Burunche’s Blog

Deuteronomy 24:16 – 22 “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin. Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore, I am commanding you to do this.

If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I am commanding you to do this.“

Fathers of grown children are not to die for the sins of their children; neither are grown children to die for the sins of the fathers. What of the times when God wiped out entire families? There must have been some agreement within the grown members of the families to rebel against God’s commands.

Here God continues to elaborate His commands regarding kindness to foreigners, orphans, and widows. But why is it so necessary for God to spell things out? God knows the human heart and the wickedness humans can do. Humans love to argue and to split hairs. If God gives the misers among the Israelites any wiggle room, they will immediately find a way of mistreating these vulnerable groups.

Throughout the wanderings of the Israelites, they have had to find food and water. Some surrounding tribes may have helped while others refused. In the end, God has ordered the Israelites to annihilate those tribes that refused to help and to deny any descendants of those tribes political power within Israel.

One of the constant themes that runs throughout the entire Book of Deuteronomy is the phrase “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt!” God doesn’t want the Israelites forgetting that reality. The day the Israelites lose sight of the reality of slavery and of what God has done for them, they are headed for disaster.

APPLICATION: Today is New Year’s Eve. Many people will spend tonight in church services while others will attend parties. But no matter how we spend this evening, we must REMEMBER!

We must REMEMBER how God has preserved us throughout the year.

We must REMEMBER how God has provided for us, sometimes miraculously.

We must REMEMBER those friends and loved ones whom we have lost this year and pray for those who are still sick and suffering.

We must REMEMBER that it is God who will lead us and guide us into a prosperous and peaceful New Year. God will be our refuge and strength. God will be our helper. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it labor in vain.”

Here in Ghana, we have the Gye Nyame Adinkra symbol, a symbol of reliance on God. As we enter the New Year, let us look to God and to no one else!

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us throughout this year. As we enter a new year, let us enter it following hard after You and You alone. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

 

Deuteronomy 24: 6 – 15 “Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security.

If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.

In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them. Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you had left Egypt.

When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security. You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you. If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession; be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God.

Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise, he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

When God was giving these commands, He knew how wicked the human heart could be. God knew that there would be people who leant money to others and that some of these people would truly be skinflints!

A money lender was not allowed to take the upper (moveable) grindstone as collateral because nobody could run a grinding mill without it. If a money lender came to collect the collateral, he was forbidden to enter a poor man’s house to look for the collateral. Even if a poor man had to give up his cloak for collateral, the money lender had to return it at night so that man would not freeze in the cold of the night.

Hired hands were to be paid regularly and on time; failure to do so could lead to the workers crying out against the unfair master.

While a poor man might sell himself or a child as a hired servant, nobody was to kidnap a fellow Israelite, either to treat him as a slave or to sell him. Kidnapping was punishable by death.

What about the injunction regarding skin diseases? There were elaborate rituals the priests were to employ to determine if a disease was infectious or not and whether or not it had burned out. The story regarding Moses’ sister Miriam was told in Numbers 12. Miriam and Aaron chose to rebel against Moses, with Miriam possibly taking the lead. Aaron really was a follower and not a leader. God Himself confronted Miriam and Aaron and caused Miriam to break out in leprosy, requiring her to be set outside the camp for a week. God healed Miriam but warned Aaron and her that Moses was God’s chosen vessel and not them.  

APPLICATION: The themes throughout these verses are regard for the poor and helpless and justice and righteousness. God wants His people to be holy in all their dealings, not just when they are offering sacrifices at the temple. If God is not Lord of everything in the lives of the Israelites, then they are not behaving as His people.

What is the basis for our behavior? Is God Lord of our lives, or are we living according to any other standards? As 2021 draws to a close, we need to stop and ask ourselves how have we honored God in our lives this year?

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to honor You in every area of our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

DECEMBER 29, 2021 PUTTING YOUR LIFE ON A SOLID FOUNDATION 77: DIVORCE AND MARRIAGE – VOWS THAT STICK LIKE GLUE!

Deuteronomy 24:1 – 5 “If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, the husband who divorced her first may not marry her again after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married.”

From the very beginning, God always intended that marriages should last. It was for this reason that restrictions on divorce were so demanding. A husband could not merely wake up some morning and declare that he was divorcing his wife; he had to find some uncleanness – generally sexual misconduct – or some other compelling reason for the divorce. And even then there were legalities that had to be satisfied for a divorce to take place.

Notice the progression: if the first husband divorced the wife, she could remarry. If the second husband also divorced the wife or died, she could not remarry the first husband. But this law says nothing against the woman marrying a third and different man. Women without husbands found themselves in very precarious positions with nobody to protect them.

The orders in verse 5 are among the most endearing in the Old Testament. God wants newlyweds to spend their first year together so that their relationship might have a firm foundation. Those first months are critically important to any marriage because that is the time period when the rules by which the marriage will function are hammered out.

APPLICATION: Divorce! There are few uglier situations than the breakup of a marriage, assuming the two partners have entered into it for the long term and not with their fingers crossed. There is now a satellite TV program on which couples are married at their first meeting. One wonders how long these couples will remain married. Even in states that have “no fault divorce” laws, the breakup of a marriage is incredibly painful and does severe damage to both the spouses and to any children involved. A divorce is worse than a death; at least with a death, you can bury a body and have a funeral.

Traditionally arranged marriages have been the rule in many cultures. Depending on how the marriages are arranged and who arranges them, this practice may be very positive or very harmful.

For years we have worked with a tribe in which traditional marriages consisted of a man paying bride price to a family when a baby girl was born and then marrying the girl when she came of age. Families would trade the right to marry baby girls; men from family A would pay bride corn to marry the baby girls from family B, and vice versa. This tradition has led to numerous disasters, including suicide by the girls forced into loveless marriages with older men. Thankfully, this custom is becoming obsolete; however, it may still be practiced in remote villages.

What about the one – year restriction regarding newly weds? It takes at least a year for most couples to sort out money, jobs, duties at home, etc. Sometimes people feel that living together without a marriage ceremony should be just as valid as a marriage; however, there are major differences. For one thing, a relationship without a marriage allows either partner to bail out whenever things get tough, something that should not happen in a good marriage.

The traditional marriage vows include the words ““I, _____, take thee, _____, to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith.” If the two individuals reciting these vows really mean them, these vows will be the glue that holds them together when things get tough. Lacking that glue, one member of a couple may simply leave when the pressure is on.

God loves marriages and those who enter into them. God wants couples to come together and to stay together so that when hard times come, they will be able to support each other and to shelter any children they have together. Is making a good marriage work simple? Far from it! Is it worth it? Absolutely!

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to value our spouses and our marriage relationships as much as You do. Let the marriages of everyone who reads this devotional be blessed places of refuge. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 23:15 – 25 “Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him.

No daughter or son of Israel is to be a cult prostitute. You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.

Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. You 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.

If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. Be careful to follow through on what comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth.

When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not put any in your basket.

When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.”

What do escaped slaves, cult prostitutes, money lending, sacred vows, and snacking from a neighbor’s farm have in common? The common threads here are righteousness, compassion, and holiness.

God never approved of slavery; however, He recognized it as a reality and made provision for it. God wanted His people to be holy; cult prostitution involved men and women stationed at temples to have sex with worshipers as a form of homage to a particular pagan deity. Cult prostitution was one of the horrors of the pagan religions practiced by surrounding tribes. Why would anybody choose to be a cult prostitute in the first place? Perhaps it might be the lure of exotic costumes, free sex, or money. But God wants His people to realize that the day any of them chooses to become a prostitute in a heathen temple, such a person has become detestable, and any wages they have gained cannot be used as an offering to Him.

God wanted the Israelites to treat one another as brothers and sisters, lending freely without interest. Not only did this command reinforce compassion, but it also helped bind the Israelites together. Later on, when things deteriorated spiritually, the Israelites did charge interest, and God sent prophets to warn them to stop. (Ezekiel 22:12 gives one example.)

God wanted His people to take any vows they made seriously and not to change their minds later. (Ask any pastor who has received promises from parishioners during a stewardship campaign how many of those promising actually follow through!)

In ancient times, travelers were allowed to eat grapes or to pick grain from a farm when they were hungry. Jesus and his disciples did this on a Sabbath and got criticized for working on the Sabbath; that’s when Jesus replied that “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) But God wants to make sure that someone doesn’t use this generous custom to take advantage and clean out a vineyard or a farm!  

APPLICATION: It was one of the strangest dreams I have ever had. In my home part of the Middle West, my mother pointed out an old house that had once been used as a station on the “Underground Railway,” the informal system for smuggling escaped slaves up to Canada where they would be safe and free. That night I dreamt that I was in the basement of that house, and I saw the secret rooms where the slaves were hidden until they could get transport on to the next point of safety. My husband is from a part of New York State close to Canada; in his home town there are still several houses that were stations on the Underground Railway. Those living in these houses risked a great deal, but they were passionately committed to see escaped slaves reach freedom.

We have worked in Ghana for most of the last 33 years. When I see old photos of slaves, I see familiar faces, the faces of some of my dearest friends. The idea that anyone could have suffered so is abhorrent. At the time slavery existed, there were those who argued that slavery was a biblical institution; however, if God had approved of slavery, he would not have ordered the Israelites to shelter escaped slaves.

Throughout these verses, the twin themes are those of compassion and holiness. God had definite standards for His people so that they would be different from all the other nations around them. God was always interested in the entire world; He wanted Israel to be a shining light to the rest of the nations and not to descend into wicked and idolatrous practices.

God wants our lives to shine with His holiness, His compassion, His goodness, and His grace. Every parent at some time or other hears the phrase, “But everybody’s doing it.” And every good parent knows the reply, “But you are MY child, and I say no!” God wants His children to be different from those around them so that others will see His light in their lives and be attracted to Him.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to be compassionate to those around us. Help us to turn away from any practice that would disgrace Your Name. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 23:9 – 14 “When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every wicked thing. If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside. When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets, he may return to the camp.

You must have a place outside the camp to go and relieve yourself. And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, lest He see anything unclean among you and turn away from you.“

The Israelites were about to enter a land filled with idols and the demons receiving worship from idolaters. The worship rituals for these pagan religions involved every form of sexual vice imaginable. The Israelites were literally called to wage holy war. For the Israelites to be able to conquer their enemies, they had to avoid anything that remotely resembled those vices. Ritually, any man who had a nocturnal emission of semen was considered unclean; hence, the command to continue to practice the standard cleansing procedures even during wartime. Part of the idea behind this might also have been to enforce the need to maintain all the practices leading to holiness. Sometimes in stressful situations such as war, people feel that they should be able to do anything they choose since they might die at any time. Here God was warning the Israelites that they couldn’t take shortcuts or make excuses, no matter the provocation. God knew human nature and he knew that overlooking one ritual meant to ensure holiness would lead to a domino effect.

What about the injunction against defecating inside the camp? Here the idea was maintenance of good sanitation. How could anybody consider a place holy if it was stinking of feces? Far more was at stake here than merely the maintenance of good sanitation.

“For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, lest He see anything unclean among you and turn away from you.” God wanted the Israelites to remember that He was with them at all times and that He saw everything that they were doing and thinking. God wanted the Israelites to be aware of His presence with them at all times as well.

APPLICATION: The sign read “Open Defecation Free Community;” however, someone forgot to inform the children and the mothers of toddlers. As we visited a community in northern Ghana, we saw the sign at the edge of town, but then we saw mothers sending their children “to bush” to defecate, despite the fact that there were KVIP toilets in several locations. Part of this practice was for the sake of convenience, but part of it was because the mothers actually believed that their children’s feces were sterile and harmless!

When we first came to the town of Saboba in January 1993, typhoid was unknown. For the first three and a half years we worked in Saboba, I never saw a patient with typhoid. We left Saboba in 1996 so that I could earn my Master’s Degree in Public Health. When we returned to Ghana in 1998, we worked in another community before returning to Saboba in early 2004. As soon as we reached Saboba, I was horrified to realize that the typhoid situation had changed drastically. The first year I was back in Saboba, there were times when I was operating six patients with intestinal perforations a week, plus treating a host of other patients who had lesser forms of the illness.

What changed between June 1996 and February 2004? During the dry season, many young people began migrating to cities in the south to do manual labor; the places where these urban migrants lived were the most polluted parts of those cities. As soon as these migrants contracted typhoid, they would return to their home areas where they would defecate freely. With soap and water at a premium, many people in the rural areas were only rinsing their hands with water, failing to realize that this practice was totally ineffective. This problem has persisted. As I write this devotional, we have two young men in our male ward recovering from being operated for holes in their intestines due to typhoid. At the same time, we have many children who require typhoid treatment before they can return home. Despite the fact that we have squat toilets that should be acceptable to villagers, as well as outdoor toilets, many of our people continue to sneak out to “go to bush,” even at the hospital!

Our situation with plastic/rubber bags is no better. Twenty – five years ago, many people sold things wrapped in cement papers or in teak leaves. Paper can be burned and goats will eat teak leaves. Then polythene rubber bags came along, including sachet water bags. Now we have piles of rubber bags everywhere, creating messes and encouraging people to dump rubbish freely.

While we might shake our heads at the situations I have just described, we must ask ourselves this question: Am I practicing anything in my life that does not promote holiness? We might be very careful about our external environment, but what about our spiritual environment? What videos or video games enthrall us? What websites do we visit regularly? What music forms the themes for our lives? Nothing happens in a vacuum, and the messages we hear repeatedly are those that will influence us the most. Yesterday I quoted Proverbs 4:23, but it is worth repeating.  The NIV version reads “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

If we fail to guard our hearts, we are as foolish as the mothers who send their children out to defecate indiscriminately while telling themselves that those feces must be sterile. God repeatedly warned the Israelites against the leaven of Egypt, using leaven as a symbol for the spiritual taint left by the Egyptian religions. We too must be careful to avoid the leaven of suggestive movies, violent video games, and pornographic web sites. May God help us to remember that He also moves in our camp, and that He wants us to be holy.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to guard our hearts and to allow Your Holy Spirit light to shine in every dark corner so that there will be nothing hidden to grieve You. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 23:1 – 7 “No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD. No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation. No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. For 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-naharaima to curse you. Yet 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. You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.

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

At first, these restrictions sound very harsh, but the key question is the meaning of the term “assembly of the Lord.” Several different sources feel that these commands are not forbidding eunuchs from worshiping God; in fact, there are several instances in which eunuchs in the Bible are commended for their faith. Here the term “assembly” refers to leadership in a political entity, and leadership is related to the ability of a man to generate offspring to succeed him. Many times, those who had been castrated might have originally undergone such a procedure in a pagan temple, being dedicated to a pagan god at the same time.

The question regarding illegitimate birth is also a thorny one. Again, the purpose of this command is to bar anyone who might have divided loyalties from occupying a position of leadership. In case of war, the last thing a nation needs is a leader who owes allegiance to the enemy.

What about the Ammonites and the Moabites? When the Israelites were nearing the end of their wanderings, they were to pass through the nations of the Ammonites and the Moabites. Both nations refused to even give food or water and the Moabites hired Balaam the Seer to curse the Israelites. The attempt at cursing turned out to be a big mistake; God forced Balaam to bless Israel instead. Numbers 24:18 -23 says,
“Arise, O Balak, and listen; give ear to me, O son of Zippor.

God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?

I have indeed received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it.

He considers no disaster for Jacob; He sees no trouble for Israel.

The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of the King is among them.

God brought them out of Egypt with strength like a wild ox.

For there is no spell against Jacob and no divination against Israel.

It will now be said of Jacob and Israel, ‘What great things God has done!’

What about the Edomites and the Egyptians? Even though the Edomites refused to five the Israelites food and water, they were still relatives because they were descended from Esau. Egypt had served as a refuge for the Israelites and a place where they grew from a single family with 70 members to a nation.

APPLICATION: At first we might wonder what these commands have to do with us. The main theme for us is the issue of divided loyalties and compromise. God was commanding the Israelites to make sure that any leaders they selected would be whole hearted in their support, without any cultural ties to another nation such as the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, etc.

We live in an age when loyalty seems to be very rare. Leaders in several fields appear willing to compromise for the sake of political correctness, whether or not a stance is morally correct. Too many times people have followed leaders only to find themselves being “thrown under the bus,” as sacrifices when expedient.

The late theologian Francis Schaeffer wrote a book entitled How Shall We Then Live? The question raised by that title is one each of us must face. Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring all the issues of life.” Other translations say, “Guard your heart.” As we end 2021, let us examine our hearts. If we have compromised, let us confess that sin to God and ask Him to help us be true to Him.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to be true to You and not to compromise, even when we are under pressure to do so. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 22:22 – 29 “If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her, you must take both of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

But 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. Do 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. When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

If a man encounters a virgin who is not pledged in marriage, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 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.”

There were strong laws to protect virgins and their virginity. But at the same time, any virgin who turned up pregnant would be fortunate if she was not killed; at the very least, she would be closely questioned. These statutes serve as a reminder of the risks that Mary the mother of Jesus and Joseph took.

Luke 1:26 – 38 “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. ”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.”

Mary had a choice: She could have gone on and married Joseph without bearing the Messiah, or she could risk an unplanned pregnancy and death by stoning. Mary chose to say “yes” to God, and all mankind was blessed as a result. But what about Joseph? Traditionally, once a couple was betrothed, they were considered as good as married and they could have sex; however, they would become a laughingstock in the community. But then Joseph had his own angelic encounter.

Matthew 1:18 – 25 “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with Child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly.

But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus,d because He will save His people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel (which means, “God with us”).

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and embraced Mary as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son. And he gave Him the name Jesus.”

Poor Mary and Joseph! Instead of a lovely wedding with feasting and guests, they began married life quietly and under a cloud of shame and derision. The town gossips in Nazareth had a field day. The priests frowned every time Joseph went to the temple. And then the Romans announced a census, demanding that everyone return to their familial home town. After a harrowing journey, Mary had to deliver in a stable with manure and straw and with only Joseph to help her. Had Mary stayed home, she could have delivered in a nice clean room with neighbor women to help her. But Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy.

That stable was the safest place for a heavenly king. King Herod was paranoid and willing to kill anyone who threatened his power. Had Mary and Joseph been in an inn, somebody would have informed Herod. As it was, with only shepherds as guests, everyone was safe. The poor people knew better than to trust Herod!

APPLICATION: This year has been a year of loss for many of us. My husband and I lost my beloved stepmother in January. Our hospital chaplain lost his fourteen year old son by drowning. In August we lost my brother – in – law, and in November we lost one of my brothers. Along the way, we have also lost some close friends. But it is comforting to know that the first Christmas was dangerous and yet marvelous. This Christmas we pray for anyone who has lost a loved one and who is grieving. Jesus was born as a man, lived as a sinless man, and died a shameful death as a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world. Jesus was the ultimate Christmas Gift. But as with any gift, we can accept or reject it. This Christmas, accept Jesus, God’s greatest gift.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us so much that You sent Jesus, Your Son. Lord, we confess that we are mired in our sin and that nothing we can do will pay for our sins. Now we accept Your gift of eternal life that Jesus has bought for us. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 22:13 – 21 “Suppose a man marries a woman, has relations with her, and comes to hate her, and 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.”

Then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate and say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has come to hate her. And 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. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him. They are also to fine him a hundred shekels of silver 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.

If, however, this accusation is true, and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.”

 These verses are difficult ones because there are several assumptions being made.

1. The working assumption here is that virgins will always bleed from the rupture of the hymen the first time they have sex. A corollary to that assumption is the idea that the family of the virgin bride will somehow get possession of the bloodstained sheet so that they can keep it as evidence. The problem with both these assumptions is that only 43% of virgins bleed from the hymen during their first act of sexual intercourse. A virgin might have a stretched or torn hymen without any bleeding at all. (https://flo.health/menstrual-cycle/teens/your-body/14-questions-hymen-virginity,

https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/sexual-health/does-a-woman-always-bleed-when-she-has-sex-for-the-first-time/)

If this statistic is true, then potentially there might have been several young women who were wrongly stoned to death. And what if the husband is already a wicked man and hides the blood – stained sheet, unless the family has the right to collect the sheet?

2. The next assumption is the idea that if a man brings a false accusation against his virgin bride, is proved wrong and is fined, that the girl will be safe as his wife. True, the man might not divorce the woman, but what kind of existence is that woman likely to have? The husband has already demonstrated that he hates the girl; why else would he bring a false accusation against her? Now the husband has been forced to pay a heavy fine and to take the girl back. Will all of their future sex acts constitute marital rape? Will this poor girl live under a torrent of verbal abuse for the rest of her life? Will the man take a second wife and favor that woman so that she lords it over the first wife?

The plain fact is that a high price was placed on virginity. Potential husband paying dowries paid large prices for virgin brides. Thus a man who was trying to get money might potentially bring a false charge against his bride in hopes of getting a refund. But the price for the poor bride might be her life!

Doesn’t God care about innocent young girls? Of course He does! These commands were placed there to protect the innocent, not to give opportunity for them to be killed. In addition, this society was a very closed one. The town gossips would know which girls were really virgins and which were not.

These commands relate directly to the Christmas story. Once Mary had told Joseph about the Angel Gabriel’s message, Joseph was really worried. Matthew 1:18-25 tells it this way:

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with Child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly.

But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus,d because He will save His people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us” ).

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and embraced Mary as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son. And he gave Him the name Jesus. “

Joseph is the forgotten man in the Christmas story, and yet he is critically important. According to Scripture, Joseph could have publicly divorced Mary, shaming her and possibly opening her to a death by stoning. Instead, Joseph believed the angel and cared for Mary tenderly, raising Jesus as his son.

There are many miracles associated with the Christmas story, but Joseph’s patience and obedience to God are two of the biggest miracles. Without Joseph, Mary would not have given birth in Bethlehem, the town of prophecy. Without Joseph, Mary would have had nobody to help her deliver Jesus.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for the obedience and patience and faith of Joseph. Help us to follow his example and to trust You. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 22:5 – 12 “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, and a man must not wear women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God.

If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

If you build a new house, you are to construct a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it.

Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled —both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard.

Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

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

At first this collection of verses seems to be some sort of catch – all. But the underlying themes are those of honor, protection, and need for purity.

The proscription against cross – dressing arose because many of the pagan religions involved ceremonies in which the priests and priestesses dressed as members of the opposite sex. God was issuing this command so that His worship services would be totally different than the pagan ones. In addition, this command was for the protection of women and children. The assumption was that men who dressed as women might be less likely to protect the vulnerable since physical protection was generally considered a man’s role. In that day and age, both men and women wore robes; however, a man’s robe had to be voluminous enough for the man to gird up his loins so that he would be able to fight. A woman’s robe might contain less material, making it impossible for the man to gird up his loins to fight effectively.

What about the injunction against taking both a mother bird and her chicks? If you take only the chicks, the mother bird can still lay more eggs and have more chicks. But if you take both mother and chicks, there will be no more birds of that kind. Here God is protecting the environment, since every kind of bird has its role to play. In modern times, we have seen many species of birds and animals become extinct because someone has relentlessly hunted every representative.

What about railings? In ancient times, rooftops were commonly used for all kinds of purposes, including sleeping during hot weather. A rooftop without a railing was an invitation to disaster. The New York City Department of Health instituted a program called “Children can’t fly.” This program worked in slum areas to make sure that there were guards on windows in upper stories of apartment buildings so that children could not easily fall to their deaths. This program brought about a 50% decrease in the deaths of children falling from windows, particularly in the Bronx.

We might find the commands regarding mixing different kinds of seed or mixing different kinds of yarn confusing. Here the spiritual lesson is one of purity, not compromising.

What about the injunction not to yoke an ox and a donkey together? One source states that donkeys have HORRIBLE halitosis! Consider a poor ox! And also consider relative sizes. Most donkeys would be far smaller than the average ox, making it impossible to yoke them together for any purpose. (Later on, when St. Paul is advising about believers not being unequally yoked to unbelievers, many of his audience might have remembered this commandment.)

What about the tassels? The tassels were to remind the Israelites that they were a nation of priests. Unfortunately, as time went on, the religious elite used this command to make their tassels ever bigger and more elaborate. Seeing some of these elaborate religions get – ups, Jesus criticized these men (Matthew 23:5) for using even their garments to demonstrate how spiritual they were!

APPLICATION: What do these laws have to do with us? The underlying themes are the need to protect the weak and vulnerable, to maintain purity, to respect God’s environment, and to be mindful of God. God is passionately interested in our daily lives, not just in our religious observances. God wanted Israel to be a nation of priests in which every action would glorify Him.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to glorify You in our thoughts, words, and deeds. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 22:1 – 4 “If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, you must not ignore it (or hide yourself); be sure to return it to your brother. If your brother does not live near you, or if you do not know who he is, you are to take the animal home to remain with you until your brother comes seeking it; then you can return it to him. And you shall do the same for his donkey, his cloak, or anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it. If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up.”

In those days, any kind of livestock was highly prized. A family might own only one or two donkeys or oxen or sheep. And animals are always straying. Sheep particularly can find more routes out of even a fenced pasture than one might believe. The cloak referred to here would be a heavy garment under which a man might sleep. If someone lost their cloak, they might die of exposure to the cold. And just to make things perfectly clear, God also adds a proviso that any lost object that is found must be kept in trust for the owner and not used or sold. Any animals found straying must be tended carefully until the owner appears.

APPLICATION: Things haven’t changed very much! There are many people in the world for whom a single piece of clothing or a single animal means the difference between survival and death. At Christmas, charitable groups such as the Heifer Project, Samaritan’s Purse, and others afford donors the opportunity to pay for animals that will then be given to those who need them most, ensuring the survival of entire families. But there is also a larger principal at work here.

God wants each of us to be concerned for those around us and not merely for our interests or the interests of our families alone. In Dickens’ great story A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Jacob Marley agonizes, “Business! Mankind was my business!” Now that it is too late, Marley has realized that he was to be his brother’s keeper and that he needed to be passionately involved with all those around him, particularly the poor.

Yesterday one of our friends preached a sermon in a local church regarding the hypocritical behavior of many Christians. Our friend cited the horrible example of widows who have entrusted their animals to their brothers for safe keeping, only for their allegedly Christian brothers to lie to them later, insisting that the animals have died when in fact the animals are alive or have been sold for a large profit.

Look around you! Do you see the poor? When you go to a store with an Angel Tree, do you try to help as many families as possible, or do you turn your head away, hoping you can soothe your conscience somehow? If you are in Africa, could you possibly donate an extra bag of rice and a cock or guinea fowl so that some poor family can enjoy meat for Christmas? Do you see children with so few clothes that they endanger themselves by huddling next to a fire to get warm?

This year, instead of blowing money on expensive gadgets or upgrades to an I-phone, why not share with those around you? Remember that your status can change in an instant. This last year we have watched as a 43 year old friend lost his job after he suffered a stroked from complications of COVID vaccine. That family will be struggling this Christmas.

“But I have very little money!” you might say. Fine. Ask God how you can help or encourage. Perhaps a family needs a reliable baby sitter. Perhaps someone simply needs a ride to the store. Perhaps an older person is incredibly lonely, and your visit might make all the difference. There are always things that we can do.

God cares about lost donkeys and oxen and cloaks and people. We should too. Dickens was right when he put those words in the mouth of his character Jacob Marley. “Mankind is our business.”

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to see the needs around us and to meet the needs that You particularly put on our hearts. Thank You that You are a God of infinite variety and resourcefulness and that if You have burdened us with a need, You also have a solution. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.