Exodus 21:12-22:31
In reading the last half of Ex 21 and all of Ex 22, its apparent that God’s way of doing things is so much different than what we’ve morphed into over the last few thousand years since Moses first gave the law. It’s fairly simple to boil down… take responsibility…. period. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your actions, your animals, whatever. If your ox kills someone, make restitution, if you accidentally break something of your neighbors, fix it or replace it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. If you know your Ox gores people and you don’t restrain it, you are more responsible and restore the infraction with more. If you steal it, restore it with more.
Why don’t we live that way now? Every day we see people finagling their way out of promises, commitments, contractual obligations, etc. People get in and out of marriages like they get in and out of their cars. Employment contracts mean nothing, sports players “hold out” of their contracts because they want a better deal all the time. People abandon their kids, abandon their debts, abandon their families with no second thoughts. Our prisons are full of people on vacation for committing some crime and not really having any real consequences for their actions – unless watching TV, getting college degrees, writing books, etc. is considered “consequences”… No one is accountable for anything anymore and while it would be easy to digress into a social or political statement, that’s not my intent.
What captures my mind here is “Why did Moses have to be so explicit in these commands?” Answer? Because society was very likely exactly the way it is today. I would say we’ve come full circle, but my real guess is that left to our own devices, we’ve never really changed.
In the context of the Law (the 10 commandments) having JUST been delivered, God is saying, “Look! I have rescued you as a people and you are now going to be My people. Because you’re going to be called My people, we’re going to do things differently. You are going to be different. When others see you, I want them to know you are Mine.”
That’s the call. Be different.
When people see me living life, what will they immediately know about me?
Will my life today scream that I am God’s son?
Be different.
Running After Papa…