Lord's Day 40

105. Q. What is God's will for you in the Sixth Commandment?
A. I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill my neighbor - not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by actual deeds - and I am not to be party to this in others; rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either. Prevention of murder is why government is armed with the sword.

106. Q. Does this commandment only refer to killing?
A. By forbidding murder, God teaches us that He hates the root of murder; envy, anger, vindictiveness. In God's sight all such are murder.

107. Q. Is it enough then that we do not kill our neighbor in any such way?
A. No. By condemning envy, hatred, and anger, God tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly to them, to protect them from harm as much as we can, and so do good even to our enemies.

"I'm all for passion and righteous indignation. I want people who hate injustice and despise falsehood. But I don't want a church full of mean, angry people. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If we only love those who love us, "what reward do [we] have? Do not even tax collectors do the same?" (Matt. 5:46; cf. V. 44)"

"We can talk about murder and the sins of others, but if we do not love our neighbors - even those who get their theology all wrong and those who annoy us to no end - we have not been transformed by the Spirit of Jesus and we have not truly understood the Sixth Commandment."

The Good News We Almost Forgot, Kevin DeYoung, Moody Publishers, 2010, pp. 188, 191.