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The Curse and Curses of the Law

A few thoughts on The Curse of the Law and the many individual and national curses within the Law…

The Curse of the Law is the eternal condemnation warranted by every individual who fails to live by God’s standards of behavior. Since nobody except Yeshua has ever lived a sinless life, this curse would apply to everyone alike if God had not made a way for us to escape it. No amount of obedience to the Law can ever deflect the curse. Once the soul is stained with sin, no amount of obedience without faith in God can ever cleanse it.

The Grace of God is his willingness to forgive our sins and make a way for us to be reconciled to him, IF we repent of sin (behavior that is contrary to the Law) and put our full faith and allegiance in him. Yeshua takes our curse upon him, and his blood cleanses what we could not. This happens outside the provisions of the Law because the Law was never intended to provide a way of permanently restoring a man’s soul to God. (This is what Paul meant when he wrote “The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law” in Romans 3:21.)

The Curse of the Law and the individual curses contained in the Law are different things. The former is eternal and only individual, while the latter are temporal and both individual and national.

A person who has been forgiven his sins and has been brought into relationship with God is not free to behave in any way he pleases. Absolution from a crime is not a license to commit more crimes.

Yeshua said that not a single mark will be removed from the Law, and that includes the various curses for individuals who commit serious crimes and the national curses for failing to keep God’s Law collectively.

These are curses in the here and now, in the temporal world, not the world to come. A promise of resurrection and eternal life in the future doesn’t mean there are no (or should not be) consequences for idolatry, murder, and sexual perversion today. Crime must be punished (cursed) by God’s people or else God’s people will eventually suffer national punishment (curses) that will be much more severe.

The Law actually predicted that Israel would fail to maintain God’s standards and would suffer the consequences. Those national curses are still in effect today as most of Israel remains in exile among the nations and will only finally return in full when the nation returns to obedience.

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The Contempt of God

Fear God. There is no other way to have a healthy relationship with him.

You can read the Bible in many ways. You can read it silently or aloud, or you can listen to someone else read it. You can take it in pieces, by verse, section, or chapter, or you can take it in great big chunks, whole books at a time.

I recommend all of those. Your brain will process the text differently each time, partly because it’s entering by a different route.

My wife and I were driving home from visiting her family this last weekend, and to pass the time we listened to an audio version of the Gospel of Luke, pausing now and then to talk about some point or other. It’s about a five hour drive, so we got most of the way through the book before we got home.

One great thing about listening to the Bible this way is that it lets you see broader trends that you might otherwise miss.

For example, Luke liked to present dichotomies. Do this, not that. This thing, not that thing.

The humble, poor, kind, and obedient, not the rich, proud, disdainful, and disobedient. The worshipful prostitute, not the inhospitable Pharisee, Simon. Treasures in heaven, not treasures on earth. Rock, not sand. The one grateful leper, not the ten who were ungrateful.

I hadn’t noticed that before.

There is one example of these comparisons that connects to another pattern I heard in Luke: Foreign cities that have never heard the Gospel will fare better in the final judgment than will Israelite cities that refused to heed the great miracles that were done there.

People usually had intense emotional reactions to Yeshua’s miracles. They ran the gamut from joy to terror.

Except in Nazareth, Yeshua’s home town. At Nazareth, Yeshua did a few miracles, but their apathy and disbelief kept him from doing much more. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they said.

And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” (Luke 4:24 ESV)

Even demons had a more positive response than did Yeshua’s own family and friends. In Luke 4:34, a demon acknowledged his power and position: “I know who you are: the Holy One of God.” Then it obeyed him. In 8:28, another demon called him “Son of the Most High God” and begged him for mercy. In 9:42, yet another demon, who respected none of Yeshua’s disciples, immediately obeyed his command to leave.

What was the biggest difference between Nazareth and those demons? Familiarity.

The people of Nazareth knew Yeshua when he was a child. They grew up with him, and they saw him playing with other children. They knew his parents, his grandparents, and his siblings. They were comfortable with Yeshua, because they thought they knew him.

The demons, on the other hand, really knew him in a way that no mortal ever could. They didn’t like him, as I’m sure many of his neighbors did, but they knew the reality of his raw, unparalleled power, and they were terrified of him.

The people of Nazareth had no fear of the Holy One of God, the Son of the Most High, and so he could do nothing for them. Wherever the people feared God and the growing reputation of Yeshua–at Nain in chapter 7, for instance–he raised the dead, healed the sick, and drove out unclean spirits.

The only difference between Nazareth and Nain was the level of familiarity and comfort that the people had toward Yeshua. The people of Nazareth saw him as an odd but friendly boy, while the people of Nain had heard the amazing stories that were spreading across the countryside, and they were afraid. They approached him on the road eagerly, but nervously. When he healed their sick and raised their dead, they were astonished. They were both joyful and even more fearful than before.

Perhaps we don’t see the miracles they saw because we don’t see the God and Messiah that they saw.

Consider the songs we sing in our churches.

He touched me. He guides me. He’s my hope, my support, my rest. I love him dearly, and I’ll follow him everywhere. Yadda yadda.

There’s nothing wrong with those specific words; they’re all great sentiments. There are many Psalms that sound very similar. The problem is that they’re all sentiment and no fire. They’re all “Me and Jesus,” and very little glory and majesty.

Why don’t we sing more hymns like Psalm 9 (written by David)?

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.

You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.

But the LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
And he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness….

(Verses 1-8 ESV)

Or Psalm 76 (of Asaph, also from the ESV)?

In Judah, God is known;
his name is great in Israel.
His abode has been established in Salem,
his dwelling place in Zion.
There he broke the flashing arrows,
the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah.

Glorious are you, more majestic
than the mountains full of prey.
The stouthearted were stripped of their spoil;
they sank into sleep;
all the men of war were
unable to use their hands.
At your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
both rider and horse lay stunned.

But you, you are to be feared!
Who can stand before you
when once your anger is roused?
From the heavens you uttered judgment;
the earth feared and was still,
when God arose to establish judgment,
to save all the humble of the earth. Selah.

Surely the wrath of man shall praise you;
the remnant of wrath you will put on like a belt.
Make your vows to the LORD your God and perform them;
let all around him bring gifts to him who is to be feared,
who cuts off the spirit of princes,
who is to be feared by the kings of the earth.

Wow! What a God our Savior is!

God’s power is truly incomprehensible and it is all concentrated in the one man we know variously as Jesus and Yeshua. As Asaph wrote, our God, YHWH Elohim, is to be feared even by the most powerful men on earth. They are nothing to him. He brushes them aside like gnats.

We must never be overly familiar and comfortable with God. He is a consuming fire and a jealous God who will not stand by forever while his name is profaned and his people ignore his laws. Eventually, there will be an accounting, and every person will be repayed according to his deeds.

Many preachers today love to talk about how forgiving and gracious God is (And they’re right!), but they mistake his patience for apathy. They tell their flocks that God no longer cares about sin, that anything you do after the cross will never count against you. It’s all just love and bacon pancakes from here to the streets of gold.

Sin is a non-issue with God, but religious people make it a major issue. This is because they do not understand the new agreement. -Creflo Dollar

The Holy Spirit never convicts you of your sins. -Joseph Prince

In 2005, we were the first church in America to endorse marriage equality. We’re doing justice. -United Church of Christ

What nonsense! “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2) I know that those preachers have read the Bible, but they are truly the blind leading the blind, because they haven’t even seen what is so clearly written.

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. -Yeshua (Luke 13:5 ESV)

Yes, our Lord is patient. Yes, he is forgiving. No, your good works will never earn you a place in heaven. But none of that means that his standards of behavior have slackened by a single letter.

God’s Law still stands today as the eternal measuring stick for those who would call themselves his people. There is no division in that Law. There is one Law for one People, and unless you repent, you too will hear those dreadful words one day:

And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ -Yeshua (Matthew 7:23 ESV)

Trust in God’s faithfulness to forgive, in Yeshua’s blood that removes the stains of sin from our souls, but never forget that God is a force more powerful than anything today’s cosmologists have yet imagined, and he has rules for his house.

Go ahead and memorize Psalm 23–it’s beautiful and definitely worthwhile–but memorize Job 38 and 39 along with it.

Until we learn to fear God in all his power, I fear that we will never see his true power in our lives.

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Tearing out the Tares

One vital point in understanding the parable of the wheat and the tares is that the two plants are very difficult to distinguish until they bear fruit.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed [tares] among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the [tares] appeared also.

And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have [tares]?”

He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”

So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?”

But he said, “No, lest in gathering the [tares] you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the [tares] first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'”

Matthew 13:24-30 ESV
(I changed “weeds” changed to “tares” in this quote for clarity.)

When I was growing up, I heard this parable taught many times in Sunday School. The point made most often was this: Watch out for those tares. They look like real Christians, but that’s only a disguise on the outside. God knows what’s really in their hearts, and at the judgment, he will be able to tell them apart. The wheat will go to heaven, while the tares will go to hell. So don’t be like the tares. Be a real Christian, all the way through.

That’s good advice and all true as far as it goes, but it’s not complete. What about the man’s instructions to his servants?

Don’t pull out the tares, lest in doing so, you root up the wheat along with them.

I quoted the full parable in Matthew 13 at the top of this article from the English Standard Version, but I think this is one of those few cases where the ESV is clearly wrong. Certainly a tare is a kind of weed, but it’s a specific kind of weed, and that fact is important to the parable. I changed that word in the quote to make sure that point isn’t lost.

Fausset’s Bible Dictionary says this about the tare:

Darnel; at first impossible to distinguish from wheat or barley, until the wheat’s ear is developed, when the thin fruitless ear of the darnel is detected. Its root too so intertwines with that of the wheat that the farmer cannot separate them, without plucking up both, “till the time of harvest.” The seed is like wheat, but smaller and black, and when mixed with wheat flour causes dizziness, intoxication, and paralysis; Lolium temulentum, “bearded darnel”, the only deleterious grain among all the numerous grasses. (Fausset’s Bible Dictionary)

The landowner in Yeshua’s parable didn’t want his servants to weed out the tares because of three distinctive features:

  1. The tares are nearly indistinguishable from the wheat throughout most of their lifecycle. A worker, being unable to tell the difference, might pull up wheat and tares indiscriminately.
  2. The roots of the tares intertwine with those of the wheat, so that, even if correctly identified, removing them might still remove neighboring wheat plants.
  3. When they begin to ripen, the tares finally become evident to even the most untrained worker. All of the plants can be cut together and the tares separated out by hand.

Besides the Sunday School lesson I referenced above, what can we learn from this?

There are three kinds of believers that can be described as tares:

  1. Hypocrites who appear like saints to everyone else, but who harbor secret sins.
  2. The licentious who justify their behavior using alternative translations or interpretations of Scripture.
  3. Heretics who profess extra-Biblical revelation or who rely on obscure, mystical interpretations of Scripture to support a belief that could never be derived from a plain reading of the text.

Did you notice that I worded each of those to influence your opinion against the people being described?

Christians (and Jews and every other religious group…maybe I should just say “people”) have a long history of attacking their own over seemingly minor disagreements. We let our emotional attachments to our own opinions trump reason, knowledge, and love, and in the end, all we accomplish is destruction. We are like the servants in Yeshua’s parable, but instead of asking him what we should do, we take it upon ourselves to pull up what we perceive to be tares.

Let me give you some examples of the three types I listed above.

Secret Sins

A deacon at your church is respected and liked by the congregation. He has served honorably for many years. But recently you saw him exchange envelopes with a strange man in a restaurant. Was it a drug deal? A blackmail payoff?

This man looks like wheat to everyone else, but now you’ve seen something that makes you wonder if he might be a tare. Should you expose him?

What has he actually done? Did you see drugs, money, photos…anything actually bad at all? In reality, all you saw was two men exchanging envelopes. It could be a contract, landscape design, or project specs. You don’t really know anything at all.

God’s Law doesn’t authorize us to snoop in other people’s private lives. (See “So Shall You Purge the Evil from Your Midst“.) If someone is flaunting their sin or if it becomes public knowledge somehow, that’s another story, but if someone has sin in their closet that nobody knows about except him and God, then leave it be. You don’t know what unwarranted damage you might cause by meddling where you don’t belong.

Differences of Opinion

Reasonable and well-meaning people will have different opinions on what God’s instructions mean. That’s normal. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

One person believes they should never eat meat sacrificed to idols, while someone else believes it’s okay as long as you don’t participate in the ritual itself. They both might feel very strongly that they are right and that the other person is engaging in legalism or idolatry. They both love God with all their hearts and do all they can to help their neighbors, but based on this one issue, they are ready to excommunicate each other.

They have both identified the other as a tare, when in reality they are both wheat. Being wrong about something doesn’t condemn a person to hell or make them into a wolf in sheeps clothing. It just means that they’re wrong about something.

We all believe things that other people don’t, even things that seem to us to have clear and incontrovertible support from Scripture. Investigate why others believe the way they do, and you will almost certainly find that they have good reasons, and aren’t in rebellion against God. When we find ourselves on the opposite side of an issue from knowledgable and godly people, we need to step back and acknowledge that we might be wrong. That doesn’t mean you have to change your mind. It only means that you need to extend a little grace to your brothers and sisters in Yeshua when the Bible isn’t quite as black and white as we would like it to be.

Religious Dogmas and Esoteric Theories

Infant baptism or only adults? Sprinkling or immersion? Trinitarianism or unitarianism? Yeshua or Yahusha? Cessationism or continuationism? Young earth creationism or theistic evolution? There are countless more examples of controversies within Christendom that have no real impact on how we look or behave.

If you keep the Sabbath and don’t bow down to any graven images, does it really matter if you believe that God does or doesn’t have semi-autonomous parts? Nope.

If you don’t murder or steal, what practical difference does it make if you call the Messiah Jesus, Yeshua, or Yahusha? Zilch.

Does believing that the earth is 6000 years old or 5 billion years old matter if you honor your parents and respect your neighbor’s property? Not a bit.

Does reading the Bible in English make you any more or less a Christian than reading it in Latin? Christ didn’t read the Scriptures in either one, so I can’t see how it could.

These are matters of vain philosophy and imagination. They are myths and just-so story telling. Yet so-called devout Christians have killed each other over these issues because they refused to heed the parable of the wheat and the tares. In attempting to uproot what they believed was a tare, they caused hatred and division in the Body of Messiah. They destroyed lives, both innocent and guilty, and they continue to do so today by accusing their brothers and attacking one another over relatively trivial matters.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” The secret things that belong to God are sins that are done in secret as well as those things that God has not chosen to reveal to us in any detail.

The Bible hints at many things that are not explained in depth and never addresses many others. For example, there are a number of instances in the Old Testament in which an angel is referred to as God. There are seven spirits of God. In mystical language, John said that Yeshua is God, and then there is the Holy Spirit, but the Scriptures also say that God is one. So is God one, three, or seven? We are created in God’s image, yet God doesn’t have a body. We have a body, so how can we be made in the image of a God that doesn’t? I don’t know the answers to these questions, and the plain fact is that neither does anyone else. God is God, and he is beyond human comprehension. He has not chosen to give us a detailed description of himself or his anatomy, and if he had, we shouldn’t expect to understand it anymore than an amoeba would understand ours.

Only pride insists otherwise.

When we insist, in the guise of stamping out heresy, on attacking one another over questions to which nobody could possibly know the answers or that don’t have any practical application, then we are like hamfisted workers, carelessly tearing out good wheat with bad tares because we think we know better than our master.

In our zeal to purify the Body of Messiah, we have tainted it by filling our hearts with hatred.

There are things that are clear in Scripture. In the context of the parable, we might say that thistles are easy to tell from wheat. Someone with spiritual eyes to see and hands to touch will never confuse the two. If you can uproot what is clearly evil without harming what appears to be good, do so. This is also part of our master’s instructions.

Open homosexuality, murder, theft, idolatry… Only those who are are in active rebellion against God and his Law will defend them. These things mark the truly reprobate from the righteous, and we are commanded by God to remove them from our communities to prevent their spread. We aren’t authorized to go looking for them in people’s closets, but if they are revealed, then we have to deal with them.

Speculations about esoteric matters that have not been revealed to us can be interesting, even enlightening at times, but are more often simply a waste of time. As long as they don’t lead people to reject what has been revealed or to behave contrary to God’s commands, they aren’t worth fighting over and driving off good people.

In the end, even every stalk of grass will be known by its fruit, and sometimes we just need to let them all grow and leave it to the Master to sort them out.

The master wanted his servants to wait for the harvest because there are things they don’t know. They can’t see the roots of those tares. They can’t see the DNA that truly defines one from the other. There’s a good chance they can’t even tell the difference between the wheat and the tares by looking directly at them.

Those things that God has not chosen to reveal to us are his business, not ours.

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The Pursuits of Righteousness and Blessing

And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
Deuteronomy 28:1-7

Deuteronomy 28 is infamous among students of the Torah for its short list of blessings for obedience to God’s commands and very long list of curses for disobedience–you have to skip ahead to Isaiah 60 to get a fuller picture of the blessings.

A chiasm in Deuteronomy 28:2-7 that highlights the blessings of obedience to God's Law.

This chiasm in verses 2-7 caught my eye as I was reading this chapter last week:

  • V2 – You will be overtaken by blessing.
    • V3 – You will be blessed wherever you are.
      • V4-5 – Your labors will be blessed in the fields (agriculture) and cities (manufacturing).
    • V6 – You will be blessed wherever you are going.
  • V7 – Your enemies will be overtaken by curses.

If we are careful to keep all of God’s commandments, then blessing will overtake us, while curses overtake our enemies. We will be blessed whether we work in the fields or in the cities, whether we are going out into the world, or coming home to Israel. Whatever our professions might be, our labors will be rewarded.

I want to tell you three things about this chiasm and about the whole chapter in general.

First, I want to address the apparent imbalance in the amount of text given to blessings and obedience.

The curses aren’t given in more excruciating detail than the blessings because God is all lightning and brimstone with no patience for human foibles. To the contrary, God is extraordinarily longsuffering and generous in his forgiveness. He takes no pleasure in the suffering and death of the wicked, but longs to bless them through their repentance. No, there are other reasons for the lack of detail in the blessings.

True blessing is harder to perceive than curses. Defeat, poverty, disease, and barrenness…those things are easy to see and understand. But blessing is more and more subtle than victory, riches, health, and fruitfulness. Blessing comes also as love, contentment, honor, and purpose. This is one possible reason why the blessings for obedience aren’t enumerated: because they aren’t so easy to name and might look different to each recipient. Every child understands the threat of punishment, but most children will never understand the true value of their parents’ blessings until they are parents themselves.

Second, notice how this chiasm begins and ends: with pursuit and capture.

In the opening, we are overtaken by blessings in our pursuit of righteousness. In the closing, our enemies are overtaken by curses (defeat) in their pursuit of cursing us. This is related to the disparity of text dedicated to blessing and cursing.

Blessings are good things, by definition, and there is nothing at all wrong with wanting to be blessed in every way possible. Good health, profit, wisdom, children… These are all things that we should desire, but they must be kept in proper perspective. Balance can never be achieved by pursuing blessing, only by pursuing righteousness.

The light of God’s Word and Love desires to shine through us into the world, but it can’t do that if we are only focused on ourselves. The ultimate goal of every righteous man must be to become an effective conduit of God’s Light into his community and even the whole world. By every mitzvah–every good deed–that we perform, we show God’s love to one another as well as to him, because as Yeshua pointed out, to love God and to love one’s neighbor are together the cornerstone of the whole Law.

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22:40

Through pursuing greater righteousness (not for salvation, but out of love and gratitude toward our Creator and Messiah), we will be overtaken by the blessings of God, while those who pursue rewards for themselves and curses for their enemies will be overtaken by curses themselves.

Third, see where the blessings will come and how: in the city and in the field, in the fruits of agriculture and in the fruits of manufacturing, whether you are coming or going. 

The point is that it doesn’t matter what you do for a living nor where you do it. It doesn’t matter if you are a farmer, builder, teacher, or accountant, whether your work is done on the road or at your kitchen table. What matters is who you are (Israel, both native and grafted in) and how you execute your labors (according to all of God’s commands).

It’s good to get your hands in the dirt, but no one is more righteous for being a farmer rather than a pastry chef. It’s also good to desire and to work for good things, so long as they never supplant God as our ultimate focus. By blessing God and our brothers and sisters, we bless ourselves.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.
Matthew 6:33

Blessings come in many guises, but they come to all people who love God and keep his commandments before all else.

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Storming the Gates of Hell

We don't always need to build siege engines or march around the walls to assault the Gates of Hell. Sometimes all it takes to rescue the people, whom God is calling, is a little patience, kindness, and understanding.
Jamie Carper in the studio at WAIF FM in Cincinnati, Ohio. 1960-2018

My brother Jamie died last week.

He fought cancer for almost two years, holding on long enough to provide as much financial security to his family as he could, and to spend a few of his last few days with his parents. Having settled his affairs and given a little comfort to mom and dad, he finally let go.

But the impact his life had on the world is here to stay.

For more than thirty years he promoted Christian music of all kinds and sometimes performed himself. He was part of the worship team at church for almost his entire adult life. As a DJ, sound man, musician, and organizer, he helped untold artists gain an audience and touched uncountable lives in ways great and small.

I knew all of that before, but until now I had no idea how deep and how signficant his influence had been.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been contacted by several people who told me about the enormous impact that Jamie had on their lives simply by being a friend and introducing them to spiritually healthier music choices without being judgmental about who and where they were at the time. At his memorial last Saturday, one person after another spoke about how they were in a bad place in life until Jamie opened his home or his studio or just treated them respectfully like real human beings. The love he showed to friend and stranger alike drew people in a better direction and changed their lives.

He was a good man and remains so today in the care of the Father.

Hearing those very personal stories reminded me of this conversation that Yeshua had with Peter:

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Matthew 16:15-19 ESV

I’m not going to get into all the many and divisive interpretations of this passage. (Although you have to appreciate the fortuitous coincidence of Jamie’s primary focus being on rock music and it’s many close relatives.) Instead, I want to talk about a way that you and I can assault the very Gates of Hell in our daily lives. I’m not talking about casting out demons or praying in tongues. I’m after something more immediate and relevant to each and every one of us on any given day.

Let me start with an example from my own experience.

If you spend enough time on social media, you’re bound to encounter people with some pretty strange opinions. For example, there is a significant number of people who believe that the earth is flat and that NASA and the United Nations have been conspiring to fool us all into believing it’s round. They believe that this conspiracy somehow keeps people from believing in God.

There are also people who believe very strongly that the proper spelling of Jesus’ name is a matter of eternal salvation. If you don’t spell it Yahashuwa (or whatever), then you’re not calling and believing on the right name, and so you’re not saved.

I think that’s absurd nonsense, and I have very little patience for people who push those ideas. I’ve tried arguing with them, mocking them, and ignoring them, but in the end, I usually unfollow them so I don’t see them anymore.

But I learned something very important this past week from my brother’s many friends: Even people who say and believe stupid stuff need to be heard and loved. They’re already working hard to cut themselves off from the rest of the body of the Messiah, and they don’t need my help. Making them invisible doesn’t take away their loneliness and confusion.

Now maybe I won’t be able to convince many of them that the earth is round or that Jesus loves them no matter how they pronounce his name, but Jamie didn’t stop reaching out and loving people just because 99% of them didn’t respond. The few, with whom he was able to connect and develop a lasting relationship, were ready for what he had to offer, but they didn’t necessarily advertise themselves. Jamie had to talk to them all in order to find the few who were ready. They responded and they were snatched right out of the very bowels of hell because Jamie didn’t fear to stroll through the gates, listen to a bit of music, and share some food and conversation.

Sodom was a vile city that needed to be destroyed, but righteous Lot lived there. What would have happened if God had said, “I don’t need to go in there. I’ve already heard the stories. Let’s just burn it all.” Lot would have been lost.

Jericho needed to fall, but we can’t abandon Rahab.

Moab was a wicked nation…but remember Ruth.

We don’t always need to build siege engines or march around the walls to assault the Gates of Hell. Sometimes all it takes to rescue the people, whom God is calling, is a little patience, kindness, and understanding.

God is love, and upon this rock he will build his kingdom from a multitude of lonely, hurting people, and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against you and me loving them as Yeshua loved us.

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Guilt by Pronunciation: How the quirks of language can waylay unsuspecting Bible students

False cognates can be confusing to people who aren't aware of them.

The Apostle Paul wrote,

For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:8 KJV

What a curious thing to say. Paul wants Jesus to eat us all!

No, really. It says so right there.

Wait. That’s not what Paul meant, you say?

Well, of course not. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s easy to see that the original intent isn’t what it seems to be in plain English, so we know that Paul was using an expression that just didn’t translate well. With a little thought, we can work out that he actually meant “with the heart/affection of Jesus”.

Every language uses metaphors and colloquialisms that can be difficult to translate. In the case of Philippians 1:8, the King James translators used English words that people of the 17th century were likely to understand, but that have changed meaning over the centuries or fallen out of usage altogether. The result is very strange and startling to modern ears. Fortunately, it’s so odd that very few people will take it literally.

However, there are a number of similar mistakes that people commonly make either because they are not considering potential problems with translation or because they are unfamiliar with the historical realities of how languages, culture, and expression change over time.

Cognates and False Cognates

Let me give you two examples of bad interpretation resulting from a failure to understand history and language that remain bizarrely persistent despite obvious problems.

If you’ve ever studied another language, you have probably encountered the term cognate, which means a word that sounds the same or very similar to a word with the same meaning in another language. Here are a few examples:

  • English “music” – Russian “muzika”
  • English “perfect” – Spanish “perfecto”
  • English “sabbath” – Lithuanian “sabatas”

Cognates are very common among languages within the same family. Russian, Spanish, English, and Lithuanian all descend from a single, ancient language that linguists call Indo-European because it is the ancestor of languages that are spoken today from India to Europe and everywhere that those people have migrated. There are many language families in the world. You can get an overview of the topic here: https://infogalactic.com/info/List_of_language_families.

Even worse, some words in the same language can have the same sound or spelling, but still have different meanings or linguistic origins. Consider the English word “ball”.

  • Ball – An air-filled sphere used as a toy or as an integral part of a sport.
  • Ball – A party characterized by formal dress and dancing.

Without more information, the meaning of even a simple sentence like “Let’s go to the ball.” is ambiguous.

One language can also have words that sound similar to words in other languages, but have completely different meanings or descend from different original words. These are called false cognates, and they can be very tricky for students. Languages in the same family frequently have false cognates (Carpeta doesn’t mean carpet in Spanish. It means folder or binder.), but they can also occur in languages from different families, like English and Hebrew.

  • English “show” – Japanese “sho“, which means document.
  • English “data” – Portuguese “data“, which means calendar date.
  • English “offer” – Swedish “offer“, which means victim.

I’m sure you can see how all of this might be very confusing for someone who isn’t fluent in both languages. Frequently, a little knowledge can get people into trouble in this respect.

God vs Gad

Another good example that I see on social media all the time is the English word “god” and the Hebrew word “gad“. They sound the same and are even spelled the same (gd) if you use Hebrew characters instead of English, because Hebrew doesn’t use vowels. The English word is a generic noun we use to refer to any deity, while the Hebrew has several possible meanings.

One of the Sons of Israel was named Gad. Translators disagree about what his name means because there are at least three Hebrew words that are spelled and pronounced in the exact same way. They variously mean “fortune”, “troop” or “crowd”, and “coriander”. So was Gad named Fortune, Troop, or Coriander? We can probably eliminate Coriander, but translators disagree about whether his name means troop or fortune.

To complicate matters even further, many ancient cultures had gods of fortune or prosperity, and Isaiah 65:11 contains a reference to such a deity that went by the name Gad, literally the god of fortune.

This seems like a pretty minor issue, until you learn that some people believe we shouldn’t call YHWH “God” because we are commanded not to call on the names of false gods. If they are right, then we might be guilty of idolatry (at worst) or disrespect (at best) by referring to YHWH as “God.”

Here is where an awareness of history, linguistics, and common sense comes in very handy. If there is a real historic or linguistic connection between the Hebrew Gad and the English God, then we should seriously consider this objection. If there isn’t, then it’s safe to dismiss it as nonsense.

Gad – All three Hebrew words come from a common Hebrew root verb (gadad) that means to cut or furrow. The derivation probably came from one of three possible implications of cutting:

  1. Almost all wealth ultimately comes from the ground, whether it be through farming, ranching, or mining. All of which involve cutting or furrowing the ground to get something valuable out of it.
  2. Uncovering a hidden treasure requires digging, cutting, or breaking something to get to it.
  3. Wresting wealth from someone else’s control requires force, which usually involves a troop with weapons designed for cutting or piercing.
  4. There is no real doubt among linguists that the word gad is native to Semitic languages and probably wasn’t adopted from some other language family. In other words, the Hebrews didn’t borrow the word from the Germans or their ancestors.

God – According to etymonline.com, the English word god has remained unchanged in meaning for at least 1500 years, but comes from a Proto-German word that probably meant “that which is invoked” or from a Proto-Indo-European word that meant “poured out”. In either case, it is definitely of Indo-European origin, and not Semitic. In other words, the proto-Germanic people didn’t borrow the word from the Hebrews.

Here are the possible connections:

  • They sound alike…but that’s not really a connection since both words have ancient, unrelated roots in different language families.
  • Isaiah 65:11 mentions setting a table for “Gad” and filling cups for the God of Destiny, and a possible Proto-Indo-European root for “god” might have something to do with pouring stuff. However, the god associated with pouring drinks in Isaiah is Destiny, which, in Hebrew, is meni not gad.

Seems pretty weak to me.

The Hebrew word is a common noun that was expanded to a title (god of fortune), that was then shortened again to be used as a proper noun (Gad/Fortune). Misuse of the word gad doesn’t make it pagan anymore than the words sun and moon, both of which have had their associated deities. If we had a god of fortune and over many centuries came to call it simply “Fortune”, that wouldn’t make the word “fortune” pagan. It would only make pagan those people who worshiped fortune as if it could be a god, when in fact, the true God really is a fortune in almost every sense of the word.

We can’t abandon every word simply because some group of pagans might have once slapped it onto an imaginary being.

As I hope you see, the connection between “gad” and “god” is so extremely tenuous that I think it’s safe to say there is no connection there at all. Gad and god are merely false cognates, words from different languages that sound the same, but aren’t.

Jesus Doesn’t Come from Zeus

There are many, many other examples of mistaking false cognates for true ones.

For example, some people claim that the name Jesus is derived from Zeus (as in Yay-Zeus or something like that), despite it being spelled and pronounced very differently. The Hebrew name Yeshua was commonly transliterated into Greek as Iesous (Iesou plus the masculine ending -s) long before Jesus/Yeshua was born. Being a transliterated Hebrew name, and not a translation at all, it is meaningless in Greek, so claiming that it means “healing Zeus” or “hail Zeus” is pure fantasy, as every scholar of ancient Greek will attest.

Be Skeptical of Theological Claims Based on Spelling or Pronunciation

I could give you more examples, but I hope this is sufficient to demonstrate that similar sounding words in different languages don’t necessarily share any meaning or history. Whenever you encounter theological claims based on the spelling or pronunciation of English words, be very skeptical. The English language didn’t even exist until many centuries after the last book of the Bible was written, and the Old Testament was written in languages that aren’t even in the same linguistic family tree as English.

When in doubt on any similar kind of question, check with a reputable linguist and historian, not with a theologian or blogger, not even one who wrote a book or two. Especially don’t rely on the claims of social media denizens.

In the meantime, don’t stress about it. Focus on what’s clear and important first. Worry about obscure questions and gray areas more after you’ve mastered love and mercy.

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Sabbath-Honoring Labor

And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.

But if you had known what this is, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned those who are not guilty.
Matthew 12:7

“Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:36-39

Yeshua plainly refuted the idea that there is no hierarchy or precedence within God’s law. There are greater commandments and lesser commandments. Some laws must be held higher than others in order to resolve apparent conflicts such as healing or feeding the poor on the Sabbath.

Most Christian theologians divide the law into two or three parts (civil, moral, and ceremonial), and they usually dismiss the ceremonial as irrelevant to life after the cross. That division is incorrect and does a great deal of harm. It would be much better to divide the law the same way that Yeshua did: by beneficiary. All of God’s laws have a beneficiary, and usually more than one: Self, Others, or God.

Keeping the Sabbath benefits all three.

It honors God, strengthens the community, ensures a day of rest for even the lowest laborer, but keeping the Sabbath is also self-serving. It gives you an excuse to say no.

  • No, sorry, I can’t help you move on Saturday.
  • No, I can’t come into the office on Saturday.
  • Sorry, I have an appointment at 7 tonight.

There is nothing wrong with that. God gave us all of the law for our own benefit. For many people, especially in a society that doesn’t recognize God’s appointed times, it is a vital opportunity to say no without causing hard feelings.

Other laws are aimed at the benefit of others and take precedence over the former. “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years. And in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.” A slave owner is required to care for the physical and spiritual welfare of the slave.

Like the Sabbath, the laws governing Hebrew slavery fit all three categories: They honor God by honoring his image and his chosen people. They benefit the slave owner by ensuring the good will of his slaves and the health of his community. However, the slave reaps the greatest benefit. His servitude was limited in duration, scope, and rigor. He is assured generous compensation for his service. In fact, if he sold himself into slavery, he will be paid at least twice, three times if he has a God-fearing master: first when he sold himself, second during the course of his service, and third when he is released.

There are some laws that appear to benefit only God, but we must be especially careful with those, because their purpose is often obscure. Sometimes they seem like empty ritual, and it’s easy to let them slide. Sometimes we can only guess at the purpose of these commands, but it’s an illusion that they are only for God’s benefit.

Every commandment that God has given also benefits the law-keeper, his family, and his community. “You shall have no other gods before me,” for example. Worshipping other gods is a waste of effort and invites sickness and disaster, but primarily we worship only one God because that is what he wants.

Sacrifice is another example. Blood sacrifices were never about satisfying God’s blood lust, for he has none. Like Yeshua’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of animals was to bring us closer to God. Hence, blood sacrifice is mostly for the benefit of the one bringing it. “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” God said, but we need both.

If you encounter an apparent conflict in obeying God’s laws, he has already given us the standard which we are to follow. Choose the path which honors God first, then that which honors others, and finally that which honors ourselves.

When you aren’t sure, choose life. All of God’s instructions are designed to restore us to right, healthy relationship with both God and man. Therefore, Christians and Jews alike consider those who save and restore lives to be exempt from the strictest interpretation of the Sabbath.

To heal on the Sabbath is to keep it, even if such healing requires great physical exertion.

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More Tools for Bible Study

Tools for the serious Bible student. Commentaries, dictionaries, atlases, and more.

So far in Common Sense Bible Study we’ve looked at setting up for your study time, how not to get lost in irrelevant theological weeds, a few tips on how to read the Bible in its historical context, and some essential Bible study tools.

In this installment, we’ll look at a number of other Bible study tools of varying importance, starting with those I believe to be most important and working our way down to “eh”. I want to let you know what’s available without boring you to tears, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

Full disclosure: I earn a small commission on anything you buy from Amazon through the links on this page.

Bible Commentaries
Bible commentaries contain verse-by-verse (or at least passage-by-passage) discussions of the whole Bible or of individual books. They can be very helpful for understanding the meaning of difficult passages–and even many passages that appear to be simple– but remember that they are only the teachings of men, and different teachers can have very different interpretations of the same passages. No commentary has the same authority as the original Scriptures themselves. Just as with Bible translations, I recommend that you don’t rely too heavily on any one. Contrast and compare.

Here are some commentaries I recommend (not saying I agree with everything they contain):

  • Any of Tim Hegg’s commentaries on individual books.
  • Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible (included with e-Sword)
  • John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible (included with e-Sword)

Bible Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias define words and concepts found in the Bible. Pretty straightforward. They are especially good for identifying people and place names. Most Bible apps include several of each, and there are many more that you can access for free on the Internet. If you prefer hard copy, here are a few good options:

  • Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words
  • Hollman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
  • Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, 2 volumes
  • Illustrated Dictionary of the Bible

Histories
What kind of culture did the Hebrews leave behind in Egypt and what did they find in Canaan? How did the tense relationship between Rome and Jerusalem affect the Sanhedrin’s treatment of Jesus?

Histories can provide important background and contextual information for understanding the Biblical texts. Unfortunately, many historians of western civilization ignore the Hebrew contribution and treat the Bible as fiction, despite it’s having proved itself to be more reliable than any other history book that has ever been written. There are some good ones out there, though. Here are some that I think you will find interesting and useful:

Bible Atlases
Bible atlases contain maps of the lands in which the events of the Bible took place. A good atlas will include information about people groups, political contexts, international conflicts, and the movements of individuals and groups of people at various points in history. Most hard copy Bibles have some maps in the back, but these don’t come close to providing the level of detail that a real atlas does. You can find a lot of great geographical information on the Internet, but it can be hard to determine the reliability of any particular source. Here are a few hard copy atlases that should be pretty accurate and detailed:

Study Bibles
Study Bibles are usually popular translations of the Bible interspersed with commentary. I made this a separate category from Bible Commentaries because a novice Bible student might mistake them for being more authoritative than other commentaries because the text is set side-by-side with the Bible, and yet they tend to be less rigorous and less reliable for that same reason. Keep in mind when reading any study Bible, that it is only commentary. I would avoid study Bibles with a pop focus, such as those written specifically for women, teens, or athletes. Here are a few that I think are better than most:

  • The Chumash: The Stone Edition
  • The Apologetics Study Bible
  • HCSB Study Bible

Lectionaries
Lectionaries provide lists of Bible passages to be read on specific dates or events. In my opinion, their greatest value lies in leading the reader to thematic connections between different passages that might not be obvious at first. Jewish tradition pairs a reading from the first 5 books of the Bible (this reading is called a Parsha) to a related passage in the Prophets (called a Haftarah). The second passage illustrates or expands on the meaning of the first. Many Christian denominations use lectionaries as well. If a lectionary includes liturgy, devotionals, or commentary, it could be a problem, but if it only pairs related Bible passages, it could make for some very interesting study material.

Devotionals
Devotionals are collections of short essays on Biblical topics, usually intended to be read daily. Their quality, value, and depth are all over the map. There are great devotionals and terrible devotionals. There is probably more devotional-type literature published than any other. I’m confident that you will find some great content in these:

Bible/Gospel Harmonies
A harmony is an attempt to create a single, chronological text from different accounts of the same events. For example, a gospel harmony combines the narratives of all four gospels into a unified, chronologically arranged account. Such a work necessarily involves some extra-biblical interpretation, because there are ambiguities in the original texts that require making some assumptions about the author’s intent to make them line up with the other accounts. I have only seen harmonies made of the gospels, but I’m sure someone must have attempted harmonies of the Torah and the historical books of the Old Testament as well. You can find them on the Internet or in book stores.

In general, I view harmonies as curiosities and little more. They never seem to deliver the value or clarity one would expect. On the other hand, you might learn a lot from compiling your own.

You can probably find hundreds of examples for each of these types of resources. I recommend researching the authors and their likely biases before ascribing much authority to them, and, of course, weigh everything they say against Scripture. You are unlikely to ever find an author or organization who agrees with you on every important detail, so don’t reject a tool just because it contains something you don’t like. Look at the whole work and decide for yourself whether you can learn enough from it to balance its potential errors. In time, you might even discover that that the author wasn’t wrong, but you were.

Pray. Read. Study. Meditate. Pray some more. May you be blessed and may God be glorified in everything that you do.

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Bear Fruit in Keeping with Repentance

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance...Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 3:8-10

But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18

When Israel made war with the nations that lived in the Promised Land, God commanded them to give no quarter. If those people fled before the army of Israel arrived, there was no need to pursue, but if they remained to fight, then every man, woman, child, and beast was to be killed.

That sounds extraordinarily harsh, but we must remember two things about God’s relationship to mankind:

First, God owns every one of us. He designed us, he created us, and he judges us. He is entirely within his rights to destroy us or rescue us by any means he chooses. Remember that you are the Ranger, not the Ford Motor Company. What right does a created thing have to demand anything from its creator?

Second, God knows our hearts better than we do. He knows what we have done and what we desire to do. The people of Canaan had engaged in such abominable religious practices that not even the most innocent babies among them had escaped guilt. Personally, I can’t even imagine what that looks like, and I don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to either, but God said it many times, so we can be assured that it is true.

But what about Rahab? She was one of those people that were to be devoted to complete destruction, but she was spared and even became an ancestor of Messiah Yeshua. How can we reconcile these two seemingly incompatible facts?

Immediately after the passage quoted above, Moses related God’s instructions concerning trees that might surround a city which Israel has besieged. Although it looks like an afterthought tacked onto the rules of war, there’s a reason it’s placed where it is.

When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.
Deuteronomy 20:19-20

Okay, but what does that have to do with Rahab? As the passage says, “Are the trees human, that you should besiege them?”

No, they aren’t. In fact, trees can’t in themselves be righteous or sinful, clean or unclean. This is one reason the rabbis give for why sukkot should be built of branches, and not hides.

On the other hand, Scripture often uses trees as a metaphor for people. The righteous are upright trees. Powerful men are cedars or oaks. Weak men are small trees or shrubs living in their shadows. Israel is an olive tree. Gentile believers are wild olive branches grafted into the tree of Israel.

Consider especially the parables Yeshua told about trees.

Speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees, Yeshua said,

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance…Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 3:8-10

Speaking of false prophets, he said,

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Matthew 7:15-20

When he encountered a fig tree that bore no fruit, he cursed it, and it died:

And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.
Mattthew 21:19

There are other examples, and in every one of them, the point Yeshua was trying to make was never about trees or edible fruit, but about people. Those who produce no good fruit for the kingdom were never part of the kingdom in the first place and will be cursed, cut down, and burned. Those that produce good fruit will be spared and tended so that they will bear yet more fruit.

This is the truth of Rahab that is hinted at in Deuteronomy 20:16-20: Even among the pagan Canaanites there can be found a few good trees baring good fruit. Rahab was just such a tree. When she saw the Hebrews coming, she recognized the power that was with them, the great Deliverer of Israel who destroyed all their enemies before them. She declared herself for Adonai and Israel and against Canaan, and she immediately began to bear good fruit by protecting the two spies who hid on her rooftop.

If, in the course of marching across Canaan and driving out the Hittites, Perizites, et al, the Israelites should encounter a rare good tree, baring good fruit, in a forest of the spiritually dead, God said they *must* spare that tree and make it one of their own.

Rahab and the good trees of the besieged cities of the Promised Land are you and me, the believing gentiles, who hear the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven encroaching on the Kingdom of Death, and who repent, declaring our allegiance to the King of Israel.

If we repent of our sins, submit to the One who conquered death, and commit to obeying his law, we are the good trees who are spared and the wild olive branches grafted into the cultivated tree of Israel. No longer gentiles at all, but joint heirs with Yeshua, as Paul said, with one God, one King, one Nation, and one Law.

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So You Shall Purge the Evil from Your Midst

Torah says we are to purge the evil from our midst. The words of Jesus and Paul tell us how to do that.

You cannot get a complete picture of God’s prescribed justice system by reading any single passage of the Torah. Rules for how to handle a particular sort of crime are in one place. Rules for handling a kind of investigation are in another. Guidelines for reporting and investigating allegations of idolatry are in yet another place.

I think this is by design. God doesn’t want a person to read only this or that part and dismiss the rest as not applicable to him. Although not every regulation is specifically addressed to every person, no person can effectively carry out what does apply to him without understanding what applies to everyone else. Remember that God told Ezekiel to measure and describe the Temple and to teach it to the people in order to make them ashamed. There are universal truths in every statement within Torah, and every person can learn something important even from those rules that are clearly not intended for him to follow in any literal sense.

Deuteronomy 17 describes three apparently disconnected aspects of justice:

  1. How to handle an allegation of idolatry. (Verses 2-7)
  2. How to handle a case that is too difficult for the local court. (Verses 8-13)
  3. How to ensure a king remains humble and accountable to God. (Verses 18-20)

I say “apparently” because they are connected by more than the overall theme of justice. For example, the sequence illustrates the roles and responsibilities of various members of the nation as their relative authority increases. The picture begins with individuals, moves to the community, then to the nation, and finally to the king.

One person may or may not be committing idolatry and some other person discovers it. If a person suspects his neighbor of idolatry, but he has no real evidence, he can’t snoop. He has to mind his own business. Nobody is allowed to go looking for people who might be worshiping idols without some basis.

However, if some evidence comes to light or if an accusation is made, then the community must get involved. There is no option. There must be a thorough investigation and a trial conducted by the authorities of the town or the city where the crime is alleged to have taken place. The accused is presumed innocent unless sufficient evidence is found and at least two truthful, qualified witnesses testify against him.

If the accused is found guilty by his neighbors, those same people are to take him to the town gates where he will be stoned to death. The witnesses must be the first to throw their stones.

So you shall purge the evil from your [community] midst. Deuteronomy 17:7b

The accused–and the entire community–is entitled to a public trial before a jury of his peers and in which he must be allowed to face his accusers and defend himself… That sounds awfully familiar.

If the case is too difficult for the local judges to decide, they are to take it to a high court in Jerusalem consisting of a panel of priests and whoever is judge over the nation at the time. (This would be someone like Joshua, Gideon, or Samson.) Whatever that court tells them to do, they must do. There are no appeals, no second opinions, and anyone who refuses to carry out the instructions of the high court must himself be put to death.

So you shall purge the evil from [the nation of] Israel. Deuteronomy 17:12b

This entire process requires that every member of the community is living in subjection to the community. There’s nothing wrong with an amount of “rugged individualism”, but a truly biblical lifestyle can only exist within the context of a community with a recognized authority structure. It doesn’t have to be very rigid or formal, but it has to exist and has to be able to respond when evil is found among the people.

And some evils are too large for a single community to handle.

Although Israel had no king at the time this law was given, it recognized that they might at some point and set out some rules for how a king is to behave: He is not to abuse his position to gain wealth, power, or prestige for himself. He is not to rely on military power, political alliances, or economic strength for security, but on God. He is not to oppress the people.

Finally, the king must become a lifelong Torah scholar beginning on the day he ascends to the throne. He is required to make a copy of the Torah for himself and to read it and meditate it on it every day of his life.

That his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel. Deuteronomy 17:20

In the first two sections, the focus of the text is on purging evil from Israel, but when we look at the king, the lens is reversed. It no longer focuses on removing what is wrong, but on building what is right.

Certainly the king would have a role in punishing wrongdoers and purging evil from the people, but his primary role isn’t as a law enforcement officer or even as a military commander. Before all else, the king must be a teacher of God’s ways, an exemplar of humble & consistent righteousness.

We can see these same principles all through the New Testament as well.

We are told not to be gossipers and fault-seekers, but rather to extend grace to one another. We are to yield to one another whenever possible, to act in good order for the benefit of the community as a whole. When there is some wrong, we aren’t to take matters into our own hands, but to first find out if there has been any actual wrong done, and if so to give opportunity for repentance.

A note here: The rules in Deuteronomy 17 require a complete system. No individual, church, or synagogue may carry out these instructions. They are given in the context of a community and a nation that honors God’s Law. Only the community is authorized to investigate, try, and condemn the accused. Only a national court of priests and the judge is authorized to try the most difficult cases. We cannot execute idolaters or anyone else strictly according to God’s commands in modern America because that execution itself would be in violation of God’s commands.

If someone in our congregations is found to be an idolater, an adulterer, or guilty of any other serious sin, we should be certain of the facts first, and if the guilty refuses to repent, then we are to expel that person from our midst, but until our whole people accept God’s Law, that must be the end of it. Once they are outside of our congregation, they are no longer our responsibility, but God’s. (1 Corinthians 5:13)

We don’t have communities, judges, and national leaders who respect God’s Law. We don’t even have many churches or synagogues who do.

What we do have–and what we must have more of–are community leaders who follow the example of the king in Deuteronomy 17, who take God’s Law seriously, who study it and meditate on it daily. As long as our teachers, elders, preachers, pastors, and rabbis continue to reject the clear instruction of God, we can’t expect our community members to do any better.

As Paul wrote, don’t accuse people casually and don’t appoint them to leadership casually either. Our leaders must be men above reproach, men of honor in the eyes of both men and God, men who are not respecters of position or abusers of power. We need men who love God and love their own people as brothers, not subjects.

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
1 Timothy 3:1-7