Deuteronomy 22-24 Laws about living responsibly in community. The laws of 22:1-4, 8,9 are about property and managing it responsibly. Laws of 22:5,9,10, and 11are about not obliterating distinctions made between species, sexes, varieties of seed. Vss. 6 and 7 suggest sustainable and even compassionate ways to take care of the natural resource of game birds.
Once again in 22:13-30 we see that there is a real inequality presumed between men and women; yet there is also an attempt to keep exploitation from happening.
In 23:1-6 there are restrictions put on who can join the assembly of the Israelites. Interestingly, 23:3 says "No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt.." Yet soon we will consider the story of Ruth, the Moabite grandmother of King David.
There follow miscellaneous laws, some of which are quite interesting. Especially important are the safeguards against exploitation or humiliation of the very poor (widows and orphans) by the rich. 24:10-15 reads: "When you make your neighbor a loan of any kind, you shall not go into the house to take the pledge. You shall wait outside, while the person to whom you are making the loan brings the pledge out to you. If the person is poor, you shall not sleep in the garment given you as the pledge. You shall give the pledge back by sunset, so that your neighbor may sleep in the cloak and bless you; and it will be to your credit before the LORD your God. You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt."
It would be helpful if this advice still to this day was followed by large companies who employ workers at minimum wage. The first two to four weeks of work are really challenging for workers here in Minot until they receive their first paycheck. Shelter is expensive here, and it's hard to save up the deposit and first and last month's rent.
Psalm 60 A prayer for victory (for the nation of Israel) against their traditional foes: Moab, Edom, and Philistia. "O grant us help against the foe/for human help is worthless.
With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes." (60:11-12)
Luke 6 It's amazing how small a thing was interpreted as "breaking the Sabbath" in Luke 6. 6:1 says Jesus' disciples (interestingly, not Jesus himself...) were "plucking some heads of grain and rubbing them in their hands, and eating them." It's the sort of thing we're all tempted to do when wheat is almost ripe and we are walking alongside a field. It's what was described in Deuteronomy 23:25, from which we read today. When criticized, Jesus cites to the Pharisees the example of David, beloved King of Israel, who appropriated bread dedicated and presented before the Presence of God in the Temple for himself and his companions. Then he says "The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath" (6:5). This anecdote is followed with another story that explains what the sabbath is about at its core, the healing of a man with a withered hand. Jesus' comment is: "I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?" (6:9).
Then we have Luke's version of the Beatitudes that appeared in Matthew as a sort of prologue to the Sermon on the Mount. Luke divides this set of sayings into Blessings and Woes. (The woes are absent in Matthew.) Note also the emphatic "now" that appears in 6:21 and again in 6:25.
There follow some sayings that are reminiscent of the sayings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Luke's compilation of these sayings is sometimes called, by analogy, the Sermon on the Plain. Love your enemies; be merciful; bless those who curse you; treat others as you would be treated; don't judge others; forgive and you will be forgiven; give generously... (6:27-38)
In my previous post I suggested that not all of the Scriptures are equally central to the Gospel. This passage would, in my mind, be utterly central, at the very heart of what Jesus teaches and still essential teaching for us in the 21st century.
The chapter ends with the same figure of speech as the Sermon on the Mount, about building on sand vs. building on a rock foundation.
Thanks for your comments, Steve. I'm confident that God speaks reliably through fallible, sinful human beings who don't become some sort of typewriter for the Holy Spirit, but are genuine products of their own time, speaking from their own perspectives, which are not ours.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible as a whole is a magnificent, fascinating collection of documents that church an synagogue have identified and preserved because through them they see that God uses them to invite us into relationship; that God uses them to awaken our consciences, that God uses them to give us both an awareness of our sinfulness and of the magnitude of his grace and mercy.
But I don't think it makes sense to speak of them as "infallible" and it is simply wrong to call them "inerrant." I am not even sure exactly what document(s) you would be calling "infallible" or "inerrant." The autographs? We don't have them. Some translation, for some group of people at some point in time? The 1611 Authorized Version is not always going to speak directly to English speakers, as we move into the 21st century and use language differently than we did 400 years ago.