The Great Shema that Jesus quoted to his lawyer friend.

Deuteronomy Chapter 6: The Command to Teach the Law

Deuteronomy 6:1-25 – Highlights of The Passage and Some Thoughts

In verses 1-3, Moses tells the children of Israel that he will share with them the laws that God commanded him to teach them. And again, he gives them the reasons as to why God did this and why they should obey these laws. In particular, God intended these laws to be passed on by parents and grandparents (verse 2).

In this chapter, we have what many call the great Shema or the great commandment. I remember we learned this by heart on our trip to Israel. Verses 4 and 5:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all they soul, and with all they might.”
Jesus quoted this very verse in Matthew chapter 22 when the lawyer asked Him “Which is the greatest commandment?”  Chuck Smith calls this almost the Magna Carta for the Jew. They would say this whenever they got together.

David Guzik points out that these verses clearly show that God wants a complete love from us. Which makes sense given His complete love for us as exhibited in a myriad of ways, not the least of which was through the cross.

Verses 4-9 also make it clear that the community (not just parents) have a responsibility in that regard.  Yes, these are to be taught by family members to their younger members, but verse 7 also says to sons of Israel to talk of these laws “when you walk by the way”. In verse 8, we are told that they are to show others that they follow these laws by signs on their hands and by the frontals on their foreheads. Furthermore, in verse 9, these laws were to be written on the doorposts of their houses and on their gates. All in all, a very public testimony of their adherence to the laws. These little pouches or receptacles were everywhere.

In verses 10-16 he warns the sons of Israel not to forget God and His laws once they take over the cities they did not build, the vineyards they did not plant, etc., because God just gave these to them out of His love for them, and because He is a Jealous God.

The caution was particularly aimed at not forgetting God in their prosperity and plenty as Matthew Henry says in his commentary. And isn’t that when we forget God? We are most likely to do it in our prosperity and plenty. And we return to Him in our time of deepest need. I like the phrase Moses uses at the beginning of verse 12. He says, “then watch yourself”. Wow. That’s what we need to do; we need to watch ourselves and make a special effort not to forget God, especially in our prosperity and times of worldly success.

Furthermore, if His anger were to be kindled, He could wipe the Israelites “off the face of the earth.” And here I thought this is a phrase only used by terrorists and the Iranian leaders, and the Palestinians today who want to eliminate Israel and “wipe her off the face of the earth.”  I guess they stole the idea from God.

Now one would think that if one loved the place he/she lived, all the blessings he/she enjoyed, and all the promises your God was bringing to pass on you, that you would want to make sure you obeyed His rules and laws. This is especially true if you knew He was a Jealous God, that He could easily get angry, and once angry, could wipe you “off the face of the earth”. I mean you would think. You would think you wouldn’t “test” God. You would think.

And in verse 16, Moses reminds them of just that – don’t test God.

Now I really think we need to pay attention to verse 19. Moses says in verse 18 that we “do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord,” . . . by (here comes verse 19) “driving out all your enemies from before you,” and adds, “as the Lord has spoken”.

Can we get serious for a moment here? How is it that we Christians are just sitting quietly around these days letting godless politicians, godless terrorists, and godless aliens in our lands just take over things and force us to do what they want, and we even end up apologizing to them for the atrocities they commit against us?  How is that possible? Can some pastor please explain that to me, because I don’t think that this is what God wants for us.

Now I know that we are still studying the Old Testament and Jesus’ teachings are all in the New Testament. I get that. But I don’t believe that God the Father (Who is the same in both Testaments) really changed that much between Malachi and Matthew. I think it is us that are having the trouble of lining up Christ’s teachings with God’s directions to the Israelites. I’d love to hear your perspective.

The rest of the chapter describes Moses’ instructions to the children of Israel with respect to what they should tell their children about the laws that they see all over the place and that they hear about all the time. The bottom line is that these laws are the laws of God Who delivered them from slavery in Egypt and by opening these laws, it will be counted as “righteousness” for them. If our children are not asking us about the laws we are to follow – the commandments of Christ – it is likely because we don’t teach them to them, we don’t display them, and we don’t demonstrate them in our lives.

Wrap-up

Here’s the summary:

1.     Know the laws of God.

2.     Learn the laws of God.

3.     Teach them to your youth.

4.     Display them inside the house and out.

5.     Practice them.

Why?

1.     That you may be blessed as a people.

2.     That you may live long as a family.

3.     That it may be counted unto you as righteousness.

Now how hard is that?

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Linking Laws regarding Boils and Bodily Discharges to Seeing God

Leviticus Chapter 15: The Laws Regarding Male and Female Discharges

The first 15 verses are instructions on how to deal with male ‘discharges’. Verses 16-18 deal with a man’s ‘seminal ‘emissions’.

Verses 19-30 deal with instructions on how to deal with a female ‘discharge’.

In both all cases, the instructions follow processes very similar to those with respect to leprosy – some isolation, washing, sacrifices, and presentation to the priest.

Verses 31 gives God’s rationale for these laws:

“Thus you shall keep the sons of Israel separated from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by their defiling My tabernacle that is among them.”

The last two verses of the chapter describe again the areas this law covers:

 This is the law for the one with a discharge, and for the man who has a seminal emission so that he is unclean by it, and for the woman who is ill because of menstrual impurity and for the one who has a discharge, whether a male or a female, or a man who lies with an unclean woman.

Thoughts on the Passage

Chuck Smith sees this as primarily a chapter about boils, at least initially. It is about running sores and the necessary hygiene to deal with them.  I like this line of his:

“Now the Bible doesn't say that cleanliness is next to Godliness in those words. Those words are found in the Koran, but not in the Bible.”

And he then goes on to show how important it is for the Bible-believer as well.

David Guzik has some most interesting perspectives. He writes:

None of these discharges made a man or a woman sinful, only ceremonially unclean. [So,] This did promote hygiene in ancient Israel, yet discharges of semen and menstruation were so regarded, not because there was anything inherently wrong with them, but because the two are connected with symbols of life and redemption, blood and seed.

The phrase in verse 31, “My tabernacle that is among them” Guzik says,

. . . made an obvious separation between sex and the worship of God. To the modern world this seems normal, but in the ancient world it was common to worship the gods by having sex with temple prostitutes. God did not want this association in His worship.

He continues:

It is important for us to regard these laws of cleanliness in a New Testament perspective. In Mark 7:1-9 Jesus criticized the Pharisees for their over-emphasis on ceremonial cleanliness and their lack of regard for internal cleanliness. These laws were meant to have both hygienic reasons and spiritual applications; they were never intended as the way to be right with God.

In Acts 15, the early Christian community properly discerned the work and will of God in the New Covenant: that under the New Covenant, the believer was not bound to these laws of ritual purity. One could be a follower of Jesus without the ritual conformity to the Mosaic Law. Yet we need to remember that spiritual cleanliness in worship is important today. We also remember that Jesus is the One who makes us clean and fit for fellowship: “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3).

And, of course, 1 John 1:7-9 tells us that our cleanliness is “complete” as we abide in Jesus.

Robert Jamieson makes the following statement of interest on this chapter:

[God] He required of them complete purity, and did not allow them to come before Him when defiled, even by involuntary or secret impurities, as a want of respect due to His majesty. And when we bear in mind that God was training a people to live in His presence in some measure as priests devoted to His service, we shall not consider these rules for the maintenance of personal purity either too stringent or too minute (1 Thess.4:4).

And lastly, Matthew Henry adds to our understanding of this chapter’s purposes.  Here is a sample of his thoughts on this passage:

·      This was to separate the children of Israel and their servants and proselytes or those who converted to their faith.

o   By these laws they were taught their privilege and honor, that they were purified unto God a peculiar people, and “were intended by the holy God for a kingdom of priests, a holy nation; for that was a defilement to them which was not so to others.

·      In all these laws there seems to be a special regard had to the honor of the tabernacle, to which none must approach in their uncleanness. . .. Now that the tabernacle of God was with men familiarity would be apt to breed contempt, and “therefore the law  made so many things of frequent incidence to be ceremonial pollutions, and to involve an incapacity of drawing near to the sanctuary (making death the penalty), that so they might not approach without great caution, and reverence, and serious preparation, and fear of being found unfit.

That takes us to the lessons we might learn from these verses today. First, we can thank God we are no longer under all those Mosaic Laws. Secondly, we need to remain pure in our hearts as we deal with God, abstaining from sin to the extent we are able to. Third, we need to recognize the indispensable necessity (as Henry says) of real holiness to our future happiness.  This requires getting our hearts purified by faith, “that we may see God.”

Henry ends his comments with the following:

Perhaps it is in allusion to these laws which forbade the unclean to approach the sanctuary that when it is asked, “Who shall stand in God’s holy place?” it is answered, “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3,4); for “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”

May we see God.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Laws, Lepers, and Love

 Leviticus 13:18-44 and 45-46 

[picture from American Leprosy Missions]

Verses 18 to 44 simply describe other possible scenarios that may have been leprosy and needed diagnosis. These included skin boils (vs. 18-23); burned skin (vs. 24-28); head or beard infections (vs. 29-37); bright skin spots (vs. 38-39); and baldness (vs. 40-44). All these could possibly be leprosy infection. Then the last two verses of the passage (vs. 45-46) give a general comment as follows:

“As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

Thoughts on the Passage

Currently, as I write this, the world is dealing with Coronavirus 19 and thousands of people are living their lives behind masks thinking they can avoid catching it. Millions of others are in quarantine in China where the whole thing broke out. It has the power of ruining nations as well as the global economy.  I find solace in the fact that I know my God is fully aware of the situation, He’s in control, and this is neither a surprise nor a snag for His plan for mankind.  We press on.

The images portrayed in the last two verses of the passage above certainly reminded me of the reality we face today with Covid-19 as the virus is referred to.

But what was God saying in these two verses? More importantly what can we glean from the passage for today?

Clearly, for the Jews of the O.T. and for Jews of Jesus’ days, leprosy was a big thing. We can read what was expected of them in the days of Moses in the passage above. However, in the first century A.D., David Guzik says the Jews and their rabbis went much further. He writes:

“Many Jews thought two things about a leper: You are the walking dead and you deserve this because this is the punishment of God against you. Jewish custom said that you should not even greet a leper, and you had to stay six feet away from a leper. One Rabbi bragged that we would not even buy an egg on a street where he saw a leper, and another boasted that he threw rocks at lepers to keep them far from him. Rabbis didn’t even allow a leper to wash his face.”

It sounds like the inhumanity of the clergy was alive and well in those days as it often is today.  But as Christians, we are not to stuck there. We don’t have to stick with the laws put in place for the Jews to keep them from being eliminated by sickness or a plague after they left Egypt.  Nor can we rely on what rabbis proposed in the days of Christ.  No, instead we must look at Jesus himself as the role model in how we treat those with such infirmities.  Guzik continues:

“But Jesus was different. He loved lepers; He touched them and healed them when they had no hope at all (Matthew 8:1-4 and Luke 17:11-19).”

Here’s the good news, at least for North Americans, according to Guzik:

“Because of modern drugs and treatments, leprosy is almost unknown in the western world – the United States’ only two leper colonies have been shut down. But worldwide there are some 15 million lepers, almost all of them in third-world nations.”

For an excellent more recent update than Guzik’s on leprosy (and yes there are still two places you can find some lepers in the U.S.), take a few moments to check out this clip: Leprosy Update 2016.

The lesson for us? While you and I may not be able to heal lepers unless the Holy Spirit wants us to, we still have a responsibility to behave like our Lord did towards them.  Think Mother Teresa.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

God’s Commands re. the Earth’s Animals Present Us with a Dilemma

Leviticus 11:1-8

The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, ² “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. ³ Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat. ⁴ Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. ⁵ Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; ⁶ the rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; ⁷ and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. ⁸ You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

Thoughts on the Passage

Once again, we are faced with the dilemma of “how much of these commands apply to us today?”  The fact remains that not all of us follow these rules. We eat various foods mentioned in this passage.  Some don’t because they believe this applies to God’s people even today. Others don’t because science has said they are bad for us, at least in larger quantities.  Others just can’t stand the thought that they are eating some of them. Others won’t eat them because doing so is cruelty to animals.

So, what can we take from it all that most of us can agree with?

Chuck Smith says when we look at these practical laws, we need to be thinking of the spiritual laws that God has laid down for us. The bottom line is that if we seek to follow God’s laws we will be blessed and if we neglect to do so, we will not. And Smith has the references in Scripture that back him up. If we start with the Spiritual laws, including the law to obey God, the issue then becomes how far down the “commandments” towards the practical (read ‘food’ laws) do we need to go to still have the blessing?

Smith sees it this way. Those food laws show that God is in interested in our health and wants us to have strong bodies. If He were talking to us today about this topic, He would probably hit on ‘junk food’.  He shares the story about going “home from Bible school at night and buy ice cream and chocolate syrup and whipped cream and the whole thing. And then some guy would say, "Who's going to ask the blessing?" I said, "You can't ask God to bless this. It's no good for you, you know, it's not good for you." Eat it and take the consequences, but don't ask God to bless it.”

On the other hand, we can’t misquote I Corinthians 10:23 where Paul states, “all things are lawful for me” and claim that we can eat all the pork, ham, and bacon we want. We cannot misquote God in Acts 11:9 when He says, “Don’t call unholy what I have cleaned.”  That does not mean you can eat anything you want. Why? Because the passage is not about food – it’s about Paul taking the message to the Gentiles who were considered ‘unclean’ by the Jews up to that point.

The animals God lists here as being off limits to the Jews were animals that carried disease, especially if not cooked thoroughly. This is especially a problem in warm climates, according to Robert Jamieson. David Guzik notes that God wasn’t just coming up with new rules here about what animals were clean and what were unclean. In fact, these distinctions were known way back in the days of Noah (Genesis 7:2 and 8:20).

Matthew Henry reminds us that “God’s Will” is a manifestation of “God’s Wisdom”. So, anything He commands that we obey is ultimately the wisest decision we could make.  God was interested in teaching His people then and His people now that we are to distinguish ourselves from other people, not only by our belief in Him, but also in our practices, day to day.

We just presented the background to these verses and tied them in with some other passages in both the Old and New Testaments. It is now up to each of us to become aware of what God had commanded, and to decide what He intends for us today, and then to follow through on that decision. Here’s to your health and mine.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

The World’s Greatest Deal (In Writing)

Exodus 34:27-28:

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’
“So he was there with the LORD forty day and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”

Thoughts on the Passage

When God came to the end of His instructions to Moses, He told him to write down "these words" – words which formed the basis of the covenant between God and Israel. He was not (at that time) writing down everything that God said from chapter 34:10-26. In my opinion, this was the follow-up to God’s instructions to Moses in chapter 34:1 when He told Moses to get another two tablets “like the former ones” and He (God) would write on these tablets the words that were on the former tablets which Moses had shattered out of anger.

While Moses had been with God for forty days and forty nights, he did not eat bread or drink water. (I believe in this context, we can assume that simply means he did not eat or drink, period.) And either during or at the end of that period of time, he wrote, on behalf of God, or under God’s instruction (or dictation), the Ten Commandments on this second set of tablets. Now, I must tell you that at least one commentator does not agree with me.  Robert Jamieson feels Moses wrote down all the words from Exodus 34 that God spoke right down to the end of verse 26, and that God wrote the Ten Commandments on the second Tablets. Certainly Deuteronomy 10:1-4 seem to support him. Others are silent on this point.

What causes the confusion is that Exodus 34:26 refers to “he” lower case, which normally does not refer to the Lord or God, at least in Exodus.  (We know for example in Exodus 34:34, the word “Him” is capitalized when referring to God.  So, Exodus 34:26 poses a dilemma for us as it would seem to indicate that Moses did the writing on the Tablets (yes, for God) and it was just the Ten Commandments. You will need to do further study and decide for yourselves. It is true that at some point, Moses had to write down all the words God had spoken earlier – but was it from memory, or was it while he was on the mountain. You decide.

For me, the messages from this passage are very clear:

When God says, “write something down”, be sure you do it because it is very important. In fact, this is the greatest written deal or covenant ever made between two parties and in this case, one of the parties is God.  We have to be careful not to blow it.

(I spend a lot of my time negotiating collective agreements between management and various unions, personal agreements between two people (often married ones who need to call it quits), and fair severance package agreements between a dismissed employee and his/her former employer. But none of them come close to being as important as the covenant that God established with His people through the Ten Commandments.)

While there are literally hundreds of Old Testament laws that God set up for the Israelites to follow (613 to be exact), I am confident there is not a single one that could not find a “home” in one of the Ten Commandments if we really tried hard enough.  For me, the Ten Commandments are a “high-level summary” of all that God wants and expects from His children.

That means that while you and I can get into an argument about whether or not Old Testament laws and instructions apply to us today, what we can agree on is that, one way or another, God expects even a person living in this day and age, to keep all of the Ten Commandments.

This does not mean man is capable of keeping all ten of these commandments all the time. And God knew that. He knew about it with respect to the 613 laws, and He knows about it with respect to the Ten. God also knew that as breakers of one of these commandments, we cannot be in His Holy presence, no matter how much He loves us.

But the Good News is that God did not stop there, He had a way to get over that legitimate hurdle He had established because He loves us. He had a way by which our sin could be paid for in a way that would wipe our spiritual criminal record clean and make us acceptable for His presence.  He had His Son die in our place, pay the penalty for us, and provide for us a way to be adopted by God.  That’s the Good News although the world has tried for the last 2000 tried to convince everyone it is Fake News.

And one more thought: Sometimes to get the message from God straight and clear, we need to focus totally on Him – no food, no drink. We need to fast. And no, that’s not just Old Testament stuff – we’re told to do that in the New Testament as well.  As far as this passage goes, there is debate whether a man can live 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. But while that’s a moot point physiologically, it need not be in this instance since we’re talking about a meeting being a created being with His Creator and Almighty God – the God of miracles.  So, yes, Moses did go 40 days and 40 nights on a complete fast.  But then again, who needs to eat in the presence of God?

As always, your questions and comments are invited.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.