Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 22:5-6

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“When a man lets a field or vineyard be grazed in, and then allows his animals to go and graze in someone else’s field, he must repay with the best of his own field or vineyard. When a fire gets out of control, spreads to thornbushes, and consumes stacks of cut grain, standing grain, or a field, the one who started the fire must make full restitution for what was burned.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s no fun being held accountable for your actions. It’s awful having to be responsible for the choices you have made. This is true when we are young. Believe me. I know. I have kids. It’s not any less true when we are old. We’ll look for just about every way imaginable to get out of having to pay the piper when we’ve done something that carries negative consequences. The God we serve, though, is just. That means our choices have consequences. Sometimes the various laws Moses gave were complex or even profound. Other times, they simply espoused what should have been common sense. Let’s talk about one of those here.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 22:1-4

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“When a man steals an ox or a sheep and butchers it or sells it, he must repay five cattle for the ox or four sheep for the sheep. If a thief is caught in the act of breaking in, and he is beaten to death, no one is guilty of bloodshed. But if this happens after sunrise, the householder is guilty of bloodshed. A thief must make full restitution. If he is unable, he is to be sold because of his theft. If what was stolen – whether ox, donkey, or sheep – is actually found alive in his possession, he must repay double.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Getting justice right is hard. On the one hand, the person who has committed a crime should face some kind of consequence for whatever it is. But the consequence needs to be proportional to the crime itself. A punishment too severe relative to the crime becomes an injustice in and of itself. The trouble here is that when a crime has happened to us, we aren’t much interested in an appropriately proportional response. We want vengeance. A significant part of the Law of Moses involved setting out just penalties for various crimes. Let’s take a look at an example of that here.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27

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“When a man strikes his male or female slaves with a rod, and the slaves dies under his abuse, the owner must be punished. However, if the slave can stand up after a day or two, the owner should not be punished because he is his owner’s property. . .When a man strikes the eye of his male or female slaves and destroys it, he must let the slave go free in compensation for the his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his male or female salve, he must let the slave go free in compensation for his tooth.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the charges leveled against the Scriptures by critical scholars and skeptics is that they condone slavery. To a certain extent, this is an argument from silence. Because none of the various authors ever explicitly say slavery is wrong, and because there are several passages (like this one) in which the instructions assume on the existence and even continuation of the practice, therefore, they collectively support it. There are several reasons why this argument is flawed. LEt’s talk about some of them and what to do with what we see here.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 21:18-19, 33-34

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“When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or his fist, and the injured man does not die but is confined to bed, if he can later get up and walk around outside leaning on his staff, then the one who struck him will be exempt from punishment. Nevertheless, he must pay for his lost work time and provide for his complete recovery. . .When a man uncovers a pit or digs a pit, and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit must give compensation; he must pay to its owner, but the dead animal will become his.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a world of cause and effect. When one thing happens, something else happens because of it. Sometimes there is a clear and direct line from the one to the other such that the cause of a particular effect is obvious. Other times, a given effect has such a complex tapestry of causes that no one could possibly trace it back to a single event. One of the perils of sin is that it seeks to convince us that we can disconnect effects from their causes, that our actions will not eventually have consequences. What we see in this next law is that God wanted to help the people resist this particular temptation. Let’s talk about how this command helps with that goal.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 21:15, 17

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“Whoever strikes his father or his mother must be put to death. . .Whoever curses his father or his mother must be put to death.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

My kids are at the age that I wind up watching a ton of pre-teen comedies. Most of these are on Disney. Thankfully, they’re mostly older Disney series that were pretty clean and uninterested in pushing moral boundaries very far. But while there is a pretty wide variety of settings among them, they mostly all have one thing in common. In all of them parents are either absent or idiots. Only rarely are the parents of the main characters (or any characters for that matter) positive examples of what good parenting should be. The net effect here is that a whole generation of kids grew up being constantly bombarded by the idea that parents are at best unnecessary hindrances to achieving all their hopes and dreams. That kind of environment doesn’t produce a lot of respect. That’s too bad because God seems to take generational respect pretty seriously. Let’s talk about what we see here.

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