“One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
– Deuteronomy 19:15
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you think will happen to your dad if he accidentally hits a kid – or a guy or gal, with his car and kills the kid – or the guy or gal? Do you think that your dad will be put in jail even though it was not his fault that he hit a kid – or a guy or gal, and killed the kid – or the guy or gal? When your grandmaa and grandpaa lived in Bolivia as missionaries on the South America Mission field missionary team, a missionary on Gospel Mission Union’s field missionary team accidentally hit and killed a young guy. The young guy was a bus driver’s helper. The bus ran a scheduled timed route through Santa Cruz. Besides collecting the fare for a bus ticket from the bus’s passengers after they get on a bus, a bus driver’s helper clocks the bus in at strategic places located along the bus’s route. The driver of the bus is fined if he does not clock in within a certain specified time. The control card that is used to verify what time a bus arrives at a checkpoint is at some places punched in using a clock while at other places, a guy whose job is to be at the checkpoint will write on the control card the time the bus arrived. A bus driver’s helper is often seen running as fast as he can to ensure that the bus is clocked in within the specified timeframe. The bus driver’s helper at times needs to cross a busy street from where the bus has its’ designated stop to get to where he can either punch the card in a clock or have it signed by the guy whose job is to sign the card. What your grandpaa remembers of what happened when Mike Fair – the Gospel Mission Union missionary, hit and killed a bus driver’s helper is that he was driving down a busy street when the bus driver’s helper – as he was running across the busy street to clock in, ran right in front of his vehicle. Because Mike Fair killed a young Bolivian guy – even though the Bolivian police knew that what had happened was totally the young guy’s fault, Mike Fair was first put in jail and then he was told that he could not leave Bolivia until there was some sort of settlement made with the family of the young guy. When your grandmaa and grandpaa in 1976 joined a 29 member South America Mission summer team that was scheduled to go to Colombia, South America – where the summer team would spend over seven weeks, your grandpaa was asked by Bill Pencille – who is a retired South America Mission missionary who had spent a lifetime in Bolivia with his wife and who was the leader of South America Mission’s 1976 Colombia summer team, to be one of two drivers for the small stake truck that a South America Mission Colombian missionary who was on furlough – who had given Bill Pencille permission to use. Bill Pencille told your grandpaa and Luther Hansley – the other guy who he asked to drive the stake truck, that if your grandpaa or Luther ever saw someone get hit by a vehicle that they were not to stop. Because your grandpaa and Luther were from the United States, there was a legitimate fear that even if your grandpaa or Luther was not involved in someone getting hit, that the potential of being accused of being the one who hit whoever was hit was very real. As your grandpaa was driving the stake truck late one afternoon, your grandpaa did see someone get hit by a vehicle in front of him. Some of the summer team kids in the back of the stake truck that he was driving also saw the person being struck – which knocked the person to the ground near the road. Some of the summer team kids began yelling for your grandpaa to stop so that . . . your grandpaa kept right on going. What would you have done?
When God gave His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, His life rules for them to live by in the land that He was giving them to always to have to live in as their very own land, God included the processes – which are found in Deuteronomy 19, for properly dealing with a couple of aberrational incidences that would invariably take place. God knew that some guy at some point of time – after His specially chosen guys and gals had settled the land that He was giving to them to always to have to live in as their very own land, would while chopping firewood have the head of his ax fly off inadvertently striking a co-worker or neighbor or friend resulting in the co-worker, neighbor or friend being killed which . . . because taking of a life for a life had become a revenge norm among God’s specially chosen guys and gals, God ordered his specially chosen guys and gals to specifically identify six cities that would be used as designated cities of refuge where the blood avenger could not enter. A guy who accidentally killed a co-worker or neighbor or friend could flee to one of these six cities where he would remain safe as long as he stayed in the city but if he decided out of malice to kill his co-worker or neighbor or friend, the guy – after the elders of the town where the guy lived who had been killed had completed the prerequisites found in verse 15, “One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”, was to be brought back to the town were . . . by the elders after which the blood avenger could do his retaliation thing to the guy.
Moving a neighbor’s boundary stones and being a malicious witness are two other actions that are specifically mentioned as a no no to do. God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to be intentional about purging evil from their people group. Your only refuge from evil’s constant attempts to . . . is to always obey God’s expectations.
Deuteronomy 19 (1097)