Parasha Ki Teitzei

Me

This week we read Parasha Ki Teitzei, which is Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19. Ki Teitzei opens and closes with war… But, in between these two stark realities we find 74 mitzvot addressing a wide array of issues that B’nei Yisrael might face in their walk. Now, keep in mind, most of what we find in Deuteronomy is repetition from previous Torah discussions as a refresher before crossing the Jordan, and this is the case with a lot of what we find in this week’s Parasha. As we process through Ki Teitzei we see that the primary focus of this Parasha is two part: 1) V’ahavta L’reicha Kamocha—Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). And 2) Righteousness of the camp before our Holy God. And pretty much everything found in Parasha Ki Teitzei covers one of these two issues that are both independent yet very much intertwined.

When I was younger I was a handful… I’ll never forget this one particular situation when I was in either fifth of sixth grade. I had gotten into an argument with another student and I ended up throwing something at them over it. I can’t recall what it was I threw, but I am remember it did hurt them and they were none too happy.

Now, in fairness, what we were arguing over was that I have always been very adamant that I could both be Jewish and believe in Yeshua at the same time. And her point of view was the typical Christian (and traditional Jewish perspective too) perspective that if you’re Jewish and you come to faith in Jesus, you leave Judaism and become a Christian… So, basically, even back to my early school days I was very firm and confident in my Messianic Jewish identity...

She and I went round and round verbally over the issue. We were in PE and the whole class was on the bleachers by the football field. She ticked me off when she said some pretty atrocious things, specifically some pretty antisemetic things, and I picked up whatever was nearby and launched it from my perch further up the bleachers above her. So, not only did I throw it hard, not only was my aim on point… But I also had gravity on my side too.

I end up getting taken to the principles office, and at this point in time corporal punishment was still very much a thing. The principle was not happy with me either. He gives me the choice, I can take a paddling or I can take after school detention. Of course, I am not a complete idiot… I choose detention and I go home that afternoon with a note that my parents have to sign consenting to detention.

My dad was upset about the scenario. I mean, he was proud of me for choosing a good hill to die on… But he was upset at the way I chose to go about handling things. He sign the note consenting to detention, but he also flipped the note over and scribbled a note for the principle that basically said if he was going to have to be punished by coming to pick me up after school when I could have taken the bus but instead I chose detention, that he wanted me to get both detention and a paddling… And, that’s exactly what happened…

Even though my argument was a righteous argument, my going about an outcome was anything but. Not because I got detention and a paddling… No, it was problematic because it was anything but Messiah-like.

We

Have you ever experienced anything like that? Not necessarily getting detention and a paddling...

But finding yourself stuck between both righteousness and worldliness?

And I’m sure we’d be surprised how often this actually happens… Or more so, maybe how often we allow it to happen…

There have been countless pastors and evangelists who have led many, many people to Salvation, but also fallen in horrendous sexual scandals.

Perhaps you’ve found yourself trying to live a holy life on the outside, yet on the inside you know you haven’t fully given everything over to the Lord.

Maybe you’re battling anger issues when what you really want is to show the love of Messiah to all...

God

I tell you that story about my younger life because it makes me think of something we read about in Parasha Ki Teitzei

Deuteronomy 21:18–21 TLV

“Suppose a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father or mother. They discipline him, but he does not listen to them. Then his father and mother are to grab hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city—to the gate of his place. They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious—he does not listen to our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city are to stone him with stones to death. So you will purge the evil from your midst—and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

Now, in context it is important to remember what we read in Parasha Shoftim last week:

Deuteronomy 17:6–7 TLV

By the word of two or three witnesses, the one who is to die is to be put to death. No one is to be put to death by the word of one witness. The hand of the witnesses is to be first to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

And this is the case in regards to the wayward son… This isn’t a child, this is a grown man for whom the parents have determined there is no hope. As such, both parents have to bring him to the city gates and make the declaration against him, if the father is on board but the mother is not, or vice versa, then the capital punishment cannot be carried out. They are the two witnesses, and as such they must also cast the first stones.

And, as Deuteronomy 21:21 states, the purpose of this is to purge evil from the midst of the nation of Israel.

And here’s the key to understanding this week’s parasha...

We’ve got a choice, our actions can either lift up the community around us, or we can tear it all down...

(Repeat)

Let’s take a look at what I mean by this...

As we just read from the discussion of the wayward son:

Deuteronomy 21:21 TLV

Then all the men of his city are to stone him with stones to death. So you will purge the evil from your midst—and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

Immediately following this is the discussion of a man being hung on a tree must not be left hanging on the tree all night…

Deuteronomy 21:22–23 TLV

“Suppose a man is guilty of a sin with a death sentence and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree. His body is not to remain all night on the tree—instead you must certainly bury him the same day, for anyone hanged is a curse of God. You must not defile your land that Adonai your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Then we read in Deuteronomy 22 that if a man takes a wife that he believes to be a virgin, and finds out on their wedding night that she had been lying to him and was not a virgin after all that, if the bride’s father can’t prove her virginity, she is to be put to death. And we read

Deuteronomy 22:20–21 TLV

“But if this thing is true—that the signs of virginity were not found in the young lady— then they are to bring the young woman out to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city are to stone her with stones to death, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to behave like a prostitute in her father’s house. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

This then is followed by verse 22

Deuteronomy 22:22 TLV

“Suppose a man is found lying with a married woman. Then both of them are to die—the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you are to purge the evil from Israel.

This is followed by...

Deuteronomy 22:23–24 TLV

“Suppose there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her. Then you are to bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them with stones to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the town, and the man because he humiliated his neighbor’s wife. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

Lastly we read...

Deuteronomy 24:7 TLV

“If a man is caught kidnapping any of his brothers from Bnei-Yisrael, whether he treats him like property or sells him, then that kidnapper must die. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

Do you see the theme running through this Parasha?

So you are to purge the evil from your midst...

We also see very similar verbiage used throughout the Torah from Exodus through Deuteronomy. And, beyond the Torah we see the reality that an overwhelming problem that Israel failed at was the separation of holy and worldly. When we read through the Prophets we see a continued stream of accusation against Israel for replacing HaShem with gods made by our own hands that are not gods at all… Which is especially heartbreaking to think of because of how often in the Torah we are reminded that we are not to desire to be like the world around us, but rather to live as a light to the Nations.

We’ve got a choice, our actions can either lift up the community around us, or we can tear it all down...

And listen, here’s the thing, the idea of the separation of holy and unholy should be looked at from multiple directions. First, it is very simply a matter of living a life that is holy before the Lord while forsaking the ways of the world. But, along with that, far too many believers take this idea to mean that we are called to beat sinners over the head with the Bible and call out all their sins, while often at the same time we’re trying to bury our own.

More so, because of the hypocrisy that has often been seen in the Body of Messiah from the outside, many non-believers (who we are suppose to be sharing Messiah with) want nothing to do with Messiah because they see the hypocrisy in our lives. We are often guilty for saying one thing and living another.

To that end, this was in fact one of Yeshua’s greatest complaints against the leadership of the Pharisees.

Matthew 23:1–7 TLV

Then Yeshua spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying, “The Torah scholars and Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses. So whatever they tell you, do and observe. But don’t do what they do; for what they say, they do not do. They tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them. All their works they do to be noticed by men. They make their tefillin wide and their tzitziyot long. They love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by men.

Notice Yeshua doesn’t say to cast aside the instructions of the Pharisees, nor does He say to toss out Torah altogether… What He says is to not live like the Pharisees to the degree that we become hypocrites, more worried about what people see of our lives than we are about the true righteousness of our hearts.

Now, lets puts this all into perspective really quick… Let’s turn back to the Torah parasha again.

Deuteronomy 23:10 TLV

“When you go out as an army camp against your enemies, you are to guard yourself from every evil thing.

The text then continues on to describe a few select issues, albeit it is by no means a complete list of issues that could make the camp unrighteous.

But the key to this passage, and to the Parasha as a whole, is verse 15

Deuteronomy 23:15 TLV

For Adonai your God walks in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to give your enemies over to you. Therefore your camp must be holy, so that He does not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Now, verse 13-14 are by far my favorite parts of this passage and of this message as a whole. The Lord specifically details that there should be a place outside the camp where you can go outside… On it’s own, this just sounds odd and confusing. But in the next verse, 14, the Lord commands we are to have a shovel with our weapons and when we go out to that outside place to drop a deuce we are to dig a hole, plop our mess in the hole, and then cover it up.

Then Moses says to Israel:

Deuteronomy 23:15 TLV

For Adonai your God walks in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to give your enemies over to you. Therefore your camp must be holy, so that He does not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Now, in a very literal sense, simply in context of the passage, if I were to paraphrase this I would simply say… “God walks among you, and He doesn’t want to step in your crap...” We may not be going to war against our enemies today in the same sense that Israel was preparing for in Deuteronomy… But, we are caught in a Spiritual war...

Ephesians 6:12 TLV

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And the enemy wants nothing more than to get us all caught up in our crap because he knows good and well that God doesn’t want to smell it or to step in it… He also knows good and well that the more we look like the world, the less we look like an emulation of Messiah, and at that point we are all but powerless to further the Kingdom. We are called to be righteous and holy, set apart! We are bought by the Blood of the Lamb to be a spotless bride for Messiah.

We’ve got a choice, our actions can either lift up the community around us, or we can tear it all down...

And this is key thing to grasp… Throughout this Parasha Israel is commanded to purge evil from our midst… Yet, when God allowed the Babylonians to destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and to take Israel captive, it wasn’t because of our righteousness, it wasn’t because we looked and acted so much different from the nations around us, it wasn’t because they could see God in us… It was because of our walking in the ways of the nations around us instead.

So often as believers we are guilty of the same… We think we can live our lives righteously on the outside, preach the Gospel to others, tell them how they should change their lives and how the Ruach can help them find victory of their sins, curses, and oppressions… Yet, on the inside our lives are often no better than the world around us.

I mentioned early on about the continual plague the Body of Messiah has experienced of leaders falling in sin because of sexual issues… Over and over and over again… And the world sees it guys… When we preach one thing and act another, the world sees it… When we talk about the Bible out of one side of our face and then talk like the world out the other side, the world sees it. When we come to synagogue on Saturday morning or church on Sunday morning completely hung over and doing the walk of shame from our night out at the clubs on Friday or Saturday night, the world sees it. We do in fact live in the world, but we are called to not be OF the world…

As I talk about in my book “Spirit and Truth,” we live in what I call a post-truth era… In other words, the world around us no longer believes in a finite truth. Yet, the truth of the Good News of Messiah Yeshua is indeed a finite Truth. The problem, though, is that the world around us can see immediately through the charades we’re trying to play. If our lives don’t match our words, it doesn’t matter how hard or with how much conviction we preach the Truth of the Good News, if there is sin in our lives they can see our lives are just as rotten as theirs. And if that’s the case, then what are we really offering the world?

God’s call of righteousness has not changed since He called Abraham out. We have been called to be righteous and holy, to be set apart from the world around us. We have been called to carry the Light of Messiah into a lost world, as such, we must live our lives modeled after Messiah Yeshua! We must forsake the ways of the world in order to win the World for Messiah.

To this end, Paul says in Romans

Romans 12:1–2 TLV

I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy, acceptable to God—which is your spiritual service. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We’ve got a choice, our actions can either lift up the community around us, or we can tear it all down...

Ephesians 3:14–19 TLV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father— from Him every family in heaven and on earth receives its name. I pray that from His glorious riches He would grant you to be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Ruach, so that Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to grasp with all the kedoshim what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Messiah which surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled up with all the fullness of God.

Imagine how much more powerful our impact for the Kingdom of Messiah could be if we put His ways above our own at all times. Imagine how much more powerful our impact on the world around us could be if we spent more time focused on His Presence than focused on the world around us. Imagine if we spent more time in the Word than we spend scrolling social media. Imagine if our hearts and lives looked as put together as we strive to make ourselves look in our instagram posts. Imagine if our discipleship came before our desire for worldly possessions. Imagine if we truly took to heart Yeshua’s Words from the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:19–21 TLV

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Imagine if we truly purged the evil from our midst… And I’m not talking about going on a killing spree… But I mean literally allow the Lord to purge the evil from the midst of our hearts. And this is as much a call for the community as it is for the individual, because sin in the life of one in the community can quickly sew its way through the community as a whole.

Deuteronomy 23:15 TLV

For Adonai your God walks in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to give your enemies over to you. Therefore your camp must be holy, so that He does not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

We’ve got a choice, our actions can either lift up the community around us, or we can tear it all down...

You

So, what kind of crap is there in your life that the Lord is smelling and having to step over?

Maybe you have been struggled with inappropriate relationships...

Maybe you have been struggling with addiction issues...

Maybe you have been struggling with anger and aggression taking control...

Maybe you have been struggling with gossip and Lashon Harah

Or maybe there’s a whole other pile of crap you have been trying to hide...

Whatever it is, today is the day to repent and fully surrender to the Lord.

We

If our worship team will make their way back up to the stage.

Messiah came to bring Light into a dark world and He has empowered us through His Ruach to carry that Light into this dark world. I don’t know about you, but as I watch everything happening all around us, I can see how much more dark the world around us becomes day in and day out. How much more important is it that we forsake the ways of the world in order to carry His Light boldly. He promises us that the darkness will not overpower the Light, so if we are feeling consumed by the darkness it is not because He isn’t victorious, it is because we aren’t walking in His victory, and we’re allow the enemy to snuff out the Light of Messiah in our lives.

Today is the day to change that. And, the truth is, each and every day in our walk with the Lord we must actively choose to walk in the Light, to live out our discipleship, to forsake the ways of the world, and to overcome temptation. Our walk with the Lord is a relationship, and just like a marriage relationship you have to choose every day when you wake up to love the person next to you… And the same is true in our relationship with the Lord, He has already chosen and we have to choose to walk with Him every single day.

We’re about to spend a few minutes in worship, as we do, I want to encourage you to introspectively look into your own heart and life. Many of us already know the areas of our lives that we fall short of the Glory, and there may be other areas we have simply shoved so far down that we don’t realize the root issues are still there. I want to encourage us today to spend these next few minutes in worship asking the Lord to draw to our attention any and all areas of crap we have not dealt with, stuff that has simply been holding us back from our potential for the Kingdom. As the Lord begins to shine light on these areas let’s spend time repenting and allowing HaShem to restore us and renew us completely.

And let us daily from here continue in this practice of introspection and repentance in our discipleship, and may we learn to walk humbly with our God.