No, we don’t need more political speeches.  We don’t need more legislation.  We don’t need the confiscation of guns.  We don’t need the hubris of the State seeking to replace the wisdom of God.  We need a church to fulfill her responsibility of informing the civil magistrate of his duty.  We need preachers willing to proclaim the whole counsel of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures. We need the public execution of mass murderers.

The present conversation in politics is permeated with potential solutions to the ever-increasing mass-shootings in this country.  The proposed remedies include more restrictive gun-control laws.  They also include red-flag laws which give civil authorities the right to judge who is mentally unstable and therefore is a potential murderer.  Watch out Bible-believing Christians!  If you own a gun and are suspected of hate speech, then your guns may be seized.

Other options to solve the problem of mass-shootings include the buyback mandate where the civil government will confiscate your guns for a monetary reimbursement.  Both political parties appear to agree on an increase in the spending of taxpayer funds for “mental-illness.”  The State has become our god in this nation, and most everyone looks to the politicians to solve this problem.  The supply of money never runs out.

Nobody asks the preacher anymore what the Bible says about political issues like mass-murders.  Preachers don’t preach on the topic, except to decry the moral decline in our nation or in some cases to remind Christians of an imminent rapture.  For others it is just a sign of the times.  Some preachers can’t preach about it because they believe it is a “political” issue and they must maintain the “separation of church and state.”  Some don’t preach on it because they have both Republicans and Democrats sitting in their pews; it would divide the church and he might be asked to resign. Certainly, financial support would decrease.

So, mass murders continue to happen, and the church remains silent regarding a biblical solution.  Blood-shed of the innocent is horrific.  While there is no cure in this imperfect world, there is clearly a deterrent mandated in the Bible.  Stated even more strongly, there is a command in the Bible in dealing with mass murderers. If we would obey God’s word, many precious lives could have been saved in the past, and many precious lives will be saved in the future.

One only needs to look at the verse from Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”  You don’t even have to believe in the application of the Old Testament Law today to see the validity of this principle since this was commanded before Moses gave the Law to Israel.  However, Moses restated this truth in the Law where he said, “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 24:17).  Capital punishment executed quickly following a swift trial is a biblical deterrent. There would be no thirty-year wait or a lifetime spent in prison.  Delayed justice is no justice at all.  A timely execution puts fear in others and restrains them from committing the same crime.

For those of us who glean principles and general equity from God’s Law in the Old Testament, we would add a couple of caveats to the process.  First, God’s law required that there be witnesses to a crime before one could be declared guilty. These witnesses would be given the opportunity to identify the gunman in a court of law.  On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the basis of only one witness” (Deut. 17:6).  In a mass-murder shooting at a shopping mall or at a school, there are many witnesses.  Paul uses this witness-principle as a mandate in the New Testament Church in 1 Timothy 5:19 where he says, “Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.”

Secondly, the execution should be public.  Public execution in the Old Testament was normal.  It was a deterrent to others.  In the New Testament the Apostle Paul relies on the same principle when he commands that an elder who continues in sin should be rebuked in public so that the rest may be afraid of committing the same sin. “Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning” (1 Tim. 5:20).  Again, he gleaned this principle from the Old Testament.

The general principles (equity) of the Old Testament Law are valid today and should be mandatory for the civil government. A public execution sounds barbaric to most Americans, and even to most Christians, but such a response only shows the embarrassing condition of the church.  Better that one man dies today than dozens more die in the future.  Just consider how many lives could be saved by the use of public execution as a deterrent.

Thirdly, the witnesses to a capital crime should be participants in the carrying out of the execution just as they were in the Old Testament.  Very often these witnesses are adult relatives who watched in horror the murder of their own loved ones.  In most cases this is the only closure that will satisfy the needs of justice by the family.

No, we don’t need more political speeches.  We don’t need more legislation.  We don’t need the confiscation of guns.  We don’t need the hubris of the State seeking to replace the wisdom of God.  We need a church to fulfill her responsibility of informing the civil magistrate of his duty.  We need preachers willing to proclaim the whole counsel of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures. We need the public execution of mass murderers.

Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee.