is, yes, we bear the sword. So people get a little confused when we conflate America and that. But anyway, so last question. I'm going to kick you guys off on this. What do we do? What about jail? Talk about prison. The 40 year sentences I don't think are a go. What about jail? [01:01:18] Speaker B: So, yeah, this is tough. I'm really curious your thoughts on this, Jack. I. I think we've got that question like Is it biblical? Even prison? And we kind of already talked a lot about that. Obviously you see prison a lot in the Bible. Joseph of course in the Old Testament. But New Testament has a lot about prison because the apostles were prisoned or imprisoned a good bit. Peter several times. Obviously we know Paul wrote much of the New Testament from prison. What I'm going to say is I don't think. I know we're kind of differentiating jail and prison here. The way that we currently have it constructed. No, I don't think it's, it's, it's very biblical at all the prisons that you see. The jail, you know, jail or again whatever you want to call it in the New Testament seem to be a pretty strong deterrent. It was. You know, you read about Paul and Silas having their feet shackled together, for instance. Like it was definitely not comfortable. It was not. It was a strong, strong deterrent. And so you know, you can say just because there's examples of it in the New Testament doesn't mean that it's necessarily biblical. Obviously they had it all the way back then. That's where again I think taking people's freedom away comes into that a little bit. So is it biblical? I don't think I could make the argument that it's not just based off of all the examples that we see it. I think the way that we have it now, I think you can make a pretty strong argument is not. But Jack, curious your thought you're thoughts on this as we kind of wrap up our discussion here. Anything to add to that? [01:02:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean there's room for short term incarceration while you get things sorted. But that's one of the verses we didn't get to from Ecclesiastes. I've got it written down here. But like the, the swift justice is one of the principles of the Bible. A sentence executed. Ecclesiastes 11. Yeah, so yeah, that you got to get around to it fast. Sitting there for 30 years isn't doing anything. So make it happen. And so yeah, use that for, for short term. So kind of like what would it look like? Well, restorative justice where it's possible. Right. You got to pay this back, maybe pay back in more so they realize hey, don't do that, don't damage that person stuff, don't steal from the person, whatever. Like the. I don't think we live in a world where beatings are coming back anytime soon. But from a biblical sense that is a more biblical like a physical punishment rather than okay, just sit in this room for 20 years and time out and think what you did. And then of course, just there should be way more capital punishment. There just should be these people who have done horrific things sitting there for the rest of their lives, even getting out sometimes. And the mental health thing, you know, the, oh well, he was not competent to stand trial so we're just going to let him go do it again. Like so resetting the system, it's not going to happen. But as far as, from a biblical system, we're so far from what it should be. And I think it'd be better to move in that direction in whatever way is possible. [01:04:04] Speaker B: I had a question and maybe we can say for the deep end, but just so we remember to ask it, because you'll hear people all the time say things like, you know, our prison system is so broken, our justice system is so broken. We should be so much more focused on reform. Is everyone worth trying to reform? Is the question that I had. I know we sort of touched on that already, but like, it's kind of my position that no, not everybody is worth trying to reform. But that sounds so anti Christian or antichrist. Like I just think, man, certain people's actions get them. I'm curious Joe's thoughts on this. But certain people's actions get them to a point where you forfeited your right for reform or for life or anything like that. [01:04:44] Speaker C: So even though, even with Christ, people run out of chances at a certain point, I mean, that's just the reality of it. And we have to, we have to live with that and be okay with that. But yeah, the reform, the blank slate view of humanity, we've got to get back to a biblical anthropology of mankind and sin and all those things, which is what has corrupted us on this whole thing. So an episode. That was an interesting study. I'm glad we got to it. Thanks to Scott again for the episode topic. I'd like to hear people's questions. I know some people are very anti capital punishment. Are there arguments we didn't address here or do you think they can be made stronger than we presented them? I feel like it's from a good place of care for people, but there is not biblical backing for it. And so I'd like to hear if you disagree on that, as far as other things that could be done, changes that should be made, problems with the system or in favor of the system and imprisonment. I would love to hear what kind of feedback we get on this one. So we lost Joe for the end of it. Here so, Will, do you have any final thought? [01:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I have a. There's a line that I meant to say earlier in the episode. I'll say it now and maybe elaborate more on the deep end. It's from Charles Colson, an article about why he supports capital punishment. He's getting at the idea of justice and why justice matters. And he says mercy without justice makes a mockery of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. And I was like, you know what? That's. That's. I man couldn't have said it better myself. The idea that, you know, we want to give people mercy without showing them justice, what does that do to the sacrifice of Christ, who didn't deserve anything that he got? So, yeah, again, not to drop that at the tail end of the episode here. I meant to say that earlier, but maybe we can elaborate on that. [01:06:19] Speaker C: People think on is what is. Is just. What is the. The just punishment for these things. So a great thought to end on, as always. You can join us in the deep end. FocusPress.org plus we've been getting some really good comments lately, so we hope you see that, oh, Joe didn't get dragged off to jail. There he is, right for the last five seconds. So WI fi issues today and we appreciate Joe sticking with it. [01:06:38] Speaker B: He missed the absolute bar to end the episode. [01:06:41] Speaker C: That's right. I would give him a final statement, but it doesn't look like he's got a good enough WI fi to do that. So we're gonna sign off. We'll talk to you guys on the next one. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars, and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.