Live Honestly


Exodus 23:1-19
1“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 2You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, 3nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. 4“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him. 6“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. 7Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. 8And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. 9“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 10“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. 12“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed. 13“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips. 14“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. 15You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. 16You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God. 18“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. 19“The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Perhaps you’ve already noticed. These chapters following the 10 Commandments are simply further instruction on the original 10. The opening verse of this passage says “You shall not spread a false report.” If you get that concept and let it pervade your thoughts and words you stand on firm God-pleasing ground. I write often about integrity and intentionality in this blog and here is the summation of those two ideas – live honestly. If the words I speak about another (and about myself, by the way) are honest, I’ll be in a good place. If my actions flow from the desire to live honestly I’m still in that good place. It seems like common sense and the way that any rational person might want to live but we all know this is hardly the case for most people on any given day. What occurs to me as I think about this passage is that perhaps far fewer words need to be spoken at all and then the temptation to bend the truth might be decreased. It is interesting that God’s instruction here carries no bias. Honesty is to be used on the rich and the poor, the powerful and the oppressed alike no matter which they are. Honest is honest – there’s no way to fudge the truth.

Then God expands on our understanding of the third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. He gives clear and detailed instructions about the worship lives of the people. Now clearly we don’t participate in all of these regulations today. Jesus final sacrifice made all of that unnecessary. The sacrifices made in the Tabernacle / Temple merely “covered” the sins of the people. Jesus death and resurrection forgave and removed those sins from our lives. While the details of the worship lives of the Children of Israel are no longer our problem, the spirit behind them is most certainly for us to consider. I know that I am biased because of my profession as a church worker. But – we take our worship lives so very lightly in 2015. Skipping church on Sunday isn’t considered an issue at all anymore. According to current polls, the average Christian believes that if they are present 2 out of 4 Sundays a month, they are regular worship attenders. I would disagree. Fifty percent doesn’t quite make it. Lest I be accused of being heavy handed with the law, please understand; I am not saying that church attendance will save you. But – it may be a very good indicator of your commitment level.

The last line of this passage is a little weird, so I’ve included a quote that might help clear up the whole “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

The prohibition “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” occurs three times in the Pentateuchal law (also in 34:26 and Deut 14:21). Canaanite fertility religion imitated the fertility practices generally found throughout the ancient world. These included “marrying” seeds when planting a field on the theory that such a ritual would magically stimulate the powers of nature to procreate, producing more fertile crops. Since mother’s milk (the milk of the goat doe) was what made the goat kids grow big and strong, the folk theory developed that doe’s milk employed in the process of a sacrifice (in this case by boiling rather than by roasting on an altar) would somehow impart strength to the goat flock, making the whole flock more fertile. Such nonsense, if believed, could have led the Israelites to conclude that the power to shape their destiny and to live the abundant life was to be found in magical practices and fertility religion rather than in the only true, alive God. Even if all other people groups known to them practiced these sorts of rituals, the Israelites could not. As Yahweh’s people, they were to be above such things, attributing all life to the single Source thereof.
Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, pp. 539–540). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

It’s not so much about the goats and the milk as it is about who you are trusting to take care of you. Boiling a kid in its mother’s milk showed that you were counting on superstition and pagan practices to provide for your needs. It shows a distinct lack of trust in God to do such things. A modern counterpart might be to read your horoscope before you make a decision. Just a side note for you today.

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