Year of Torah - 9/17/2014 - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

all right Josh I'm was telling me that he couldn't stop laughing last week is that true it might have been because of the law about the no one can come into the presence of the Lord whose privy member is crushed or something like that the privy member so bizarre the Bible I'm telling you guys well there's some laws here that are no less bizarre today so here let me do this because this we've done this a few times but remember in Chapter four at the very out already wishing ahead the drawing well the beginning of chapter four Moses gave the the Covenant sermons really it was the beginning of the covenant sermons as to why he's giving them all of these laws and I've done this a few times but it's just good for us to remember in Deuteronomy for he has this key section where he says I had just have it up here on the screen so I've taught you all these decrees and laws he's gonna go and expound upon them in the book observe them carefully because this shows wisdom and understanding to the nation's who will hear about all these decrees and say surely this nation is a wise and understanding people and then he goes on this is what other nation is so great to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to Him and verse eight what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I'm setting before you today remember the word for righteous tzedek tzedek tzedek I yeah setec or for language geeks so the car it's the feminine form so it gets translated as righteous but it equals right relationships that's the core the core idea so a huge majority of these laws in 24 and 25 are basically pursuing this principle of wisdom and righteousness or tzedakah and most of the laws there's a couple of exceptions but most of the laws in 24 and then 25 are all about different ways of protecting the most vulnerable in Israelite society so think of you're probably familiar with it right now as we've been going through Deuteronomy there's kind of a little a normal list of people who are mentioned is the most vulnerable in Israelite society in the book of Deuteronomy who are they widows orphans right the Levite because even though they have a job they don't they only get paid from Israel and then the immigrants immigrants and so the reason why they're the most vulnerable again everything's about the land so we have farmers on ancestral lands and the ancestral lands are all linked to each other by extended family networks and so if you're a widow because it's a patriarchal culture your status in the community at least is at risk if the larger family doesn't take care of you because women didn't own land in their culture if you're an orphan it means you're not connected to a family with land and so you're kind of floating in their society if you're an immigrant you don't own land because it's all about ancestry and in the 12 tribes and so on and so most of these laws are going to be about protecting we're making sure that people who somehow fall through the cracks of that system don't actually fall completely through but are taken care of in some way so it's actually quite a lot of wisdom here about sheesh justice social justice care for the poor all kinds of things so there's a lot of interesting things here so let's just go for it and see what happens the first flaw is verses 1 through 4 I'm sorry to me it's just so it's 2014 and we're Americans on the other side of the planet reading these laws that 6:15 in the morning isn't that great IV there's just something really interesting about that now they're part of Scripture but they originally part of this pupil group that I'm not a part of but here I am reading them okay anyway if if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her and he writes her a certificate of divorce and gives it to her and sends her from his house and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man and if her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce and gives it to her and sends her from his house or if he dies has a lot of ifs how many ifs was that it was a lot a lot of ifs then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she's been defiled that would be detestable in the eyes of Yahweh don't bring sin upon the land Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance well first of all there's so many fascinating things about this paragraph and about this law you guys this is the only law in the whole Torah concerning divorce and remarriage so that's interesting this is the only one and is this really a law what's this law really about really so you have all of these ifs ifs what's the main point of the law did you catch it if so if I say like if I'm really hungry in the morning and if I'm willing to get out of bed and if there's gas in the car then I will go to the store that's a long complicated run-on sentence and now we get bad marks for that but what's the main point of the sentence this is like grammar we're doing grammar and we're doing English grammar at 6:15 what's the main scent what's the main clause of the sentence then I will go to the store and the ifs ifs are called subordinate clauses and they're left hanging out there so in other words the main like point of this law is actually in verse 4 it's the only positive statement made in the whole thing if you have been married to someone before you can't marry them again that's the law that's the law right here and this is the only law about divorce and remarriage is that you can't marry the same person again if they have been married already after you like that's it so for there's a number of things that are interesting here one is if the 613 laws in the Torah we're meant to be a complete comprehensive Constitution of how Israelite should run their lives together it's just a bad one because there's like a million and one life circumstances that are not envisioned in these laws and the divorce and remarriage is one of them this is the only one and it's really not about divorce and remarriage in general is it it's about one very specific circumstance that is probably a minority of the stories of divorce and remarriage in Israel does that make sense it's not interesting like how many people on on the whole have gotten divorced then that person got remarried then they divorced and then they wanted to remarry that person again it's a very small sample sample so throughout Jewish history however because this is the only law in the Torah about divorce and remarriage especially in the period around Jesus the rabbi's tried to get out of this law a more comprehensive vision of what of what grounds for divorce are so look at the first sentence again so if if a man first of all who is divorcing whom in the in the flaw the man okay so against a patriarchal society were there laws providing for women to be able to sever the covenant we don't know there aren't any in the Torah but we don't know so this is a this is all from the man's perspective if and if a man marries a woman and she becomes displeasing to him well that sounds fairly arbitrary doesn't it and then why what's the point because he finds something indecent about her in indecent that's the new international version any other translations their offensive mmm-hmm any others oh really he finds something unclean up ah what translation is that the New King James ah interesting so indecent offensive any others oh there you go and then I'm clean okay so literally this is a phrase it occurs only here in the entire Hebrew Bible is nakedness of a thing or in Hebrew air VAT d'Ivoire air bought in nakedness of a thing and the word d'Ivoire is just the word it's like the words thing in English thing a matter and it's only used right here and it's the grounds of the divorce so not only is this the only law about divorce and remarriage in the Torah the grounds for the divorce uses a phrase that nobody knows what it means right so that's interesting too so here's what's totally fascinating is that they're developed two schools of thought here within Judaism about what are legitimate grounds for divorce and some rabbis thought that nakedness of a thing referred to as something more broad like offensive like the husband just didn't like it or something like that or didn't doesn't like displeasing it's a little more subjective or there was a whole school of thought that that thought the nakedness is referring to some kind of sexual sexual infidelity can you think of a time when Jesus was forced away in on this issue yes yes indeed Matthew chapter 19 in fact it was this very passage that got brought up now so just stop and think about those two schools of thought with me here we'll do this I'll put it up here because this might be easy so what does air Vaught d'Ivoire mean there were two schools one view among the rabbi's was that it was referred to anything displeasing and then the other view was that it referred to some kind of sexual infidelity now which given the way the law is set up which of those two is more likely to become abused in his my culture so yeah obviously obviously and so so with that in mind knowing that that's that that's the discussion in mind look at how Jesus deals with this whole thing meant this is Matthew chapter 19 when Jesus finished saying these things he left Galilee and he went into the region of Judea the other side of the Jordan large crowds followed him and He healed them there now some Pharisees came to test him this is a common theme in the Gospels so if they're testing him do they actually really like want to learn and know what he thinks that no of course not so it's a charged issue it's a politically religiously hot topic let's get Jesus to say what he thinks and then like everyone will know what camp he's in and that whole thing they tried to do this a number of times and so they asked him is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason now what's cool of what interpretation are they alluding to then so clearly number number one now it doesn't say that they've adopted that they hold that view but they want to get Jesus to weigh it to weigh in on this and Jesus this is so fascinating how he responds he says haven't you read the Bible so insulting right their Bibles their Bible scholars right it's great haven't you read he replied that at the beginning the creator quote made the male and female what's the quoting Genesis what chapter Genesis 1 and then said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two become one flesh what's according their Genesis chapter 2 so he quotes Genesis 1 Genesis 2 and then his famous line so they are no longer two but one flesh therefore what God has joined together let no one separate the plot thickens why then they asked did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away now they're alluding to a law in the Torah and which one is it Deuteronomy 24 now what there's a whole interpretive interpretation and assumption underneath how they're framing that what is it command why command yeah right do you see that the way they're framing the law is different than it's actually stated what's what is the law in Deuteronomy 24 if you've been married to someone and then got divorced and then they got married again and then they divorced you can't remarry that person again that's the law that is the command there's no other commands in this whole thing the ifs if ifs are all just a setup to talk about the actual command so did did Moses in fact command no to sister and look how Jesus responds he says yeah listen Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard oh I'm wishing I had to talk of all days why didn't I try that chalkboard dang it I'm totally serious huh okay anyway so because your hearts were hard have we heard of this theme before the hard hearts of Israelites so if you suffered through the Book of Numbers with us remember that was the whole theme you'd have a narrative of how hard-hearted they are and then what did they get after each narrative of having a hard heart they got more blocks of laws and then there was another narrative of their rebellion and then another block of laws it happened like five different times the Book of Numbers and so the whole the whole way the the Torah is set up is to get you to see that the more the Israelites reveal their resistance to God the more he has to lock down and tell them exactly what to do and the more they resist that and so on and that's the theology message of the Torah is that the human heart is very hard and so look how look what Moses does here he said Jesus does he says Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard but listen it wasn't this way from the beginning so I tell you anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality marries another woman commits adultery which interpretation does he take then to - now he's not the only Jewish teacher to have taken that view but the reasons for taking that view are unique to him no one else had ever made an argument quite like this before at least that we know of so first of all does Jesus view the laws in the Torah as God's perfect will for all places in all times no go think about that one so think about know what what are the laws of the Torah well first of all they're given to the people of ancient Israel in the context of the Covenant with them at Sinai and a lot of the laws apparently are concessions to just having to deal with the hard realities of sinful humanity and we've seen that haven't we the laws about war for example the laws about that captive woman you have to shave her head and clip her nails and so on so it's not this is not a statement of God's ideal will the laws of the Torah are a concession to Israel's hard-heartedness and the realism of just the broken sinful world and so it's interesting God doesn't like just say well if it can't be perfect then forget it laws represent God accommodating to the realities of Israelite life but how notice also how does Jesus then where does Jesus go to find the ideal then notice he doesn't go to like a prohibition you shall not he goes actually does Jesus go to Allah he doesn't he goes to he goes to the story the foundation story about the meaning of gender and and marriage he goes to the creation narrative this is so interesting so he uses one passage in the Torah that he sees as more foundational to help you interpret and understand another part of the Torah so for Jesus the the creation narratives not the whole science and evolution thing that's not at all what he's talking about he sees these the stories that make claims theological claims about the nature of human beings and who we are and what we're here for and so on and so he says listen male and female Genesis one marriage covenant to become one that's God's ideal vision and and he uses that as his base point to then say well what are the implications of that for marriage and divorce and so for Jesus only something that severs or potentially tears apart the the one the becoming one Union namely sexual infidelity is legitimate grounds for divorce now look at the disciples response oh man I don't want to get married yes their response it was like holy cow I don't ever want to get married I think that's funny I think it's funny because they were because I think they're realizing the gravity of what he's saying like oh my gosh this is so intense that I the the ideal vision of of a Jesus focused biblical view of the meaning and significance of marriage is crazy high and so and Jesus is like yeah well yeah maybe some of you shouldn't you know it's a great passage he doesn't say any of the things that you wanted to say in this in this passage so to me this is totally this is fascinating for all kinds of reasons this this passage for me has become the most important one for pretty much all the ways that I am trying to make sense of sex and marriage and gender as a Christian at least because to me it's significant Jesus doesn't appeal to prohibitions like don't do this and don't do that he doesn't even appeal to the laws he appeals to this foundation story and then he explores it lets its claim about the meaning of gender and marriage stand and then he wants you to fill in the implications of it and what are certain behaviors that violate this vision of marriage and then Jesus says listen haven't you read your Bibles never like stopped and thought about it and so on and this interesting so there you go so there's a whole bunch of other things about this law that are just puzzling I'll just say I'm really glad that Jesus said what he had to say for the most part it's also other ly terrifying holy cow it's terrifying but I'm glad the other thing oh yes in terms of remember we came back to this and said this view right here obviously puts any Israelite wife in extremely precarious place because if you're especially if there weren't any laws for women to be able to initiate a divorce this puts women in extremely vulnerable place in their culture because basic your husband can divorce you for any host of reasons and you apparently can't do anything about it and so it's interesting Jesus takes the side or takes the interpretation that actually protects women from having this law being used against them in a in an abusive way does that make sense so even though he's taking the more conservative interpretation you would say the the effect and their cultural setting would be actually elevating and protecting the status of women in their culture there you go Jesus he's awesome should we go on do 24 you're like are we ever gonna get out the laws of Tim if you take so long to talk about all of them okay let's just go for it Deuteronomy 24 verse 5 if a man has recently married he must not be sent to war or have any other Duty laid upon him for one year he is free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he is married nations will hear and say what a wise an understanding nation who else has such righteous decrees and laws think about it this section reads a lot like proverbs almost the laws have always have some like little insight in them that you should think about hey don't take a pair of mill stones not even the upper millstone as security for a debt because that would be taking a man's livelihood as his security millstones oh I didn't look this up but it'll just take a second there's this cool in Capernaum which is the town where here we go where Jesus made his home base for announcing the kingdom there's it's one of the most well preserved first century Israelite villages up in Galilee it's right by the little lake of Galilee and there's this perfectly preserved old millstone right here so you can see there's a big rock basin and then it's somebody carved all this out and then what do you call this a spoke no a pivot a hub right and then this would be the upper millstone I'm at least as I assume I assume again I don't really don't know much about farming at all but I remember you know remember being there and reading the little note beside it and so on and so and then this would be on top of this would have been some kind of wood thing with like spokes going out and you would tie you know like a donkey to it or you could push it with people and then you would put the grain that you want to crush in the middle of that thing and then the stone would go around and crush it and so on so and that's how you make your daily bread that's how you make your flour for daily bread and the fan in the family so I get a house you know would have one of these or there'd be one of these for a whole set of houses and so on so if you're taking this someone goes into debt they borrow money from you and you take this as a security for the debt you know like the Airbnb what do you call those things when you have to give him 200 bucks but then you get it back again looks like a security deposit there you go deposit there we go that's it it's a deposit so why can't you take Airbnb uh-huh why why why can't you take that what's wrong with taking that it's a great security deposit though for sure pay you back so what's wrong with that so this how well how are they going to have daily if you if you take something that's a part of how they actually daily provide for themselves and so so what's this law doing this law it's it's not a it's not saying borrowing and lending isn't itself inherently bad but it is saying it is a practice that can be horribly abused and so there we'll see a number of other laws about working against the worst of human nature that is going to take advantage and all I remember a number of years ago I heard this fascinating piece on NPR about the whole weird layer of our economy that's like the paycheck forwarding businesses you know where you can go get a four word on your paycheck or whatever and in what parts of city are those almost always located middle class middle upper-class parts of town lower income parts of town is just it's an utter scam and it's actually it's so outrageous that they're allowed in our culture it's just utterly outrageous because the the percentages that they charge for doing this it's just total you just you get in the hole so quickly and you can never ever get out of it anyway my mind that's the kind of thing that this law is going against about unjust practices and how in how you'll end ok verse 7 if a man is caught kidnapping one of his brother Israelites and treats him as a slave or sells him the kidnapper must die you must purge the evil from among you what is the what's the value underneath this here well if you're if you're kidnapping and selling someone what are you treating them like like property and that violates their dignity as a fellow Israelite in lots of different ways by the way if Abraham's family would have observed this law how many tribes of Israel would there be 1 Joseph okay so Jack chily 2 and then Benjamin cuz he was just a little guy at the time so you think of the Joseph story right you have 10 of the brothers who kidnapped they do exactly they do exactly this and there would it's a good thing maybe I don't know that Abraham's family didn't follow this law ok verse 8 in the case of leprous diseases do we all have does everybody have leprous there leprous in infectious skin diseases any others if you have leprous diseases do you have a footnote that says hey just so you know this refers to skin issues more than what our word leprosy refers to yeah so that so that is true I think the text of the technical term for leprosy it's a Hansen's disease Hansen's disease the one medically informed person in the room is not again not it might not be the only medically informed person anyway so when the Bible uses this word it's referring just to an outbreak it could be a many many different kinds of things but outbreak skin diseases be very careful to do exactly as the priests who are Levites instruct you you must follow carefully what I have commanded them what has Yahweh commanded them do you remember Leviticus 13 and 14 it's great bedtime reading trust me it's all it's all about that and remember skin healthy whole skin was one of the ways that Israelites symbolized their world view of God's holiness and so if you had a skin disease it doesn't mean you're sinful or evil or bad but it does mean that you can't go into the courtyard of the temple or the tabernacle and that was one of the symbolic holiness markers that they had set up to remind themselves of the purity and wholeness and the healing power of Yahweh's holiness so you had to wait and wait till it heals and take a bath and that kind of thing remember verse 9 what Yahweh your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt do you remember what happened to Miriam so she started a rebellion against her brother Moses in the wilderness this is in numbers chapter 12 and Yahweh's justice upon her rebellion was that she woke up with a skin disease and then Moses prayed for her his sister and she was she was healed so remember that verse 10 the Bible you guys holy cow verse 10 now when you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor we're back into lending here don't go into his house and get what he's offering as a pledge stay outside let the man to whom you're making the loan bring the pledge or the security deposit out to you now if the man is poor don't go to sleep with his security deposit in your possession possession return his cloak to him say for example it's his cloak return his cloak to him by sunset so that he can sleep in it then he will thank you and it will be regarded as a you know the word as they said a cop as tzedakah in the sight of Yahweh your God so the first thing is if you're lending to someone and want a security deposit you can't just go into their house and be like I'll take this alright they interesting you like let them go in to their house and bring it out to you so again what's the what's the wisdom principle here it it's myth it's meant trying to minimize the worst of what can happen so this is a human being with dignity they should be honored they can choose and go get for themselves what they're going to give to you as a security deposit you don't have power over them to just go take whatever you want that's the idea here that's fascinating and then and then if you're going to take something that is connected to their daily well-being like their cloak say they just only have one nice outer layer then dude you need to give it back to them so that they can sleep in it you can't dehumanize people as you as you lend to them verse 14 don't take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy whether he's a brother Israelite or an immigrant living in one of your towns hmm I want I wonder if this is relevant at all just at all in our culture right now pay him his wages each day before sunset he's poor and he's counting on it otherwise he may cry out to Yahweh against you and you are done for you will be guilty of sin holy cow this is kind of intense so this is obviously written to an addressing someone who'd be an employer but apparently Yahweh cares a lot about the well-being of the poor and the needy and for if you hire them you had better pay them a fair wage and you better do it on time that's that's the idea it's laws like this that have that are at the root of a whole Catholic tradition in their theology and practice called they call it God's preferential option for the poor you guys heard this term before if you look at all of the laws about the widow the orphan the immigrant and the poor you'll notice that Yahweh always takes the side of defending the rights of of the poor or of the vulnerable just add them up you there's a hundred or so of the laws in the Torah are about this kind of protecting protecting the vulnerable anyway it's called preferential option goggle it preferential option for the poor there's a whole tradition of Catholic writers and theologians kind of exploring this and its implications for how Christians should think about economics and injustice and so on each one of these is a rabbit hole and I'm just not going down is that okay I'm just because I also want to get us through Deuteronomy okay fathers shall not be put to death for their children nor children put to death for their fathers each is to die for their own sin so in a legal context this is not talking about natural consequences of parents doing something stupid and then that has a net you know a negative effect it's saying an illegal setting a son can't stand in court in place of the Father and the father can't in place of the son you can see all of these laws almost certainly are being given because of something horrible that happened that force the law to have to be you know have to be said in the first place verse 17 don't deprive the alien the immigrant aliens in the Bible sorry don't deprive the immigrant or the fatherless of justice or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge there it is immigrant fatherless and the widow remember you were slaves in Egypt and Yahweh your God redeemed you from there that is why I command you to do this so we've talked about these words before so we have tzedakah and then you have this word here mish pot which usually gets translated as justice but it means a a judicial action that creates tzedakah that's kind of the easiest way to look at them so tzedakah is the baseline it's the core value and then mish pot or justice are actions that you take in their judicial system to make sure that you protect and preserve tzedakah in the community so don't deprive the alien or the fatherless of mish pot they should have every access to have their dignity protected as much as anybody else why why what's the reason for the law do you see it you were slaves and you were redeemed that's why I came here to do this they could be more explicit so in other words they're a people group that wholly exist by Yahweh's grace and they were an extremely vulnerable oppressed group of people who because Yahweh accomplished tzedakah and mish pot for them that's why they exist and so the logic then is that that's why you exist as a community don't ever forget that or build in ways of living as a people that that violate that basic that basic value now this is really interesting so verson what's an example of depriving the the widow or the immigrant of a mish pot and tzedakah verse 19 well let's say you're harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheath so you're you know you've got your plow and your sickle and so on and you're going through and you're harvesting wheat and then you get back you finish a row and then you look back and you're like oh I forgot that little section can you go back it's your field and like you've worked hard to grow that did can you go back and get it No yeah don't go back and get it leave it for the immigrant the fatherless and the widow so that Yahweh your God may bless you and all the work of your hands let's say you're beating your olives from your trees so that was common practice you get a stick and hit I hit the branches and then whatever falls down to the ground you put like blankets under the tree and I got to do this one time when we were living in Jerusalem it was really fun it's calm beating the trees with these sticks and then you put blankets under and then you gather up all the olives so let's say the first time you beat the olives off the trees don't go over the branch as a second time well what do you mean it's my tree my olives I helped grow them you know I've worked hard do they belong to you though leave it leave what remains for the immigrant the fatherless and the widow when you harvest grapes in your vineyard don't go over the barns again leave what remains for the immigrant the fatherless and the widow remember you were slaves in Egypt that's what I'm commanding you to do this in this fascinating so is it well first of all is it your plot of land if you're an Israelite is it your plot of land no no you're a tenant you're a tenant it's Yahweh's land and he gave it to you to your ancestral tribes and the work of your like the energy and all that so this is back to Deuteronomy 8 don't say to yourself my strength and my power produce all of this wealth for me it's still totally gift from Yahweh that you're even breathing and that you have land in the first place so there's this idea here of absolutely gain a profit from your field sell it provide for your family or whatever but don't milk the thing out of so much profit that there's nothing left over now notice also what's happening in this law this is to me is what's interesting is that it doesn't say it also does not say gather everything from the field and then go take some of it and give it to the poor the fatherless and the widow the point is that you go over your field once there is still work to be done in the field and but it's not work that's for you it's work that you allow the vulnerable in the community to come and do so they can work and provide for themselves as well does that make that make sense it's really so again what a wise understanding people now there was the tenth that every Israelites stored up and gave into the local food bank that was back in Deuteronomy 14 but this is different this is about creating an economic system so that there is always work and ways for the poor the vulnerable to find work easily and provide for themselves and that if you're a landowner if you're privileged and have the means this is this is your obligation and if you don't you're apparently depriving the the widow and the orphan and the immigrant of mishpat and tzedakah to not do this is to deprive them of mishpat and tzedakah and that's wrong I mean I don't have really developed views on economics and these kinds of things and I'm not trying to land us in any one category that exists today I'm just saying like oh this is interesting the Bible is saying this and some people might identify this with some form of socialism or something like that to which I would just say read your Bible and let it keep you up at night or something like that I don't care it's the Bible read it and apparently some form of communal well-being is a high high value to the God of the Bible chapter 25 you want to just do some more let's just keep going let's keep going all right let's say some guys are having a dispute and they take it to court and the judges will decide the case and they will acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty now let's say the guilty man ends up deserving to be beaten now does it command if these guilty I command you to beat him so again it doesn't say it just assumes that this is a practice so let's say that according to your judicial system it just assumes that some storm some form of flogging or beating is how they operate and what this law is gonna do is try and minimize that being abused once again so the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crimes deserve but he must not give him more than 40 if he's flogged more than that your brother will be degraded in your eyes so first of all again it just assumes that flogging or corporal punishment is part of their judicial system but it's trying so it's not commanding it it's not saying this is the ideal it's just saying this is how it was and what it's trying to do once again is minimize abuse so for one reason or another the number 40 is seen as like the highest maximum or ceiling for the worst kind of crime which means that probably very very few people will got 40 because it's the most extreme but note for me what's interesting is the reasoning that's given don't give him more or don't punish him more than he deserves because that will degrade him in your eyes that's the reason isn't that interesting it'll degrade him in your eyes so there's a point at which in punishing someone it stops being about justice because it's more than what they deserve and then it starts being about the fact that you just have power over this person and you can do whatever the heck you want to do and that's degrading them it's dehumanizing them so this interesting so if you're a judge or if you're somebody bringing in accusation you have a right to justice what you don't have a right to do is dehumanize this person there's a there's a place for justice to take place but you don't have a riot to treat them as less than human or yourself as a more important human than them it's not interesting what a wise and understanding people hey don't muzzle your ox well it's treading out the grain that's so great okay so let's go back to our millstone right here this isn't quite a right example but it'll do so let's say you've got like a donkey or an ox to tie it up to one of the spokes coming out you know think of like a spokes coming out and it's tied to one and let's say you know it's like going in a circle all day long it's really boring and it's hard work don't muzzle him all day long while he's doing that now why if you if you muzzle him what can't he do the donkey he or she what can't he or she do yeah I can't like take you know a break and like put the head over in the side and and munch on some grain something like that and eat so the whole the whole idea here is don't prevent your ox from eating while it's working let it eat for goodness sakes it's working for you so let it eat and that's the that's the principle and we've seen this already with regard to like the immigrant the fatherless and the widow about letting them provide for themselves and work and giving them opportunity to do that but then also you have this like animal you have this animal this view that your animals are also these creatures who are of value to God and that have a certain dignity that should be respected how you in how you use the animal strength isn't it interesting now do you know do you guys know that this this strains a little law gets picked up in the New Testament did you know that remember mmm-hmm-hmm will end here first Corinthians 9 starting at verse hey yes okay so Paul this is Paul the Apostle talking to the Corinthians and he's talking about how the fact that he never while Paul lived in Corinth and was planting the church and doing a lot of preaching and teaching and pastoral counseling and so on he never asked for any money at all he provided for himself he worked for himself on the side as a leather worker and instead of thanking him for never charging them or asking them to raise money for him they actually looked down on him for it because they thought if he was a really stellar church planter a teacher people should want to pay him and provide for him whatever so anyway he goes through this whole long thing about how yes it is right to provide for the people who are serving in your church community and look what he says here he says who serves as a soldier at his own expense who plants a vineyard but doesn't get to eat some of the grapes who tends a flock but doesn't get to have some milk listen am I just saying this on human authority doesn't the Torah say the same thing for it's written in the Torah of Moses don't muzzle an ox while its treading out the grain look what he says here now is it is it about oxen that God is concerned no just stop right there is it about oxen that God is concerned in this law don't look at what Paul says look at look at is it about oxen that God is concerned yes absolutely yes it is surely he says this for us doesn't he now I people have read into what Paul's doing is like that he's allegorize in or something like that I don't think that's what he's saying is it about oxen that God is concerned yes yes now he's saying this for us isn't he in other words I think he's reading this law as it's about oxen but it it's stating a principle that is for us and in many ways it's exactly what Moses says in chapter 4 these laws have wisdom and understanding in them yes this is written for us you need to pay attention to this ancient law about not muzzling an ox because whoever plows and Thresh's should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest listen if we sowed spiritual seed among you is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you but then he goes on to say but hey listen I didn't use this right never wanted to and I never will and then he goes on to talk about to talk about that but isn't this interesting the way he pulls out this law and he actually develops a whole principle of it and he's actually doing I think what Moses wants the reader to do which is look at a larger principle of wisdom that's underneath these laws and then all of a sudden it's like read reading Deuteronomy becomes like reading the book of Proverbs where it's print these really valuable principles about day to day life and so on how're you guys doing it was just like 50 minutes of sessioning the laws of the Torah right there that was awesome maybe how you feel about it I feel great let me close in a word of Prayer and this was like a shotgun of things that just went out at us so I'll just close us in a word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

Views: 14,210

Rating: 4.6878047 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: FIjMxwAF8gE

Length: 54min 44sec (3284 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 07 2019