Don’t… ‘You shall…’ A few laws. I am reading at the moment in the ‘cheeky’ book of Deuteronomy. Cheeky cos it keeps talking about the ‘Place that shall be chosen’. Really? Moses are you sure… or you Babylonian based editors, how did you get that slid in there so that we read it as if Moses had this always in mind, and if he had it in mind then so did God?
Laws to set boundaries and then we can be smacked really hard for straying outside of them, or were they always written in pencil (I know there is something in there about ‘written in tablets of stone’ but just for now let me suggest ‘pencil’) and are pretty helpful as some notes to refer to, but then one day will become unnecessary.
Laws given to Israel, Israel who represents all of us, imperfect, but supposed to set an example to all of us. Laws that are OKish but pencil writing. After all before we come to all those laws that instruct us to make sure that any murderer does not escape and go free… before we read about that… we read that God did not punish the first (the FIRST, hence quite an example here) murderer but looked to protect him – Cain. Now that really does not seem an action that pays much attention to the pencilled in writing. Carry it through and the next time that Cain and Abel come on the scene is when the two ‘sons of the father’ appear in the New Testament. One goes free, the other does not. Barabbas goes free!! [Note to self: and so do you Martin, so don’t complain.]
Laws quickly help us determine what is right and wrong. They then have to work hard when it comes to ‘mistakes’, hence the many exceptions in the OT laws, ‘you are to do this, but if this has happened then do…’
And laws are not too smart about really helping us to choose a path that leads to life.
Yes, let’s give them a few laws, but it sure would be good if they could choose the life path instead of trying to get everything right and fit within those boundaries.