They'd absolutely LOVE to murder each and every poster on this message board.
Ah. Reminds me of my judicial committee, when I brought this up, said to the elders, "You'd probably kill me over this if they told you to." The chairman said, "Well, the Bible does have pretty specific commands against murder." (And since when has a little thing like the Bible ever got in the way, may I ask?) With a smirk that could melt metal, I said, "Well, maybe not everyone would do it."
This incident with the guy picking up sticks is one of those huge problems with the Bible and the God of the Bible, if you ask me. So let me get this straight, David fraks his buddy's wife, then sets his buddy up to die so he can take his wife, and STILL gets away with it, but the guy picking up sticks has to go? Manasseh burned his own kids in the fire and bowed down to idols, but no stoning there, he gets the chance to repent. But that guy with the sticks, he's done.
Maybe that's the point the elders were trying to be told: as long as you're in the right place in the organization, you can get away with, yes, murder. But your job as elders is to make sure the rank-and-file can't do the same. I know, brothers, it seems unreasonable, but try to look at it from Jehovah's viewpoint...
--sd-7