{"id":1659,"date":"2009-07-27T08:27:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T15:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=1659"},"modified":"2009-07-27T08:27:49","modified_gmt":"2009-07-27T15:27:49","slug":"dont-be-so-negative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2009\/dont-be-so-negative\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Be So Negative!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the law says, <i>&#8220;Do not kill,&#8221;<\/i> is it presenting a negative or a positive?<\/p>\n<p>Come now, that isn&#8217;t such a difficult question, is it? I mean, you see that <i>not<\/i> there, right? So that makes it a negative law.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe; maybe not.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, I&#8217;ve never heard anyone complaining about that law, <i>&#8220;Oh, there you go being negative again. You just like to tell people what they can&#8217;t or shouldn&#8217;t do. Why can&#8217;t you be more positive? All this negativity is bad. Lighten up!&#8221;<\/i> No, people don&#8217;t respond to &#8220;Do not kill&#8221; that way.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know why not?<\/p>\n<p>Because they realize that if that law keeps a potential killer from killing them, <b>that law is extremely positive<\/b>. In other words, they see a positive personal benefit in a &#8220;negative&#8221; law.<\/p>\n<p>Now think of some other &#8220;negative&#8221; Biblical commands. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <font color=\"#ff0000\">&#8220;Thou shalt not commit adultery&#8221;<\/font> (Exodus 20:14).\n<li style=\"margin-top:1em\"> <font color=\"#ff0000\">&#8220;Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth&#8221;<\/font> (Matthew 6:19).\n<li style=\"margin-top:1em\"> <font color=\"#ff0000\">&#8220;Speak not evil one of another&#8221;<\/font> (James 4:11).<\/ul>\n<p>You won&#8217;t have to think for long before seeing that these are extremely positive despite sounding negative. Don&#8217;t allow anyone to mislead you!<\/p>\n<p>(originally written in mid-2001 and posted here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anabaptists.org\/clp\/youth\/12-202.html\" title=\"Something I wrote for the youth Sunday School quarterly published by Christian Light Publications\">Liberty, Not License<\/a>)<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the law says, &#8220;Do not kill,&#8221; is it presenting a negative or a positive? Come now, that isn&#8217;t such a difficult question, is it? I mean, you see that not there, right? So that makes it a negative law. Maybe; maybe not. Interestingly, I&#8217;ve never heard anyone complaining about that law, &#8220;Oh, there you &#8230; <a title=\"Don&#8217;t Be So Negative!\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2009\/dont-be-so-negative\/\" aria-label=\"More on Don&#8217;t Be So Negative!\">Read more<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,12,463],"tags":[644],"class_list":["post-1659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-lessons-for-living","category-thisandthat","tag-laws"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-qL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}