Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 23:1-3

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“You must not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked to be a malicious witness. You must not follow a crowd in wrongdoing. Do not testify in a lawsuit and go along with a crowd to pervert justice. Do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Justice is hard to obtain. It’s so hard that when someone manages to achieve it, we tell those stories. They get splashed all over the newspapers. Well, that’s not really true anymore. They get splashed all over the Internet. They get made into movies. They become urban legends. Yet this isn’t how things should be. We serve a God who is just. How do we know? Well, because we keep running into passages like this one. God cares about justice and wants His people to care about it as well. Let’s talk through yet another example of this in a law He gave to Israel.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 22:29-30

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“You must not hold back offerings from your harvest or your vats. Give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your flock. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but on the eighth day you are to give them to me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There’s an awful scene from the beginning of the movie Braveheart where William Wallace has just gotten married and some English soldiers arrive in town and learn about the wedding. The soldiers demand their rights of jus primae noctis (“the right of the first night”) as extended to them by King Edward “Longshanks” the ruler of the land. This meant they were entitled to sleep with a woman on her wedding night before she and her new husband have the opportunity to come together. The actual history of the practice is a bit murky, but it was basically part of a ruler’s demand of the first and best of his people. Reading this next law, I’m reminded of that scene. God here demands the first and best from His people. How is this any different from what the English soldiers in Braveheart did? Let’s explore that together.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 22:25-27

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“If you lend silver to my people, to the poor person among you, you must not be like a creditor to him; you must not charge him interest. If you ever take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him before sunset. For it is his only covering; it is the clothing for his body. What will he sleep in? And if he cries out to me, I will listen because I am gracious.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A huge portion of our economy is built on interest. Everybody changes interest for everything. The only reason a business might not charge interest is if they are running a special sale in hopes that enough extra people will buy something to make up for the interest they are losing from a small number buying. The practice of charging interest on loans has been around for a long time. For much of that, though, one group of people in particular considered it a bad thing. This verse has a whole lot to do with why. Let’s think through what we see here, what it means, and what we should do with it today.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 22:22-24

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“You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, they will no doubt cry to me, and I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How any society treats its most vulnerable members is a reflection of that society’s moral fiber. The Nazi regime, for instance, rounded up their weakest members and systematically eliminated them. Darwin was right that nature tends to operate on the law of the survival of the fittest. The strongest survive and thrive while the weakest get eaten. People and animals, however, are not the same. We are made in God’s image, and are called to reflect that in our interactions with one another. When it came to the question of how Israel was to treat some of their weakest and most vulnerable members, God was pretty clear on what He expected. Let’s explore what He says here and what it might mean for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 22:18-20

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“Do not allow a sorceress to live. Whoever has sexual intercourse with an animal must be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any gods, except the Lord alone, is to be set apart for destruction.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The death penalty debate doesn’t rage quite as hot today as it did in the fairly recent past, but there are nonetheless still pretty strong opinions on both sides of the matter. The fact is, not very many people are put to death for crimes they have committed in this country as compared with where that annual number used to be. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which I personally find to be more compelling than others. In any event, one of the sources of support many death penalty proponents point to in order to justify their position is the Bible. Verses like this are often why. Not everyone, however, agrees. Let’s talk about what we see here and what we are supposed to do with it.

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