A Community Cooperating for Peace
The importance of peace within a community cannot be overstated. Without neighborly peace, life is unbearable. People move from neighborhoods, communities, states and countries when violence is an epidemic to their locale. We inherently know that people must care for one another and respect their neighbors treating each other fairly. This is the basis of God's laws to Israel. In Deuteronomy 21, the whole community was to be involved in working and contributing to the maintenance of peace. We learn this through a strange sacramental practice concerning an unsolved murder within the land. Deuteronomy 21:1–4 (ESV) “If in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. 3 And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked ...