The Quandary About What to Eat
The first half of
this chapter talks at length about clean and unclean foods. While these restrictions are significant to
the Hebrews, I find these portions of God’s Word to be replaced and interpreted
by God’s Word elsewhere. {See Acts 10:9-16} I hope that doesn’t come across as
dismissive, because I think that we should be very careful about dismissing
sections of scripture unless it is clear that another portion of scripture has
replaced it.
Perhaps you wonder
why Acts 10 and Deuteronomy 14:3-20 seem to be in conflict. There is a simple reason for it. God set up these rules in Deuteronomy to help
the Hebrews establish themselves as different from the people of the
world. This list of prohibited foods
helps the Hebrew people see themselves as separate (or holy) from the rest of
the world. And to be honest, there is
nothing wrong with this list. If someone
wants to follow these kosher laws out of respect for God – so long as God is
leading them to do so I encourage them! I’m
not saying that these verses in Deuteronomy are unimportant at all. I’m just saying that for me and most of
Christendom, Acts 10 has replaced them in importance.
We have Jesus Christ,
who came for the sake of both the forgiveness of sins as well as for making
those in the world clean – especially the Gentiles who were by definition
unclean. God tells Peter in Acts 10 that
what God has made clean, we should not make unclean. We should not make a distinction about meats
any longer. Likewise, we should not make
a distinction about peoples either.
There is no harm in coming in contact with a Gentile who does not know
God, because Christ has called us to do that very thing! Because of Christ, we live in a new format
for life with respect to the categories of “clean” and “unclean.” Christ is the event that changes these verses
in Deuteronomy for those who follow Christ.
Cautions about This Kind of Thinking
A few cautions are
needed, however. First, what I have done
here is not a practice with which we should become all that familiar. Please notice that it is God’s Word that has
reinterpreted scripture, not me. If I
(or anyone) gets up to say that a portion of scripture does not apply to us as
Christians without having scripture to back up the claim, do not listen to the
teaching! What I have done here
regarding the kosher laws is a very rare thing – and a thing initiated by God!
As for the second
caution, notice however that I said the only thing Christ has altered is the
rules on clean and unclean. This is a
separate category of things than “sinful” and “sinless.” Peter’s vision in Acts 10 has nothing to do
with sinful practices. That which is sin
remains to be sin after Christ. For if
God had sent Jesus to make that which was once sinful to be free-of-sin, then
what was the point of Christ’s death in the first place?
No, Christ died
precisely because that which is sin to God remains sin to God through the
Christ event of the cross. So do not
make the mistake of applying the practice I have done above with things that
fall under the “sin/sinless” category.
At best, what I did above applies on to the ritualistic designation of
“clean/unclean” classification only. In
no way do we have authority to make that which is sin to be not sin. The Hebrew people understood the difference
between sin/sinful and clean/unclean. We
should, too.
I hope this makes
sense. If it doesn’t feel free to post a
comment and I’ll try to be a little more forthcoming.
Regulations for Mourning
Before turning to
tithing, I want to go back and pick up the first two verses of this chapter
really quickly. I jumped to the food
laws and I skipped over the regulations for mourning. I think that this is a small set of verses
that pack a powerful punch.
Moses is telling the
people a simple truth: if you truly believe in God, then you have no reason to
obsessively mourn for the dead. If they
rest in God, then why do we mourn for their sake? As we spoke about yesterday, if we truly are
living as though God is at the center of life, then why do we deal with
mourning in a way often speaks as though we do not believe a person resting in
God is better off?
Now don’t get me
wrong. When someone in our life dies, we
are going to have a vacant hole within us where that relationship used to
exist. We should grieve respectfully to
acknowledge that vacant hole and to help it heal. That is just good human psychology and
grieving. We find that kind of emphasis
all over scripture, especially in the Psalms.
Yet, the focus of our
mourning should not be the person who died; but rather the glory of the God who
will sustain us through our mourning.
Ever go to a funeral where there were a ton of pictures of the deceased
and story after story about how great the deceased person was? I think that is what Moses is cautioning us
against. Our mourning –funerals especially
– should bring us to worship God, not worship the deceased person. When we go to extravagant measures in
mourning, we are actually showing a worship of something besides the one true
God. This is exactly why these verses on
mourning are intentionally fit into a section of the Bible on idolatry! If we truly believe in the one true God, we
should deal with our mourning appropriately and focus on God’s sustaining power
rather than the person who has died.
Tithing
The last portion of
the chapter has to do with tithing.
We’ve spoken of tithing before, so I’ll only speak of it briefly
here. First, notice that Moses implies a
tithe to be given once a year. The
reason for this is because the tithe was to be given at the tabernacle (or
later at the temple in Jerusalem) and that was a significant journey. There is nothing wrong with tithing each and
every time we worship, or once-a-month, or whenever we get paid, or whatever. We shouldn’t get hung up on the frequency of
the tithe. We should instead focus on
the desire to tithe and an honest effort to tithe.
Second, notice that
Moses allows for different kinds of tithes.
Animals and grain were welcome to come as the legal tithe. But those things could also be converted to
money in order to make the travel easier.
Again, we should never get hung up on the means of the tithe as much as
the desire to tithe.
Finally, notice that
there were beneficiaries of the tithe.
The Levites, the sojourners, the poor, the widow, the orphan, and ones
such as these were to benefit from the tithe.
The tithe is a giving back to God that which He first gave to us. The tithe is a means of sustaining that which
is necessary for the worship of God. The
tithe is also a means of benevolent care for those who need it. It makes me wonder how many of our churches
use our tithes for these categories above.
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