Jesus Moved the Line on Murder, and Most of Us Are Already Over It
Most of us heard the sixth commandment and quietly checked the box. "You shall not murder." Fine. Done. At least one of the ten I can say with confidence I've kept. But then Jesus opens his mouth in Matthew 5, and everything shifts.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the crowd and quotes the familiar command: "You have heard that it was said to people long ago, 'You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment'" (Matthew 5:21). He's referencing Exodus 20. The crowd would have nodded along just like we do. And then he says: "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell" (Matthew 5:22, NIV).
Suddenly the box is a lot harder to check.
What "Raca" Actually Means
That word "Raca" sounds ancient and severe, like some archaic profanity. But translated directly, it means something closer to "nitwit" or "blockhead." Jesus is not talking about rare, extreme hatred. He's talking about the ordinary contempt that flickers through your mind when someone cuts you off on the interstate, or the dismissive label you mentally stick on someone before they've finished a sentence. He's describing the moment when a person stops being a person to you and becomes a category, an obstacle, a fool, a type.
That is the line Jesus moved. Not just the act of taking a life, but the habit of reducing one.
The Identity underneath the Command
To understand why Jesus draws the line here, you have to go back further than Matthew 5. You have to go back to Genesis 1:27: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Three times in a single verse, the text hammers the point. Every human being carries the imprint of their maker. In the ancient world, kings placed statues across conquered territories as markers of their authority and presence. Genesis takes that exact image and applies it to every person alive. You are God's image in the world. So is the person you are furious with right now.
This is why the Ten Words of God - they were originally called the Aseret Hadavarim, the "ten words," not the "ten commandments" - open with an identity statement before a single instruction. God says first: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery" (Exodus 20:2). Rescue first, then guidance. The commands only make sense once you know who is speaking and what he has already done. A lifebringer, made in the image of a God who pulls people out of death, has no business trafficking in contempt.
What the Algorithm Is Doing to Us
Here is where honesty requires naming something bigger than personal bad temper. The habit of contempt does not develop in a vacuum. Social media platforms are engineered, by design, to reward outrage. The content that generates the most engagement, the most clicks and comments and shares, tends to be content that stokes anger toward a group, a figure, or an idea. What James K. A. Smith calls "liturgical formation" - the way repeated practices quietly reshape what we love and what we hate - applies here with uncomfortable precision. Scroll through outrage enough times, and you stop choosing contempt. You become fluent in it. The algorithm does not care whether your soul is being formed toward God or away from him. It cares about attention.
So the question Jesus raises in Matthew 5 is not just a personal ethics question. It is a formation question. What are you letting shape the way you see people? Because when anger curdles into contempt, you stop seeing a person and start seeing a label, and that is exactly where Jesus says the danger begins.
Romans 5:8 puts the alternative plainly: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Not after we cleaned up, not after we earned the right, but while we were still the difficult ones, still the ones he could have written off. That is the logic that breaks the cycle. You received life when you did not deserve it. That is the only foundation sturdy enough to hold the weight of actually loving people who are hard to love.
This week, think of one person you have written off in your mind - someone you've reduced to a label, a political identity, or a bad memory. Before the week is out, pray for them by name, specifically and out loud, asking God to show you one concrete thing you could do to speak life toward them instead of contempt.