Jason Hensley - The Gospel of Peace - Class 4 - Eye for an Eye

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1. 0:02

   So this is the 2023 Manitoulin Family Bible Camp. Our speaker for this session is Brother Jason Hensley from the Simi Hills, California Ecclesia. His theme this week is the Gospel of Peace. This is his fourth class and the subject for this class is eye for an Eye. Brother Jason. Good morning, everyone.

2. 0:35

   Whoa. All right. I got to do this carefully. OK, there we go. All right, it’s very good to see you. Hey, you’re here. You’re not the sorry. Yeah, OK, sorry. I didn’t. I got. I got excited. All right, so here we are class class #4I for an I. This OK, so I told you yesterday that I was most excited about yesterday’s class. That’s because that was yesterday and now I’m most excited about this class.

3. 1:08

   So here we go. Take a look at this eye for an eye. I think this is this is most exciting to me because it really it was very paradigm shifting for me. So we’re going to look at exceptions people as exceptions and principles, not exceptions. Now you’ll notice that those first two sections, they have question marks, right? So it’s like exceptions or people as exceptions, you know, is it that?

4. 1:33

   Is that how it’s it how it is? And the answer is no, it’s not. So we’ll see that that that’s not actually how it goes. We’re not looking at exceptions. Now we want to go over the core message from our past few days. So core message for day number one was peace matters. That’s right.

5. 1:50

   So peace matters. Good. How about day #2 all shades of peace are interconnected. Very good. OK. Day three. What was that? Yes. Well, you’re close. You know what? And I’m standing here now and I can’t remember it. Uh oh. That’s not good. Peace is universal. That’s right. There you go. Thank you. Peace is universal, man.

6. 2:22

   That’s bad. OK. Peace is universal. Here we go. I always, you know what, the same thing happened with me on the teens too. I apparently need to fix that one. OK, here’s our one for today. The Law of Moses taught peace. Now, that’s a big one because so often we look at the law and it doesn’t look like that at all, and it looks violent. You know, this is one of the things I get confronted with when I’m teaching at university, right? My students will say to me.

7. 2:55

   What’s the deal with genocide in the Bible? Like explain that to me. And I’m sorry, we’re going to talk about that tomorrow, but but for now, we’re just going to lay the foundation, right? So what I want to suggest to you is in fact, we we have kind of missed the big picture, or maybe I should say I missed the big picture for a long time.

8. 3:14

   And then in fact, I think what God was trying to do was he was trying to teach the Israelites peace via the law. Now there’s a couple of things that I need to say first. First off, we know that the law was good, right? Holy, just, and good. So we know that for sure.

9. 3:30

   I want to acknowledge that at the beginning, I’m not saying in any kind of way that the law was bad. I think the law fulfilled exactly what it was supposed to do. However, I think what it was supposed to do is perhaps different than maybe what we sometimes think. I’m going to. Suggest to you that the law was supposed to teach that law is broken, that law does not work, and I think God puts this system in so that people. Who are working through it would say, wait a minute, this doesn’t work right?

10. 4:05

    Have you ever, have you ever looked through the law of the sin offerings? This is Leviticus chapter 4. Have you ever looked through the law of the sin offering? Let’s just do it now. Actually, let’s let’s go ahead and open up to Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 4.

11. 4:19

    Look at this and see if you notice a common theme here. Leviticus chapter 4. I’ll go ahead and read these and look for what all of these instances have in common. So under the law, different people had to offer different sin offerings depending on who you were in society. So just take a look now at verse 2.

12. 4:41

    Leviticus 4, verse two. So this is the first instance. Leviticus 4 two says, speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them, then et cetera, they will bring a sin offering.

13. 4:58

    OK, that’s the first one. Now take a look at verse 13. Verse 13 says and if the whole congregation of Israel sinned through ignorance and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, it goes on, they need to offer a sin offering. Then take a look at verse 22. Verse 22 says when a ruler has sinned and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord, is God OK?

14. 5:26

    Verse 27 next scenario, verse 27 says, and if any one of the common people sinned through ignorance. Do you notice what’s in common here? Every situation was a sin through ignorance. Now if you are a person who thinks about the law and who tries to put it together right, just imagine this. You are an ancient Israelite and you sin.

15. 5:47

    You then have to try and figure out is this a sin through ignorance. Now let me just ask you, can you remember the last time you sinned accidentally?

16. 5:57

    Sinning accidentally is not a thing. Like, I mean, what, what is it? Like you, you have an arm spasm or something and you whack somebody like they’re not going to be like, that was a sin or something like or, or what, Like somebody’s wallet accidentally sticks to your hand, right? Like this is not you don’t have accidental sins.

17. 6:21

    And So what you have in the law is you have this system that people would look at it and they’d be like, oh, good sin offerings like this is how I can be, you know, this is how I can get pardoned. And they look at that and they think, what, well, what do I do if I got mad at my brother and I punched him in the face, right? There is no offering for that.

18. 6:41

    This is why when you come to Psalm 51, you remember what David writes about in Psalm 51. He says sacrifice and offering thou what is not right. Now we take that and we take it sort of as a general kind of thing. And we say, look, it wasn’t really about the sacrifices and offerings. And that’s right.

19. 6:58

    But I think we missed the nuance of what David’s saying. He’s writing about the fact that he committed adultery and that he killed his friend. And he’s saying, I’m looking at the law and I’m realizing I can’t offer anything. I’m dead. That’s David’s point in Psalm 51. He says, there is nothing that I can do. I’m in trouble.

20. 7:21

    And I think that is what everybody was supposed to come to. They were supposed to open up their Torah and say. Oh, oh, I’m in trouble and they were supposed to look for something else. So I want to suggest to you that God builds the law. Specifically so that throughout someone’s life they would run into these instances where they would say, but I can’t do that or but that’s not going to work. I’ll give you another one, Exodus Chapter 12. You can go there if you want.

21. 7:54

    Exodus Chapter 12 is the story of the Exodus. Obviously, it’s the story of Passover. So it’s the story of the first Passover. Now here’s an interesting question for you. Story of the first Passover. What day of the month were they supposed to get their lamb? 10th, right, 10th day of the month. When were they supposed to sacrifice the lamb? 14th day.

22. 8:16

    Now it’s very interesting. They’re supposed to get it on the 10th. They’re supposed to sacrifice it on the 14th. Now when God comes to Moses, he says get your lamb on the 10th, sacrifice it on the 14th. The only problem is, is that if you go back one chapter, you will find out that an Exodus 11, Moses tells Pharaoh that tonight at midnight the final plague will come.

23. 8:41

    What does that tell you about what day it is? It’s the 14th day. In other words, God approaches Moses and God says to Moses. OK, Moses on the 10th day of the month, get a lamb. And Moses is like, but God, that was four days ago, right? Like how am I supposed to do that? And so if you read through the chapter, what you will find is that Moses when he brings the commandments to the people, guess what he leaves out?

24. 9:14

    He doesn’t say get a lamb on the 10th day because they couldn’t, it was impossible. God gives them. The first commandment that they ever receive as a nation, they can’t keep. This is what God does. Right. He’s constantly giving these commandments so that people would look at them and say, wait a minute, what do you mean I can’t do that?

25. 9:36

    And God says exactly that’s the point. So here’s your why. Question why don’t we follow the law today? I think often we’ll say things like, well, the Lord Jesus fulfilled the law, and that’s true, He did. But I think in addition, it’s because we realize that it’s impossible and that that’s what God wanted us to see. And then instead he was trying to teach principles from the fact that you could not follow the law. So let’s take a look at how this works out. So we’re going to walk through these exceptions, question mark and then people as exceptions.

26. 10:11

    So I want to just show, I think how sometimes we approach the law and why that doesn’t often. Work, so take a look. Exception #1 priests on the Sabbath. So we know Exodus 31 verse 15 that you would work for six days. 7th day you rested. And if you did not rest on the 7th day, what happens? Death.

27. 10:33

    OK, so it’s pretty straightforward. Now again, remember this is how law works. So law is law. You read what it says, you do what it says. It’s it’s an easy thing to understand. So therefore, when you get to the book of Numbers, consider this Numbers 28 verse nine. On the Sabbath day make an offering of two lambs a year old without defect, together with its drink offering and a grain offering of 2/10 of an EFA of finest flower mixed with olive oil. OK, so we know six days you work, 7th day you rest, if you don’t, you die.

28. 11:03

    God then says, on the Sabbath day, make sure that you offer an offering of two lambs a year. Old with that defect. Now, I can imagine there were a lot of priests who did not want to do that because that was the end of your life. I mean, if you’re following what the law says, right, you don’t work on the Sabbath. So they had to figure out a way around this. Now I’m going to suggest to you this should have been immediately an instance of oh look, the law is contradicting itself.

29. 11:33

    Right, that must mean something’s going on. But instead, it became an opportunity to look for exceptions. So consider this, this guy up here, Rabbi Shlomo Benitsak, he is often referred to as Rashi. Anybody here heard of Rashi? I know. I know You have, Martha. Yeah. We we talk about Rashi. So Rashi is the big deal, right?

30. 11:55

    If you are, if you are Jewish, you you really pay attention to what Rashi says. He’s a major Jewish commentator. In fact, his words are considered so influential that they are appended to most Talmuds. That gives you a sense of of Rashi. So here’s Rashi. Here’s what he says about it. He says Exodus 3114. That’s the verse that we just looked at. He says everyone that profaneth it, the Sabbath shall surely be put to death, which apparently is in contradiction with Numbers 28 verse 9.

31. 12:18

    Right. So he notices. And on the Sabbath day you shall offer two lambs a command necessitating actions which, look at this, if done for any other purposes on the Sabbath, would involve a profanation of that day. Do you see what he just did? He just said, but it’s an exception. Right, We know that God commanded this, God commanded this. There can’t be a contradiction.

32. 12:37

    So therefore we’ll just say it’s an exception. Now that’s fine, right? It’s fine to take it as an exception. The only thing is, is that when you open up the door to exceptions, notice what happens. There were two straightforward commands, right? Law was easy at this point. Don’t work on the Sabbath, offer offerings on the Sabbath. So those are our two commands.

33. 12:55

    Problem is is that we have to try and figure out how they go together and when we go the exception route. Look at what happens. We get. Do not work on the Sabbath unless you’re a priest and a priest who’s supposed to offer the weekly offering, right? If you were just a priest, well, you couldn’t work on the Sabbath, you know, you couldn’t, like, go garden.

34. 13:10

    You had to be the priest who is the one designated to offer the offering. OK #2 offer offerings on the Sabbath, but only if you’re a priest and the priest who’s supposed to offer the weekly offering, right? It suddenly gets way bigger. Now, you might be thinking, OK, but that’s like, manageable, right?

35. 13:25

    No big deal. You just figure that out. Well, it’s not manageable because this is what the Talmud is. Right. The Talmud are it’s all these conversations about how do you take the Torah and implement it in this situation and in this situation. So let me ask you this. What do you think? Do you think the Talmud is bigger or smaller than our 66 book Bible?

36. 13:50

    Any thoughts? Yeah, Huger. Right. Anyone know how many volumes are in the Talmud? 42? It takes up an entire bookshelf. Not like like a whole bookcase. It’s 42 volumes to describe. Remember our books, our Bibles have 66 books. They have 5.

37. 14:14

    They have taken the commandments of the first five books. And the Talmud goes on to explain all of the commentary on all of these, right? 42 volumes. This is what happens when we go the exception route, right? And if you look at it, you know right now that there’s something called Daphiomi, which is it reads, you read one page of the Talmud every day, right? So I, so I do this.

38. 14:35

    Maybe I shouldn’t admit that that’s kind of kind of weird. But don’t worry. I also do my daily readings in case you’re, you know, so I do a lot more Bible than Talmud, but Dafyomian right now they’re walking through Geton. Is this this section of the Talmud and what it’s all about? It’s called Geton because a get is the bill of divorcement that a husband was supposed to give to his wife when they were going to get divorced, right? It’s called a GET.

39. 14:59

    And the entire book, right, so one whole book of the Talmud is dedicated to what is a get, right? Like it’s things like what kind of paper is it supposed to be on? Who can deliver it? And, you know, if you send the wrong person, like if it’s a slave who’s only this old and you know, all these kind of things, well then it’s not actually valid.

40. 15:17

    And so, you know, you could have been living as a divorced person for years and years, but actually you’re married, you know, like it’s, it’s all kinds of stuff like that, right. This is what happens. When we go the exception route, we start to create more rules and more rules and more rules until we have 42 volumes of rules so.

41. 15:37

    Here’s the other piece. Now, if I were to ask you, OK, well, if you take this as an exception, well, what’s it teaching, right? What do you learn from this? Well, here’s what you get. Here are the big lessons. Priests can break the Sabbath, right? But only if they’re offering the weekly offering.

42. 15:55

    That’s our application, right? Is that going to change your life? No, I mean, who cares? What’s what’s that going to do? OK, now I let me give you another example of how some of the the Talmudic sages or not not the Talmudic. Sages, this is, this is just medieval Jewish sages, how they’ve taken it.

43. 16:14

    So this Shiskuni is a book written by Rabbi Hezekiah Ben Benoah in the in the 1200s. This is what he says about it. He says all the offerings are described as being offered with either the word assa, something being carried out, or with the word hakharov, something being presented. Seeing that basically such activities as offering sacrifices are forbidden on the Sabbath, the Torah avoids the use of these terms in connection with the communal offerings that are mandatory on the Sabbath. Nonetheless, I know I read that fast, so I’ll tell you what he’s saying.

44. 16:42

    He mentions those two Hebrew words. Those are both. Those are verbs. And what he’s saying is, whenever you offer an offering, you have to offer it, or you have to. Burn it or make it or something like that. And he says, amazingly, that verse. Doesn’t have a verb. And he says, look, that was on purpose. God doesn’t have a verb because that way you don’t violate the Sabbath because you’re not working right like so you’ll actually see this in the Jewish publication society version of this verse.

45. 17:12

    Look at this. There’s no verb on the Sabbath day colon two yearling lambs without blemish, 2/10 of a measure of choice, flour with oil mixed in as a meal offering with a proper libation. It doesn’t say offer because. That would be violating the Sabbath. So you can see again how this becomes just all about rules.

46. 17:35

    Here’s another one for you. So here’s our next exception. Again, these are things that should have caused people to say, wait, this doesn’t work. But instead, look at what happens. This is Leviticus 1919. It says keep my decrees. Do not make different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. That’s what we want to notice, clothing woven of two kinds of material.

47. 17:55

    Deuteronomy 2211 gets a little more. Explicit, it says. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. So no wool and linen. So two kinds of material was not allowed, specifically wool and linen. Now that’s really interesting because you might recall that in Exodus 28, God details the the clothing of the high priest. And notice what he says.

48. 18:18

    He says make the ephod of gold and a blue, purple and scarlet yarn. Well, guess what yarn’s made out of wool. Right, OK, and a finely twisted linen. Now that’s interesting. Deuteronomy 2211 says do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. So you actually have a contradiction once again. Now, in fact, the rabbis of the Talmud notice this, right? They’re very bothered by this fact because you’re not supposed to have the contradictions so.

49. 18:50

    They talk about it in the Talmud. Here’s what they say, everyone is obligated in the mitzvah of ritual fringes. So our context here is the fringes that they would have on their garments. So that’s another another piece where this kind of came in and they were trying to figure this out how the fringes go with this idea of not having multiple kinds of, of cloth, they say, including priests, Levites and Israelites.

50. 19:09

    The Gomorrah asks, isn’t that obvious as if priests, Levites and Israelites were exempt from the mitzvah, who then is to be obligated? Mitzvah means commandment. Who then, is to be obligated? The Gemara answers It was necessary for the bright of the mention that priests are obligated to fulfill the mitzvah, as it may enter your mind to say as follows. Since it is written, you shall not wear diverse kinds, wool and linen together.

51. 19:30

    You shall prepare for yourself twisted cords upon the four corners of your covering. Only one who is not permitted to wear diverse kinds is obligated in the mitzvah of ritual fringes. OK, I know that’s a lot of stuff like to try and put together. In other words, what they’re saying is this is an exception, right?

52. 19:49

    They say you have, you can’t have these two different kinds of materials, but you are allowed to if you’re allowed to, basically. They then go on with regard to these priests, since diverse kinds are permitted for them when they perform the temple service, right. That’s the garment that we were talking about. It says as the belt of the priestly vestments contains diverse kinds. That’s what we were looking at.

53. 20:12

    They should not be obligated in the mitzvah of ritual fringes. Therefore, the burrita teaches us that although the prohibition of diverse kinds is permitted for them at the time when they perform the temple service, so they can wear diverse kinds when they’re performed in temple service, when it is not the time of the temple service, it is not permitted.

54. 20:28

    And therefore priests are obligated in the mitzvah of ritual fringes. OK, I know you look at that and you’re like, whoa, OK, I’ll summarize it for you. 3 original commands, right? Priests wear clothes of multiple materials #2 don’t mix materials. 3 Israelites wear fringes. Those turn into this. Priests wear clothes in multiple materials, but only if they’re working in the temple. Don’t mix materials unless you’re a priest working in the temple, and the mixture can only happen on your belt #3 Israelites have to wear fringes unless you’re a priest and you’re working in the temple, Right? But if you’re a priest and you’re not working in the temple, then you can’t wear fringes like or then you do wear anyway.

55. 21:07

    Whoa, it’s, it’s like, it’s a lot of things to try, but this is what happens when we start to make rules, right? The rules start to. Contradict and and you know. We’re like, what do we do? But that’s the whole point, right? That’s what God wanted us to see, that this doesn’t work. OK.

56. 21:22

    And by the way, then what do you learn? Here’s your big lessons. Don’t mix fabrics unless God says to and wear fringes, right? Like those are not helpful lessons. Like what are you going to do? Go home and be like, well, I guess this was the lesson I better put fringes on my suit. Like that’s that’s not the point. But that becomes the point when we start going the exception route.

57. 21:45

    I will. I want to tell you a little story here. Somehow, and I don’t know how I got, I got on the mailing list of a local Habad. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Habad’s, but it’s a, it’s a, a subsection of ultra Orthodox Judaism. So in fact, what they’re known for is they’re known for preaching to other Jews, right? So the, they’ll often drive around in vans. They do this a lot in Brooklyn.

58. 22:12

    And then I don’t know if they do it in Jerusalem too, but I would assume they do they, they’ll jump out of the van when they see somebody who’s Jewish, right? And they’ll say, you know, are you wearing your fringes today? And like, if they say no, then they’ll say, do you want one, right? Or like, you know, do you have your Shabbat candles like that sort of thing?

59. 22:28

    And they’ll, they’ll go through and you know, like try and get people to follow these things. Somehow I ended up on their mailing list and I got a, a Mailer that goes along with kind of their ideology of trying to get Jews to come towards Orthodox, ultra Orthodox Judaism. And it said, come and learn about your roots.

60. 22:44

    Judaism one O 1. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. Sure, we’ll go. So Ruth and I went to Judaism one O 1 sat there as Rabbi Shlomo talked to us about the 613 mitzvot. Mitzvot means commandments. And he was talking about there’s 613 commandments. We follow all of these. It’s important. And so I raised my hand and I said, can you please explain to me why we follow them?

61. 23:08

    You know, why? Why is it important for us to follow these commandments? And he said, OK. Have you ever watched the movie Karate Kid? And I said what? And he said, have you ever watched the movie Karate Kid? And I said, I don’t know, maybe like when I was little. And he said, well.

62. 23:28

    It’s all about a young man who wants to learn karate. So he goes to his teacher and he says, teach me karate. And the teacher says, OK, I’ll, I’ll teach you. Here’s what you do. Grab a rake or something like that. And he grabs a rake and he starts doing this manual labor, right?

63. 23:42

    He’s doing it for a long time. And he finally gets frustrated and he says, why am I doing this right? I asked you to learn karate. Why are you having me rake? So the teacher says you do not understand now. Why I’m having you do this, but someday you will. And he said that’s exactly how it is with a 613 minutes vote.

64. 24:03

    We don’t know why we do them, but someday we will understand. And that’s what happens, right when we go the exception route. And we do this too. I think a lot of times we come to the law and we look at the law and we don’t ask what was the principle. We end up just saying, well this is what God commanded or something like that and we missed the point. Right.

65. 24:25

    The the point was not where fringes, because someday you’ll understand why, right? And yet this, this is very clearly where the exception route goes. This is from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, she says to the rabbis of the Talmud and later generations. Shatnes. That’s the idea that you don’t combine two kinds of cloth. Shatnes was the paradigm of a hoax, which is a law without any logical explanation. And that’s.

66. 24:52

    Where we get right you, you get to this and you just think, well, I have no idea. I guess I’m just supposed to wear fringes and that’s the end. Here’s another one. Sleeping with your brother’s wife. I know that probably sounds kind of bad. That sounds really bad actually. But, but let me just let me, let me show you what I mean here. And again, this is one that the rabbi’s debate over Leviticus 1816 says do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife that would dishonor your brother. That’s very straightforward, right? However, it becomes less straightforward when you read Deuteronomy 25.

67. 25:23

    Five. If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. So you have again, two laws that contradict one another. Now, you might be looking at that and saying they don’t contradict, right?

68. 25:39

    This is a different situation. You know what kind of thinking that is? That’s thinking of exceptions, right? This you got to think about the laws, right? Laws are straightforward and so you take them at face value, right? That’s how that’s how it goes. So these two contradict one another. And this is what the rabbi’s noticed. This is Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman.

69. 26:01

    This this guy’s got my favorite name, but he’s the Rambon. Or sometimes you’ll hear him called Nachmanides. But Rambon, I I like that one better. He. I think he was Rashi’s grandson. I’m not. Do you know? You don’t know? OK, I’m not sure either, but I I think he might have been anyway. This is, this is what he writes.

70. 26:18

    So consider this. There was no need anymore to mention it as an exception, just as Scripture has not specified the exception to the rule about the Sabbath when stating everyone that profaneth it shall be put to death except for the service of the offerings, or in the case of Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife.

71. 26:35

    Except for a brother’s childless wife, he says. It’s so obvious that you don’t need to say that it’s an exception, because otherwise, I mean, how does it work otherwise? But the point is, is that it doesn’t work. That was the whole idea.

72. 26:50

    This is again from Chis Cuny. It says the Taurus strictly forbade marrying the wife of a brother, but made an exception. Again, exception if said brother had died without children and encouraged a surviving brother to marry the widow who had been his brother’s wife in order to provide him with issue. So you get 2 original commands. Don’t sleep with your relatives.

73. 27:06

    Marry your brother’s wife if he dies and have children with her which become do not sleep with your relatives except your sister-in-law when your brother has died and they have no children. So what do you learn from that, right? Like, it gets really weird. Don’t sleep with your sleep with your sister-in-law unless God says to. Like, is that what you’re supposed to learn? Like that’s really strange.

74. 27:25

    That’s not a good lesson, you know, to take from things. But that’s where law thinking goes. This kind of thing happens all over the place, right? I gave you just a handful of examples. But what about circumcision on the eighth day? Right? The Lord Jesus brings that up. What are you supposed to do? How about rescuing an animal on the Sabbath? How about saving a life on the Sabbath? These are all major Talmudic debates, right? In fact, in the 1st century, the essence, the Pharisees and Jesus all had a different stance on this, about how you could save life on a Sabbath.

75. 27:56

    Like there were all these various gradations of what was allowed and what wasn’t. So you can harmonize 2 contradicting laws by talking about exceptions, right? But when you start to try and harmonize the entire Torah by creating exceptions, that’s where you end up with 42 volumes of Talmud. The problem though, I think, is that God wants us to realize that we can’t actually harmonize things with exceptions. 42 volumes is not harmonizing.

76. 28:27

    That’s just creating more laws. So what he did is I think he created situations where you couldn’t have exceptions. Take a look at this. This is our people as exceptions. Look at Deuteronomy 23 verse one. No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. Now that clearly excludes some people.

77. 28:53

    It’s got to exclude Daniel and his three friends, right? They were made eunuchs in Babylon. Now you could. Say, Oh well, they were exceptions. You know what the problem with that is? Guess how many people were eunuchs that were part of the congregation of the Lord? There are four people in all the scripture.

78. 29:12

    Now, you can’t say that the only four people that this applies to in the Bible are the four exceptions. That doesn’t work, right? That that’s that like doesn’t work with the definition of an exception. An exception cannot be the whole. So God creates scenarios in which you either have to go the exception route or you have to say this doesn’t work.

79. 29:34

    And when you go the exception route, guess what? That doesn’t work either. So this is what I think he’s doing. You see this very strongly in Deuteronomy 23 verse two. If you go on, no one born of a forbidden marriage, nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the 10th generation.

80. 29:51

    New King James says one of illegitimate birth. There’s a little bit of a discussion here on what exactly this word means. It’s mom’s heir. It’s only used twice. And when the words not used very often in the Bible, it makes it kind of hard to figure it out. So again, the rabbis of the Talmud kind of debated on this.

81. 30:07

    What they often came to was this word mamser meant anybody who was born out of a relation that would have resulted in karat, which was cutting off, right? So do you notice that like under the law where it says he who does this will be cut off from the congregation of his people, right?

82. 30:24

    So anything like adultery, anything like fornication, any of those things, those would all be considered something punishable by karat and a mamser or a person that would be. Excluded because of illegitimate birth would be. One of those people that comes from one of those unions. OK, so let me ask you this. Who would that apply to scripturally? Any thoughts?

83. 30:46

    Jeptha. Yes. So this commandment would exclude Jeptha from the congregation. Anyone else? So that’s an interesting one. A lot of people would have thought it should exclude Jesus, right?

84. 31:07

    It also would have perhaps excluded Solomon. Now, I want to suggest to you, I think there’s somebody else that would have excluded, and this person’s a kind of a big deal. Take a look again at Psalm 51. Psalm 51. We often read this verse as though this verse is specifically about human nature, and maybe it is.

85. 31:31

    You know, you can, you can take it that way, that it’s saying that, you know, our flesh is sinful. That’s all right if you want to go in that route. However, I would suggest that contextually that doesn’t make sense. Here’s why. Psalm 51, verse five and the NIV reads surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

86. 31:54

    In the ESV, which is a little closer to what the Hebrew reads, it says, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin. Did my mother conceive me? Now the question becomes, David is writing about his adultery with Bathsheba. Why would he bring up his birth story? Now he might be just saying, look, I I’m a sinful person because everybody’s sinful. That could fit contextually.

87. 32:18

    I’m a sinful person because everybody’s sinful. But to me, contextually, what makes more sense is David saying this is a sin, adultery. This is a sin that has followed me my entire life, right? I was born out of that kind of relationship and now I’ve experienced that myself. I would suggest that to you now, in case you’re thinking, you know, I’m I’m going crazy here and making all this up.

88. 32:45

    This is not this is not my idea. This you you can find this in a number of various writings. This also, though, I think you can support it biblically. I think this explains for Samuel 16. I think we get pretty used to first Samuel 16 and we just, you know, we read it of Oh yeah, David was left with the sheep, right.

89. 33:04

    But Can you imagine? Just try and play this out. Here is one of the most important people in the country. Coming to your house and says I want to have dinner with your family, right? So you say, oh, good, OK, get everybody together, we’re going to have dinner except for the youngest kid. They can’t come.

90. 33:23

    They’re not going to have dinner with with the family. It’s really weird. And then it gets even weirder, right? Because Samuel says to Jesse. I’m going to anoint your kids. Jesse’s probably thinking, you know, anointing to be a prophet, something like that, right? It’s not kidding because otherwise they would have gotten in trouble with Saul. But.

91. 33:39

    Samuel says, OK, do you do you have any more children? And what does Jesse say? Jesse’s like, huh. I do, right. Like, yeah, I have one that’s out there with the sheep. Like, that’s weird. Like, have you have you ever thought about that? Like, but the reason that he just completely ignores David is likely because he didn’t think David was qualified.

92. 34:02

    Like, why? Why bring David here? Because it’s he’s obviously not going to be the one who gets anointed. This explains why David is hated by his brothers, right? There’s there’s a whole side to a lot of these things. In addition to that, you might notice that the term son of Jesse is used as a pejorative throughout the record. First Samuel 20 verse 30.

93. 34:23

    Notice the connection here. Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, you son of a perverse and rebellious woman. Have you ever wondered why Saul says that? That’s like a terrible insult. Like it doesn’t even make sense. Like you wouldn’t insult Jonathan, right? You don’t insult his mom or your wife. He he says your mom was fooling around. You’re not really my son, right?

94. 34:45

    Why does he say that? Because look what he’s about to say. Do I know, don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse, right? You’re just like him, he says. The son of Jesse, to your own shame and the shame of the mother who mother who bore you first name in 2510? Nabal answered.

95. 35:02

    David’s servants. Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse, right? The son of Jesse is used as essentially a bad word. Now contrast that then in first Samuel 24 verse 16, when David cuts off a piece of Saul’s garment, you will notice that David holds up the garment. Saul comes out of The Cave and he says, Is that your voice, David? My son.

96. 35:28

    So depending on how he’s feeling about David, it changes what he calls him. That term, Son of Jesse, seems to be used as a way to minimize David. So anyway you can you can do. What you want with that, that’s that’s something that I think, I think it makes the record make more sense. There’s there’s numerous like legends and whatnot that have developed traditionally about this. But you know, you never know.

97. 35:54

    Legends are not Bible, right? So that’s why I’m not sharing any of those. In addition to that, I think you can also compare Jeptha. Take a look at how Jeptha’s story mirrors David. Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead, his mother was a prostitute. Gilead’s wife also bore him sons and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away.

98. 36:13

    Doesn’t that remind you of David? You are not going to get any inheritance in our family, they said, because you are the son of another woman. So this is the kind of relationship you see with David and his brothers too. OK. So regardless, maybe David is included in this, but you? Have to ask, so these are the handful of people again, who are born out of wedlock in Scripture, and are they just exceptions? No, they can’t be because they’re the only ones. It’s the same thing.

99. 36:44

    Here’s one last one for you. No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the 10th generation. Now, if you read that in Hebrew, you get even in the 10th generation. And then this part here that’s underlined, which translates like this. They cannot come into the congregation of Yahweh through eternity.

100. 37:02

     So this verse, sometimes we read it, particularly in the KJV, we read it as though it’s saying they have 10 generations and then they can come in. That’s not what the Hebrew says. This is saying even in the 10th generation, like as though, you know, that’s a really long time. They can’t come in forever.

101. 37:18

     They will never enter the congregation is what it’s saying. Now that’s interesting because that excludes Ruth, David, Solomon, every single king of Judah, because they’re all descendants of David and Jesus, right? Like, can you see a broken law here? And yet that’s that’s the point, right? Ruth, Ruth comes in and people were supposed to be like, what? You know what is going on?

102. 37:45

     Why is a Moabite here? And This is why. If you read through Ruth, it’s constantly calling her Ruth the Moabite, right? People are using it again like a bad word. They’re like root the Moabites over there. Oh, it’s the Moabite woman from Moab. I mean, this is what they call her, right? Like you don’t need to know that she’s the Moabite woman from Moab.

103. 38:04

     Like, come on. That’s pretty obvious. I’m the Californian from California. Like it’s, it doesn’t make any sense. But they’re doing that because they know the commandment and they’re trying to say she shouldn’t be here. And God says, yes, she should. And that’s what we’re being shown with all these exceptions. God is creating a law, and he’s breaking the law to show that law doesn’t work.

104. 38:37

     It’s a lot of exceptions. And the point is, is that it’s not actually exceptions. They’re not exceptions. Instead, what God was teaching was principles. So we know that right when we come to the New Testament. You have the Lord Jesus. And he explains these things. Right, He says in Matthew 12 verses 3:00 to 8:00, he answered, Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the House of God.

105. 39:00

     He and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests or here it is, right? He brings out the contradiction. Haven’t you read in the law that the priests on the Sabbath day, they do their duty in the temple, they desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent. I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. So now he’s going to explain.

106. 39:20

     Here’s the whole point. If you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Now here’s what’s fascinating about this. The Lord Jesus says it was actually about the principle. It was about the principle.

107. 39:33

     I desire mercy and not sacrifice. He says that was the whole point. Now what’s astonishing about that though, is think about the commandment he’s referring to. He’s looking at a commandment that says morning and evening every Sabbath. What will you do offer sacrifices and what does the Lord Jesus say? The principle is I want mercy and not sacrifice. What?

108. 40:00

     How do you get I want mercy and not sacrifice from a law that says make sacrifices? How does that make any sense? The way you get it is by realizing that the law that says I want sacrifices is broken, and you realize that it’s not about. Those words, but it’s about saying there’s got to be something beyond the sacrifices, right?

109. 40:29

     That’s what you were to be brought to, to say this doesn’t work. I can’t be forgiven for my sins. I don’t accidentally sin. Right. What do I? What do I? Do and to then realize the principle is I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You see the same thing here in Luke 14 verses one to six. One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the House of a prominent Pharisee, He was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body.

110. 40:55

     Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remain silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on His way. Then he asked them, If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?

111. 41:11

     And they had nothing to say. So what do you what do you think? What do you think? Is the principle from this it looks like he’s saying the point of the Sabbath was to preserve life. Now again, how do you get that from a command that says rest?

112. 41:32

     How do you get God loves life from rest? And this again is because the principles are so much bigger than the individual commands. From what you were supposed to do was you were supposed to learn the principles by looking at the ways that the commands interacted and how they didn’t work. This is why we see the law imploding on itself. With the Lord Jesus.

113. 41:55

     Right, in Galatians chapter 3, the apostle Paul says that the law of Moses was no longer in effect. It couldn’t possibly be. The Law of Moses implodes because it curses the one who followed it perfectly, right? It broke itself, and that’s what everyone was supposed to realize. They were supposed to see that century after century after century as they tried to follow this law and it didn’t work. And so finally God puts his son on a cross to show the law can’t work.

114. 42:28

     It breaks. You follow it perfectly. And what does it do? It curses you. So we’ve now spent 45 minutes talking about the law and you may be wondering what does this have anything to do with peace? Well, the law is notoriously unpeaceful, right? This, you know, the, the, the consequence of somebody does this and you kill them. That’s not peaceful.

115. 42:58

     And I think a lot of times maybe you’re not this way, but for me I used this totally as a justification for being a non peaceful person. Right. I would say, look, God says that deserves death. I’m not killing them, right? So, you know, I’m, I’m being nice. I’ll just yell a lot.

116. 43:18

     Right, like, and this is this is how we go about it. We say, see, this shows us that brings death, that shows us God hates this. So we’re I’m going to go hate on that person who’s doing it and we use it as a justification. Now I want to suggest to you that again, that’s a complete misunderstanding, because when we see this bigger picture.

117. 43:38

     We realized that we shouldn’t be looking at the commandment, we should be looking at the principle. And so the. Question is, what’s the underlying principle? And a lot of times the principle is that this law didn’t work and instead God calls for the opposite. Oh, let me show you Exodus. 21 verse 23 to 25. Here it is.

118. 44:02

     If they’re serious injury, this is where it says two men are wrestling with one another, right? And they bump into a woman who’s pregnant. If they’re serious injury, you were to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

119. 44:16

     Same thing. Leviticus 2117 to 21. Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution. Life for life. Anyone who injuries their neighbors to be injured in the same manner, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, the one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.

120. 44:33

     Whoever kills an animal must wreck restitution. But whoever kills a human being? Is to be put to death. Now, in some cases we look at that and we think, wow, that would be a very just society, right? You if you kill somebody, you get killed. If you injure someone’s hand, then your hand is injured.

121. 44:52

     I had somebody say to me before, well, this would have been fair because it was done with the priests. And, you know, we don’t really know that, but sure, you know, I’ll give that to you. OK, Let’s just imagine that this is being done with the priest. So try and play it out, right?

122. 45:09

     This is what we’re supposed to do because people were living under this, right? So they would have actually literally been playing it out. So we should try and think about how this would work. Imagine, OK, imagine somebody is angry at you, right? So I don’t know what they do. They come and they they break your arm or something.

123. 45:26

     They hit you with a hammer or whatever. Sorry, that’s graphic, but whatever it is. So then like, what are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to go find that person and what? Bring them to the priest and say, OK, priest watch. Well, I hammer their arm. That’s not a good system I got.

124. 45:46

     I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be like rude or I hope that doesn’t sound blasphemous. That’s just, it’s not a, that’s not workable, right? So now you have two people with broken arms, and then what’s that other person going to want to? Do to you right they’re. Going to be like, well, great, you just ruined my life because now I only have one arm, right?

125. 46:05

     So now I’ll show you and you get this cycle. This is how human nature works. I didn’t put these in and I can talk to you about them later if you want. There have been numerous studies done of how humanity reacts when attacked, right? So the question is, when you’re attacked, what is your response? So these studies, what they did is they said somebody’s going to take something from you, right?

126. 46:33

     They just, they played it out in a game. So you’re going to have, you know, this amount of money, somebody’s going to take half your money. What do you do? Here’s your two options. Do nothing, take vengeance. What do you think happens, right. Humanity takes vengeance. That’s how we that’s how we do things.

127. 46:49

     And so this is what an eye for an eye does. And I would suggest to you, the whole point was for people to realize, I don’t want to do that, right? Do you really want to go and break somebody’s arm because they broke yours? Like maybe you do in the moment, but you don’t want to start that cycle because I think what God was trying to teach them. Think about this.

128. 47:13

     You had the choice, right? You had the choice. You could say, yeah, I’m going to go break their arm because of what they did to me. Or. You could go with the scriptural principle of do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

129. 47:34

     I’d suggest you That’s the contradiction, right? There’s a contradiction in law. Can you imagine people sitting there under the law thinking, eye for. Eye tooth for tooth. And then they read that and they’re like, what? What do I do? How’s that supposed to work? Do not say I’ll pay you back for this wrong. In other words, don’t say eye for an eye. Wait for the Lord and he will avenge you, says Proverbs. So what God is doing is he creates a society in which people actually have the option to go and hurt the people that hurt them.

130. 48:05

     And what God wants is he wanted the people to say I. Forgive you, that was the point. And so that’s why when you get situations like Matthew chapter one where Joseph has full right to stone Mary, Can you imagine how he felt? I mean, he would have wanted to and yet he says, I’m not going to do it. I forgive you now.

131. 48:37

     She didn’t need to be forgiven, right? But from his perspective. And that is why Matthew chapter one says Joseph being a just man. Did not stone her. That’s the point. The point was not the commandments. The point was that God wanted you to realize that the commandments created a non functional society and that instead he wanted people to embrace peace.

132. 49:06

     This is what I mean when I say the Law of Moses taught peace. The Law of Moses was supposed to teach you that this is untenable, we can’t continue this way. And so instead you had to say there must be another way.

133. 49:27

     That’s why the Lord Jesus says this, right? The Lord Jesus. Interprets an eye for an eye for us. So here’s what he says. Matthew 53842 You have heard that it was said eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. Is that what you would have gotten from eye for an eye, right?

134. 49:43

     Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Oh, I get it, right? That means that if somebody hits me here, I say take this one too, right? No way. Like that doesn’t even make any sense unless Jesus said you should have gone through this process, right? You should have realized it doesn’t work, and you should have realized that the whole time God was trying to teach you. Don’t resist the evil person.

135. 50:04

     If anybody slaps you on your right cheek, turn to them the other cheek. Also, if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. The Lord Jesus takes his command and he says, didn’t you understand that this meant exactly the opposite of what it says?

136. 50:23

     Because that’s what God was teaching the whole time, right? Those are the principles that He was teaching in the prophets to love mercy. So when we bring it all together, what we see is that the law of Moses, despite the violence that we read when it was put into action, the people were supposed to realize that it contradicts itself, that it breaks when it’s put into action.

137. 50:54

     And they were supposed to, instead of saying, oh, those are just exceptions, we’ll just make more rules to try and fix it. They were supposed to realize, no, it just doesn’t work and God’s trying to show you a better way.