Exodus - Part 19
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Welcome...
Introduce self...
Pray...
Recap story:
(very fast version)
Recap the law:
The law demonstrates God’s righteousness
It’s summed up in “Love God, love others”
The law is more than a code, it’s a narrative
Christians are not under the law.
God’s covenant (relationship, with its terms, conditions, and expectations) with Israel is different than his covenant with us.
The arrangement is different.
Jesus came:
Not to abolish (God doesn’t change)
But to fulfill (to finish the story, to make everything make sense, to show us what LOVE actually looks like)
Critics of the Bible love to say that Christians “pick and choose” what they want to believe out of the old testament.
Christians are not under the Old Testament law, we are under the “Law of Christ” which is:
Love God, love others
Does this mean God changed? Or that God has changed his mind about what is righteous? Not at all.
Different people that have lived in different times and contexts have fallen under different manifestations of what it means to love God and love others.
Laws About Slaves
Laws About Slaves
So now we look at laws about slaves.
This would be a text that critics of the Bible might use to try and say Christians have changed their position on slavery.
Christians have also looked at passages such as this to justify slavery.
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.
The Hebrew word for slave is “ebed” and could mean servant; the Hebrew term ‘ebed designates a range of social and economic roles.
Slavery was so different from what we think of in the past few hundred years...
Is there a way to have society with different social classes and still be loving to others?
Apparently the answer to that question is “yes.”
This form of slavery could be loving because it could save a persons life.
It could actually pull a person out of poverty and give them a second chance.
There are ways we relate together: employee/employer, husband/wife, governor/governed.
In all those relationships, you can be loving or unloving, but the fact that you can be under the authority of someone who is unloving doesn’t negate that as a possible social structure.
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
Here we see provisions for slave/servant/ebed to be able to live with their purchaser forever.
“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
Again, this sounds so foreign to our culture.
There were certainly abusive ways to do this and loving ways to do this.
What do you think was pleasing to the Lord?
“Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
This is a repeat of “thou shall not murder” a more detailed explanation. God’s heart in the matter of course runs so much deeper than the letter of the law.
“Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.
Who deserves to die and for what?
Romans tells us the wages of sin is death.
But remember, this is an unfolding story.
For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
He brought this on himself.
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
The punishment was not impulsive.
The punishment was designed to preserve the nation.
Rebellion against one’s parents is direct rebellion against God. (5th commandment)
I point all this out to again say that these laws and these stories are not given to us (US today) to be followed by the letter. They are given to us to teach us God’s character and holiness.
Deuteronomy folds back into Leviticus, Leviticus folds back into Exodus, Exodus folds into the 10 commandments, the 10 commandments fold into Love God and Love others (The law of Christ).
We can’t follow or understand the law of Christ unless it’s written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
We don’t have time to cover all these laws and trace them through in detail. But that would be worth while to study.
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
This is a direct condemnation of the way slave-trade worked in early American history and it was absolutely evil.
Fredrick Douglass--explain life under Christian slaveowners was often worse than non-Christian slave owners.
[[SLIDE]]
“I assert most unhesitantly that the religion of the south is the most covering of the most horrid crimes–a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,–a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,–and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.”
Fredrick Douglass
[[SLIDE]]
“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
Appendix to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
Jesus as the example:
According to Christian teaching, Jesus went from the supreme position of privilege and power, that of being divine, to a place of surrendering that privilege and power, setting it side to become the ultimate servant for humanity. A king become a servant.
“We deeply regret all instances of people who have claimed the name of Jesus, have claimed to be his follower, and yet effectively reject everything he teaches.”
It’s intellectually dishonest to somehow imagine that the world has been largely devoid of slavery. Every major culture and society has had some form of slavery until recent years.
Aristotle wrote, “That some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”
Gregory of Nissa
The first documented stand against slavery as an institution comes from Gregory of Nissa. 4th Century. He was a Christian minister who took such a stand in a sermon to a group who likely included many slave owners as well as slaves.
A couple of quotes from that (SERMON):
[[SLIDE]]
“When someone turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?”
[[SLIDE]]
“What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling the being shaped by God?”
“When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.
More SPECIFIC laws. Is the OT comprehensive in such examples? NO!
LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS
“When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restoration. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead beast shall be his.
“When one man’s ox butts another’s, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also they shall share. Or if it is known that the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall repay ox for ox, and the dead beast shall be his.
This is reasonable.
This establishes personal responsibility.
This establishes just consequences.
“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins.
You must look at the Bible in its entire context.
CHRISTIANS ARE ACCUSED OF TAKING VERSES OUT OF CONTEXT OR PICKING AND CHOOSING.
CHRISTIANS ARE THE ONES BEING FAITHFUL TO LOOK AT THE ENTIRE PICTURE.
“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
This doesn’t apply today. We are not under this law.
We live as extensions of Jesus.
Church discipline is in place.
Both were for love, but it looks different now then it did in the past.
Israel was a theocracy, which means God was their ruler, not a king or government
“Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.
Any law that’s not repeated in the NT doesn’t apply...
Paul talks about “pornea” which is translated sexual immorality
How do we know sexual morality?
Jesus teaching on marriage… Etc.
“Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.
Again, this is someone of the people of Israel who made a specific arrangement with God and agreeing to live a specific way going directly against God.
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”
Good intentions are not good enough.
This is what culture wants to tell you though.
“His heart was in it”
“He’s not really a bad person”
“God knows I’m trying my best”
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
1 John 3:1 (ESV)
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are...