Talk about jumping around with various laws, this is more
like just a brain dump before entering the Promised Land. First there are
details about murder and how to handle certain conditions, then it shifts to
captives and marrying one, then divorce, then what to do with your rebellious son
and so on. So if this “thought” seems disjoint, it could be the subject matter.
Verse 21:21 talks about what to do with a “stubborn and rebellious”
son:
Then all the people of the city
will stone him to death. You must expel the wicked from your own community. Everyone
else in Israel will hear about it and fear the consequences of such
rebellion.
I think of how many children with be killed today and wonder
if that was a big problem then. No matter how messed up families are today, I
can’t imagine anyone giving up their own flesh and blood to a law like this. I
also wonder if this was more to scare the son into being good and not
necessarily ever actually followed through on.
Verse 22:22 falls into a question on a story in the new
testament:
If it’s discovered that a man has
been having sexual relations with a married woman, both the man and the woman
must be put to death. Expel the wicked from Israel this way.
John 8:1-11 has the story of the adulterous woman brought to
Jesus, everyone was prepared to stone her yet Jesus stopped it. Was it because
he “wrote” in the sand, “where is the man”? Since Jewish law said stone the
both, why was just the woman brought to Jesus? This is why Jesus has come to make
the law pure and to have people understand the hypocrisy of what they had
warped Gods Commandments into.
Verse 23:1 had me ask “why”:
Moses: No emasculated
man, either by crushing or severing his male organs, may come and worship the
Eternal.
Why should a man be excluded from worshiping God if he
has lost his manly parts? As one digs into the law we tend to pick and choose
what we like. Sure modern Christians often get into a tizzy about homosexuality,
yet are asked to forgive their pastor who cheated on his wife. We cherry pick
the law to what fits our agenda and that was what Jesus was there to stop, the Pharisees
did this and now many Christian preachers are falling into the same trap. Stop
the legalism and just follow Jesus’ acts. He did not kill anyone for being gay
or committing adultery, nor did he suggest we should. But rather gave a model
to follow of servitude and caring for all.
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