Deuteronomy 23:19-20 Funny Math

 19Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. 20You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess.

“But since merchants from other nations might come for business reasons to Israel, or make loans on interest to Israelites, foreigners could be charged interest.” (Kalland)

Funny Math

Recently when I paid a credit card bill I looked at the statement wrong and was $0.56 cents short. When my next statement arrived the interest on $0.56 was $1.83

How can anyone who carries a monthly balance pay it off with the banks funny math calculating the interest? I believe it’s designed that way on purpose, simple interest is a thing of the past. 

If your stuck in credit card debt, seek help to get out of it. Dave Ramsey has tools available which may help. Some churches use his program to teach you and help you get out of debt.

Blessings 

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/debt/excuses-to-keep-credit-cards

Deuteronomy 23:17-18 Both these are abomination!

 17There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. 18Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God. KJV

“Ritual harlot: This refers to a female prostitute. The term perverted one refers to a male prostitute, both of which were common among the pagan religions of the Canaanites and others in the ancient world.” (Guzik)

King Asa in 1 Kings 15: 12He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

King Josiah in 2 Kings 23: 7He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.

Even in its most gross forms, this kind of practice has been allowed in the institutional church. (Guzik) “And what a stinking shame is that, that stews and brothel-houses are licensed by the Pope, who reaps no small profit by them?” (Trapp, writing in 1659)

KJV is blunt and to the point! Sexual sin comes in many forms and we are all probably guilty. We need to turn (stop) from our sin and repent (ask for forgiveness) from the Lord.

What kind of world would we have if everyone stopped sinning?

Remember Nineveh?

Jonah 3: 10When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 23:15-16 Slaves

 15“You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16He shall live among you, in the place he chooses in one of your cities where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat or oppress him.

“The refugee slave referred to had evidently come from a foreign land. Otherwise there would have been legal complications, since slaves were a valued possession.” (Thompson)

Slavery is part of the human condition, sin. 

In a perfect world there wouldn’t be any slaves.

The Bible discusses many aspects of slavery, voluntary and involuntary.

Joseph comes to mind:

Genesis 37:28 Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Even though Joseph was a slave, the Lord was with him.

On another level we are all slaves to one master or another. An addiction, worldly things, sex, news, television, _______. (Fill in the blank)

If Jesus is your Master, think of the possibilities!

Who or what is your master?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 23:9-14 Cleanliness is next to godliness?

 9“When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. 10If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come inside the camp. 11But it shall be, when evening comes, that he shall wash with water; and when the sun sets, he may come into the camp.

12“You shall also have a place outside the camp to which you may go, 13and you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you [prepare to] sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and shall turn and cover up your waste. 14Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

Cleanliness is next to godliness?

“Slovenliness is no part of religion. Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness." (John Wesley)

Jesus tells us it’s what’s in the heart that makes us unclean. 

But the Lord also wanted cleanliness in the camp or He’d turn away because He didn’t want His camp defiled.

Taking care of yourself and the environment in which you live also protects against disease. Some of these verses are just plain common sense.

If your body is the temple of the Lord, shouldn’t you treat it as such?

1 Corinthians 6: 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?

Blessings 

https://www.gotquestions.org/cleanliness-next-godliness.html

Deuteronomy 23:7-8 Do Not Despise

 7Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land. 8The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.

Esau was the father of the Edomite peoples.

“Interestingly, one of the most famous Edomites in history was abhorred by Israel - Herod the Great. Many of his spectacular building projects in Judea were intended to not only glorify his own name, but to win the favor of the Jews who despised him as an Edomite.” (Guzik)

“Egypt was like a mother’s womb for Israel; they went in as a large family and came out as a distinct nation.” (Guzik)

Do not despise says the Lord but then why do we do it? 

I’m sure we’re all guilty of despising at one time or another. I remember in kindergarten we were standing in line getting ready to be dismissed and I had a 45 record I brought for show and tell. A girl in front of me evidently despised me for some unknown reason and grabbed the record out of my hands and broke it. I definitely despised her after that!

Do you still despise someone?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 23:3-6 Curse into a Blessing

3No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. 4For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. 5Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. 6You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.

“The Moabites and the Ammonites not only treated Israel cruelly on their way to the Promised Land, but they also were a people with a disgraceful beginning. Moab and Ammon were the two sons born to the daughters of Lot through their incest with their father (Genesis 19:30-38).” (Guzik)

Balaam did not end well. He also had an ass speak to him!

Numbers 22:27 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. 28 And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?

Joshua 13:22 In addition to those slain in battle, the Israelites had put to the sword Balaam son of Beor, who practiced divination.

Look at verse 5 again, “the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you.”

We also had curse into a blessing! We were born under the curse of sin and on the cross Jesus turned the curse into a blessing! 

Balaam thought his ass was stubborn when it fell down.

The question is, are you going to be stubborn as an ass about Jesus’s gift of salvation?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 23:1-2 All means all!

 1No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD.

2No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.

“Poole suggests that the idea of the assembly of the LORD is the leadership, or the rulers of Israel. These people were barred not from the religious life of Israel, but from the political life of the nation. Trapp agrees, saying on shall not enter the assembly of the LORD: “Shall not go in and out before the people as a public officer.” Clarke adds, “If by entering into the congregation be meant the bearing a civil office among the people, such as magistrate, judge, &c., then the reason of the law is very plain.”” (Guzik)

Isaiah 56: 3Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say,

“The LORD will utterly exclude me from His people.”

And let the eunuch not say,

“I am but a dry tree.”

4For this is what the LORD says:

“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,

who choose what pleases Me

and hold fast to My covenant—

5I will give them, in My house and within My walls,

a memorial and a name

better than that of sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name

that will not be cut off.

Psalm 86:5 For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.

All means all an that’s what all means.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:30 Stretching the Boundaries of Sin

 30A man is not to marry his father’s wife, so that he will not dishonor his father’s marriage bed.

1 Corinthians 5: 1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. 2And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this?

This was probably in reference to a step wife. But we can see in Corinthians the church had accepted it and Paul found it necessary to rebuke it.

Why does the heart ❤️ of man stretch the boundaries of sin?

Paul found it hard too! 

Romans 7: 14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good. 17In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Did you get that? “but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Lord, let us examine our hearts today, show us the sin living in us so we can rebuke it. Please help us to cast it at the foot of the cross and give us the heart ❤️ of Your Son, in Jesus name I pray, amen.

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 Burn 🔥 with Passion

 28If a man encounters a virgin who is not pledged in marriage, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 29then the man who lay with her must pay the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she must become his wife because he has violated her. He must not divorce her as long as he lives.

“Some Jewish commentators note that the fifty shekels of silver were to be paid in addition to the dowry.” (Guzik)

The Lord doesn’t take rape or marriage lightly!

1 Corinthians 7: 9But if they do not have [sufficient] self-control, they should marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10But to the married [believers] I give instructions--(not I, but the Lord)--that the wife is not to separate from her husband, 11(but even if she does leave him, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) and that the husband should not leave his wife.

Do you have self-control and are you following His instructions?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:25-27 Damsel Cried

 25But if the man encounters a betrothed woman in the open country, and he overpowers her and lies with her, only the man who has done this must die. 26Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him. 27When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

“Significantly, the woman was not blamed for the rape, and it was presumed that she was innocent in this circumstance.” (Guzik)

Capitol Punishment 

Rape was a crime that if found guilty the man was to be stoned to death. But there was several examples of rape in the Bible that vengeance was served instead of a trial and stoning. Here’s one example:

2 Samuel 13: 14But Amnon refused to listen to her, and being stronger, he violated her and lay with her. 

28Now Absalom had ordered his young men, “Watch Amnon until his heart is merry with wine, and when I order you to strike Amnon down, you are to kill him.

Because the rape wasn’t legally addressed it invited the sin of murder.

If we don’t study the Lords boundaries of sin then how can we set boundaries for our children?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:23-24 Remove the evil

 23“If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged (legally betrothed) to a man, and another man finds her in the city and is intimate with her, 24then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death--the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“The woman was to be executed for disgracing her virginity; the man was to be executed because he humbled his neighbor’s wife. Interestingly, the woman was considered the wife of another man, even though she was only betrothed, and was still a virgin, having not yet consummated the marriage.” (Guzik)

The Bible is the word of God and some may not like His ordnance’s and rules but look at where we are now in society because of sin! We are all guilty and contributing to the decay!

If only we worked as hard for His kingdom as we do for material things!

Lord open our eyes, minds and hearts 💕 and use us for Your glory, in Jesus name I pray. Amen 

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:22 Adultery

 22“If a man is [f]intimate with a woman who is another man’s wife, they shall both be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

Notice both of them shall be put to death.

But, Deuteronomy 17: 6[b]On the evidence of two or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of [only] one witness.

So the likely hood of a death sentence for adultery being carried out would be rare.

“Though the death penalty for adultery was carried out rarely, it still had value. It communicated loudly and clearly an ideal that Israel was to live up to, and it made people regard their sin much more seriously. Today, we have done away with this ideal, and people don’t care much about adultery - and society suffers greatly as a result.” (Guzik)

But do you remember what Jesus said to those that brought the woman to Him that was caught in the act of adultery? Where was the man if they caught her?

This picture sums it up.

Sin is sin, so why do we sin?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:20-21 Sexual Sin

 20“But if this charge is true that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“If this were the case, the woman was to be executed by stoning. This was not only for her sexual promiscuity (to play the harlot), but also for her attempt to deceive her husband.”

“This law must be seen in connection with the command in Exodus 22:16-17, which commands that a man who entices a virgin must surely pay the bride-price for her to be his wife. This law in Deuteronomy is directed against the truly wanton woman, who has given up her virginity, yet not claimed her rights under Exodus 22:16-17. She did not value her virginity at the time she gave it up, yet she wanted to claim the benefits of it by deceiving her husband.” (Guzik)

Sexual Sin

Our society is paving the road to hell with sexual sin! In my lifetime we have gone from free love to be any gender you want and doctors willingly performing sex changes. But no matter how much they try they are not God and they can’t change your DNA.

There’s probably not one of us that is free of sexual sin. I’m not and the only one that walked this earth that was free of sin was Jesus.

May we aspire to be more like Him and stop sinning!

We know who the author of confusion is and the only way to stop confusion is to return to the Lord!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:18-19 False accusation, a evil name!

 18Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him. 19They are also to fine him a hundred shekels of silverc and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given a virgin of Israel a bad name. And she shall remain his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

False accusations brought punishment, what type the Bible doesn’t state.

They also fined him a hundred shekels of silver and he couldn’t ever divorce her!

I suspect after false accusations, punishment, a heavy fine and no divorce that they couldn’t ever live in harmony as the Lord desired in a marriage.

Ephesians 5: 28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Could a man who loves 💕 his wife bring such an accusation?

Let’s look at Joseph.

Matthew 1: 19And Joseph her [promised] husband, being a just and righteous man and not wanting to expose her publicly to shame, planned to send her away and divorce her quietly.

Would you react by making a public accusation or quietly like Joseph?

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:13-17 Sexual Morality

 13Suppose a man marries a woman, has relations with her, and comes to hate her, 14and he then accuses her of shameful conduct and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and had relations with her, but I discovered she was not a virgin.”

15Then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate 16and say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has come to hate her. 17And now he has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of her virginity.” And they shall spread out the cloth before the city elders.

Virginity was coveted in this culture during ancient Israel and a special cloth was used when the husband and wife had relations. The blood stained cloth was given to the wife’s parents as proof of her virginity. 

“It was seen as a great loss to give up one’s virginity before marriage, and if a woman was known to have lost her virginity, it greatly reduced her chances of getting married.”

“By the same principle, if a husband believed that his wife had lied about her virginity, he felt cheated. What follows is an attempt to resolve the issue.” (Guzik)

How times have changed!

What happens if the husband made a false accusation?

What happens to the wife if she wasn’t a virgin?

Read ahead and stayed tuned!

Blessings 

Deuteronomy 22:11-12 Look!

 11Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

12You are to make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

“A symbolic meaning is given to these tassels in Numbers 15:37-41, namely that they are a reminder to Israel to keep God’s law.” (Thompson)

These verses may seem strange to us but the Lord wanted separation. To be different than the rest of the world. 

But look what the Scribes and Pharisee’s did!

Matthew 23: 5All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.

They broaden and lengthen their tassels to “look” more spiritual!

Christ wants us to stand out from the rest of the world also, so they know you are His.

But are you doing it to look spiritual?

Being humble is to be of Christ.

Blessings