40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 169 (Deuteronomy 14:1-15:11)

Episode Date: June 13, 2019

God tells the people not to do certain things for the sake of the dead and to refrain from eating different animals. Why does God command these things? What does grief have to do with this? How do we reconcile these things we Christian freedom? How do we respond to those who would seek to place Christians back under the law? Should we "unhitch" from the Old Testament? Well, that depends on what you mean. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conference Become A Supporter

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the podcasts that are living over there. One thing that's in common throughout all of them is you will get a little Christ for you. This is the running theme through all the podcasts and all the things that we do over here at Christ Still Fast in 1517. Also, if you want to hear that message in person, maybe that's what you're up for. Well, you can do that.

You can grab one of the few remaining tickets to Here We Still Stand, which is in October in San Diego, California. There's a couple tickets left. You can go over to herewestillstand.org. You can grab them, and because you're a listener to this podcast, you can enter in the promo code P, as in podcast, net, as in network, PNET19, and get $25 off however many tickets you buy. Bring the wife, bring the husband, bring the family, bring the parents, grandparents, uncles, that friend that you owe something to. Get all of that taken care of right over there at herewestillstand.org. Chad, what's going on? I'm just trying not to covet right now

Because you're sitting there in Southern California And I'm here at home So I'm serving the Lord You know, Chad I know you talk about the great nation of Texas Here in California They actually fly flags That say the nation of California

Oh, do they? Yeah, it's the Republic The Republic of California Yeah, they got that bear on it It's a whole thing And so they're the other state that thinks that they're their own thing. Yeah, Texas and California are kind of that way. We have this kind of independent streak, this maverick approach to statehood.

That's right. Well, I guess we'll just have to enjoy your California experience from a distance vicariously. I'm just getting it ready for October. You'll be here soon enough. I will be. I will be, yeah. It'll be good. And that'll be here before we know it.

it will be all right uh we are of course in Deuteronomy and we we wrapped up chapter 13 last time so we're gonna we're gonna cover 14 and we're gonna jump into 15 as well 15 is about the sabbath year which is the the seventh year so we'll talk about the significance of that for life in Israel the first has to deal with clean and unclean foods which we have discussed both in connection with Leviticus as well as Exodus. So we'll touch on that briefly, talk a little bit about why that was practiced, and a little bit we'll also get into the New Testament and how that was significant for some disputes and questions in the early church. And it still comes up today as well, so we'll get into that. Then the second part of the chapter, beginning

with verse 22, is about various offerings, specifically the tithe and how that worked in ancient Israel. So that's chapter 14, and then 15 is about the sabbatical. So here we go. Chapter 14 starts out this way. Let me just, let me read the first three verses, kind of set the tone for this. You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth you shall not eat any detestable thing all right so just think about those three verses for a minute because unless you kind of have a big picture here this can be kind of some some jarring

transition between these three verses so the first first verse talks about first of all that you are you're the children of god you're the sons of the lord your god but then it shifts to saying don't cut yourself or shave some kind of weird patch of hair off your the front of your head for the sake of the dead i feel like this is a command i have not broken there's not a lot of commandments that god has given that i can definitively say that you know what i think i'm innocent of this one you know we all the one we all need a little righteousness yeah which we can both before god yeah this is where all mine is there's all my righteousness it sits right here in this having not cut myself or shaved

parts of my head for the dead well it's a start right so i got something it's hardcore keeping the law that is it that is kind of a strange shift okay we're going to start out this first by talking about your children of god don't cut yourself or shave certain parts of your head okay and then it goes right into verse two you're a holy people right he's chosen you you're like his own possessions out of all all the people who are on the on the earth he's chosen you and then verse three we have this other kind of strange juxtaposition where it says oh don't eat any detestable thing like okay what what's going on here well the big picture of this is that, and you really do have to look at these very pointed prohibitions in light of the much

broader context of who Israel is and why, because of who Israel is, they are to refrain from certain activities. So we have, first of all, they're not just a holy people. They're not just the nation that God has chosen apart from all other peoples, but they're even called the children, the sons of God. So this status that they have, which is completely by grace, we've talked about that already in Deuteronomy, that it wasn't because they were more righteous or because they were like a bigger or stronger nation than all the other peoples. But the only reason that God chose them is because that's what God wanted to do, because God loved them. That was the impetus behind his choice of Israel. Had nothing whatsoever to do with their worthiness or with

their greatness, or anything else, God chose them because he loved them. And in choosing them, he makes them his children, his own possession. So because they have received, not earned, but because they have received this status as God's special people, indeed his own family, his own children, they are to live in the world in such a way that they reflect that God has chosen them and set them apart. So that's what's behind prohibitions about not cutting yourself, not shaving certain parts of your head, not eating certain foods, observing certain days, all of the various requirements that are found in the law concerning these sorts of things are indicative, are Israel's way of indicating her status as God's family. So if you're part

of God's people, then these are the ways by which you distinguish yourself by your actions from the peoples who are around you. So part of that is that in Israel, just like in every society, certainly there are ways in which people express their grief. I was thinking about this just in our culture, and probably in most modern, at least modern Western cultures. I mean, there are There are certain ways that are socially acceptable ways of expressing grief, right? I mean, if we see a person who's, I mean, in the immediate aftermath of losing someone, if we see this person drop to their knees or bury their face in their hands or even just break down emotionally with crying and with sobbing,

And maybe they grab their hair and hold it in their hands. I mean, all of these are ways that people physically express grief. And I mean, it's not like people think about this. This is just like an immediate reaction, right? This is unconscious ways in which people who are seized with grief react physically to the emotions that are swirling within them. So we, I mean, we're familiar with these and these are, these are, these are socially acceptable ways. But if we saw a person who had just lost a loved one, pull a knife out and start cutting themselves, or actually like ripping out parts of their hair, our reaction to that would be like, whoa, you got to stop. That's too far, right? So, I mean, even in our societies, there are things which are considered acceptable and things which are considered unacceptable or things which we are familiar with and things which we are not familiar with. Like if we saw someone cutting themselves or pulling out parts of their hair or something like that, we would say, well, that's not the way that grief is expressed in our culture.

But at least in the culture surrounding Israel, evidently, these practices, and two of them are listed here, there were probably a lot more of them, but these two practices were ways in which mourners expressed grief. And we have other examples of this in the ancient world, in particular from the Greek world, where there were prohibitions against women, for example, lacerating their cheeks in the context of mourning. So various ways of cutting yourself as an expression of grief or of trying to get God's attention or dealing with guilt. This was something that was practiced in these pagan cultures surrounding Israel. And so in order to set themselves apart from that, God says to the Israelites, don't do that. That's what the pagan peoples do. You will express your grief in other ways. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he says, don't cut yourself and don't shave this certain part of your head and stuff tells you that this isn't just arbitrary. He says this because someone somewhere is doing this. It's not just that they would mourn this way, but you do this sort of stuff because you're trying to do something for the dead, right?

I mean, so it's the idea that you will not do this on account of the dead. We don't know exactly what's going on, but perhaps this is what's required to ensure that this dead person gets a better afterlife, comes back, or something, but who knows what, right? Who knows what beliefs are going on and what they believe that you have to do for the sake of the dead. but i'm reminded of of what paul says at first thessalonians where he says we don't mourn or we don't grieve like those who have no hope right so that are that the christians grief or mourning is different and he sort of says the same thing here because he leads with you are sons of the lord your god so you don't have to mourn like this because you're you you don't have to mourn

like people who have no hope, because you are sons of the living God. And Paul makes the same sort of statement that we don't mourn like people who don't know what's going to happen or have no hope. We have a God who is alive, who is for us, who has made great promises to us. And so it's not that we don't mourn. Paul's not saying that. But we don't mourn in the same way because we're sons of god and so i think this is very similar to that passage uh i think that's why you have that lead in that because this is your identity and because you belong to me you don't have to mourn in this way you don't need to cut yourself to you know ensure some kind of better afterlife or shave your head in a weird way or any of this stuff you're my people and i will take care of you

even in death. I was thinking of after his affair with Bathsheba and after the birth of their child, of course, the child becomes ill, right? And while the child is ill, David is praying. He's in, this is in 2 Samuel chapter 12. So the child is sick, the child that was born as a result of the adultery between David and Bathsheba. So the child is sick. And so David is fasting. He's laying all night on the ground so he's he's uh he's not eating he's humbling himself in order he might pray to god on behalf of his child and and after the child dies his servants are afraid to tell him because they're scared of how he's how he might react i mean if he's acting this bad this badly when the child is sick well then just imagine how what he might what's he going to do to himself

once he realizes the child has died but the exact opposite happens so david sees his servants they're like whispering together because they don't want to tell david that the child has died and david sees him whispering and so he asked them he says is the child dead and they said yes he's dead but david does the exact opposite what they expect he got he gets up the ground he washes himself he anoints himself he changes his clothes and he goes to church he goes into the house of the lord and he worships. And his servants are amazed by this, and they ask, what are you doing? You know, while the child was alive, you fasted, you wept, and the child dies, and you arise, and you eat food. And I love David's response. He said, well, while the child was alive, I fasted and wept,

because I said, who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me that the child may live. But now he has died. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. So David acknowledges that he will go to where his child is, that he too will go to the Lord his God. So he has this hope that is based upon who God is and what God has promised to his people. And so even though he fasts and grieves and prays and humbles himself while the child is sick, after the child has died, he has a very different response. Yeah, one of the great things that that were promised uh as people who believe is that we don't uh we don't view death the same way yeah for us who are baptized we have already died so we have we have gone through death

in being united to the to the death of christ and being buried with him and so the life that we now have is a life that will will not end and so for us what we what we call physical death is just the the gateway to to life eternal that's right okay so uh that's first couple verses now verse three we shift to a different subject and that is to clean and unclean food so verses 3 through 21 cover this familiar territory we won't go through all of the various list of animals here because we've we've talked about this when we we covered these laws previously One thing I do want to point out that is actually made almost explicit here is one of the reasons, if perhaps not the chief reason, why Israel was given the permission, the freedom to eat certain foods, while they're forbidden from eating certain foods. So why do we have this distinction?

Well, of course, there's various reasons that are put forward. One of the ones that I hear actually quite a bit is the hygienic reason that, well, the reason God declared some foods unclean is because they weren't really healthy for the Israelites to eat. And the reasoning for this is actually has no biblical basis whatsoever. It was a theory that originated in the Middle Ages, primarily among Jewish scholars who themselves, many of whom were physicians. and so they tended to approach this subject according to their medical expertise and so this this whole theory that the reason some foods were declared unclean was for hygienic reasons was never heard of until the middle ages when jewish scholars came up with this reasoning but you'll still hear this circulated among christians today but it there hasn't there's no biblical

basis to it whatsoever the the reason i think that has the strongest biblical basis for it is that by Israel, distinguishing between clean and unclean foods, this was the way that they put into practice in their eating habits the kind of practices in which they were engaged in daily life in their interactions with peoples who were considered to be unclean, of course, specifically the Gentiles. So I'm going to go to a couple of other passages after this, but notice right from this context itself that we have a hint of that. Verse 2 says, okay, you're a holy people, and God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples from the face of the earth. All right, so God says, I've chosen you, and I've not chosen these other nations, but

I've chosen specifically you. And then we immediately transition in verse 3 to, you shall not eat any detestable thing. Notice the connection. You've got Israel set apart from all the other nations and then we switch to okay these are the foods that are set apart for you to eat as opposed to all the other foods which you cannot eat now i think that this becomes most clear in the scriptures when you when you go to acts chapter 10 and 11 and you have the vision that peter has of the sheet that comes down from heaven that's full of all sorts of of animals uh unclean animals And so what is Peter told three times to to rise, kill and eat? And Peter, of course, protests. Well, I've never let any unclean thing enter me.

So why should I do this? But God tells him again three times to to eat these these animals that were considered to be unclean, according to the old covenant. And then what happens right after this vision that Peter has? Well, the messengers show up from Cornelius saying that he is being summoned to the home of a Gentile. Now, the whole purpose of that vision was to prepare Peter for a for saying yes to these Gentiles who had come to invite Peter to their home. So notice again, there's the link between unclean animals and supposedly unclean peoples. So in the Old Testament, yes, you had clean animals, you had unclean animals or clean foods, unclean foods, just like you had Israel and you had the other nations. Now we get to Acts chapter 10, and as a result of the new covenant, these barriers are broken down, they're destroyed.

And so Peter is to be just as willing to go into the home of a Gentile as he is to be willing to eat unclean foods, because all of that has now changed with the advent of Christ. Yeah, I've always thought that it's a health thing. I always thought that argument was a little unbiblically founded. It's a way of trying to explain Why God has done certain things To set his people apart When the answer is He's just done it to set them apart The answer is sort of that simple

It would be like making the argument That wearing garments Of mixed fabrics Is better because Those garments are just better They last longer They're more stain resistant 100% cotton, baby.

100% cotton. It's just the best. We all know that. No, it really is, I think, just this simple, that God wanted to set his people apart from other people in every way, what they wore, what they ate, how they grieved, all of this stuff. So I don't think it's as complicated as we want to make it sometimes. We want to say, well, there's all these super practical reasons that God has done this.

where I think it's more just, no, God's just going to have you be different in every way as a representation of how he's going to ultimately set his people apart by setting them apart in Christ. And they're still being set apart in Christ. These things are all just kind of pointing to that, that as children of the promise, you're different. And all of this stuff is just an outward display of that separation. And in Christ, once Christ comes, this is no longer necessary because it is Christ who sets us apart.

Yeah, you can think of all these examples in the Old Testament, whether it's regarding what you can wear or what you can eat or what you can touch, where you can live. all of these various specific commandments that govern the life of Israel as, what could you call it? Something like the ritualization of their creed, I guess would be one way to put it. That is to say, it's not just that they believe that they are set apart, but that belief translates itself into sort of quasi-ritual actions. So when they put on certain clothing, or when they eat certain foods or when they touch certain things or don't touch certain things, it wasn't just like rituals took place at the temple. You could think of the Israelites' life as actually a ritualized life in the sense that what they're doing was an expression of exactly what God had given them to

believe. And as you say, all of this comes to an end with Christ because he is the one who breaks down that barrier between Jew and Gentile. He's the one who unites the people into one so that, As Paul says, there's no longer Jew or Greek. There's no longer slave or free, male or female. I mean, all of us, in other words, are united as one people in Christ, one body, one church. So all of this Old Testament, these regulations were necessary and helpful preparation for the coming of Christ. But, and we have to accent this, but all of these have now come to an end. And the reason I say we have to accent that is because I routinely hear from people who have been placed back under the ritualistic law of the Old Testament by certain groups within Christianity, which want to try and basically resurrect these old laws and apply them to people who now live in Christ.

So, you know, they're saying that, well, we have to refrain from certain foods or we have to observe certain Old Testament festivals or whatever the law might be. But the New Testament makes it patently clear that all of that was part of the Old Covenant. It has come to an end. And so in Christ, we are free from those. Those have come to an end. And so Paul says in Colossians 2, let no one therefore judge you in regard to food or drink or to certain holy days or new moons or whatever it might be, because all of that was part of the old covenant. And once that has come to an end and we are now part of the new covenant in Christ, then those restrictions which were given specifically to Israel under the old covenant are no longer applicable to us. I was in a conversation, Chad, with – there's a movement that's larger than you would think it would be that wants – and there are Christians that want to – that think that all of the laws still apply and that we should do these things.

I was in a conversation with someone like that, and they were talking about this. And my response – and I might have been stretching some of these things, but my response was this. I don't have to worry about what I eat or drink because I have Christ who gives me his body and blood. I don't have to worry about what I wear because I have Christ who gives me his robe of righteousness. I don't have to worry about touching dead things because I have Christ who has defeated death. I don't have to worry about celebrating feast days because I have Christ who established the eighth day of the new creation. This is how all of these things end. These things don't set me apart anymore.

I have Christ who has done all of these things. Yeah, that's absolutely the best response. And we can't pick and choose. We can't simply say, well, I'm going to keep the dietary laws. or I'm going to keep the clothing laws, or I'm going to keep the how we deal with dead people laws. You can't just simply pick and choose whatever happens to be convenient to you. I mean, if you want to live under the Old Testament law,

well, you better get yourself to Jerusalem and figure out a way how to rebuild the temple and start offering sacrifices again, because that is part of the Old Covenant. Yeah, and you better be down with stoning people caught in adultery. Yeah, you can't simply say, well, I like these laws and not these other laws. If you want to live under the Old Covenant,

well it's it's all or nothing baby there's there's no just picking out a few things that happen to be convenient for someone living the 21st century everything is going to apply to you if you want to live under that old testament law and if you do want to live on the old testament law well you better read galatians because you're going to find out what you've done is subjected yourself back to slavery that leads to death not to freedom that is found in christ yeah it's interesting there's a there's a huge debate you know about uh right now about you know unhitching from the old testament and unfortunately both sides of this debate i think miss it uh one side would say like you know maybe we should just kind of cast off the old testament and not worry about

it too much and and that's probably a simple an oversimplification of what's being said what is being said really is that we should root our faith in the resurrection which i would i would agree with that that's that is the the event of which our faith is rooted for sure uh the reason i believe the old testament is because a guy who said he would rise from the dead did rise from the dead and he believed it i mean this is why me and chad i would assume both believe the old testament you take away the resurrection and i'm going to start questioning everything but as paul rightly says right paul doesn't say christ is not raised from the dead we still have a lot of really great things it's not what he says he's weird to be weird to be pitied more than all people yes

yeah so if christ doesn't rise to the dead i'm not going to go become a jew i'm just done i'm just out like i'm just scrapping the whole thing however the other argument is like no no we it's sort of like a no no we can't do that but we they want to also pick and choose because they don't want everything and and the answer is like all of these things are useful because they all ultimately point to Christ. They're all trying to get you to Christ. And so you don't want to dismiss them. You don't want to completely unhitch yourself from them. But at the same time, you don't want to pick and choose and say, well, these things are actually still 100% applicable because that's not how this covenant works. And this can be jarring to people. But I mean, even in the Ten Commandments,

like you can't say that we have to apply these things. Oh, but not the punishments. Well, that's not how this works man uh either either it's fulfilled in christ and and we don't have to worry about it uh and instead it becomes a useful tool to point us back to christ or we have to take the whole thing yeah absolutely right yeah i mean both sides have answers to the connection with the old testament both the both of these extremes but they're they're both missing the whole point the whole the point is that all god's promises are yes in christ everything in the old testament is fulfilled in him and that's the reason we read the old testament right i mean it's to it's to understand who we are in christ because christ has come to

fulfill everything that's written beforehand he is the faithful israelite who who fulfills the law and he is also the one who unites jews and gentiles to himself in one body so that's i mean that's the reason that's the reason we study the old testament it's not so that we can figure out how to integrate these ritualistic laws into our own lives, nor is it to find out how irrelevant all of this stuff is. It's not even to learn how to become good little boys and girls. No. It's to learn all about Christ, right?

As we often say, you know, it's just, right, this is all about Christ at the top of every page of the Old Testament, and you'll be okay. Yeah. That's just where we're leading us. Okay. Okay. So this last section of the chapter is going to be focused on tithes. So we make that transition from talking about clean and unclean foods to now talking about the various offerings that are brought in various years.

So you got to look at verse 22, not just at the end of the chapter, but then the subject continues on into chapter 15, because you got to think in terms of seven-year periods. So the first and second year and then the fourth and fifth years are about certain tithes that are brought to a certain place. So the first and second and the fourth and fifth years are the same. But then the third year and then the sixth year are a little bit different focus in the offerings. And then finally, when you get to the seventh year, it's another way of thinking about gifts and offerings and getting the land rest and that kind of thing. So basically, it works like this. So the first and second year and the fourth and fifth years, it says you shall surely tithe.

So give a tenth, literally, of all the produce of what you sow that comes out of the field every year. so that happens in the first and second and the fourth and fifth year but this it's kind of interesting the way this works so what you do is you you bring this tithe with you to wherever god has established his sanctuary as it says in verse 23 and you you basically have a feast so you eat it in the presence of the lord your god it says and you know whatever whatever it might be and This is the way that God wants you to worship him, but at the same time, you're enjoying what he's given to you by means of whatever crops that you're producing. So it's kind of a different way, I think, of thinking about tithes and offerings because you're certainly giving it to God. But at the same time, God is, in a sense, giving it back to you in that you are in his presence, enjoying a feast with your family, with your friends, with anyone who is among the Levites, as well as any of those who are impoverished and not able to enjoy the kind of feasts that you do.

So you bring your tithe the first and second year, the fourth and fifth year to where God has established a sanctuary and there's a feast, there's worship, there's rejoicing in what God has given. Now, the third year and the sixth year are different in that rather than getting your tithe together and taking it to wherever the sanctuary is, you deposit that offering or that tithe in whatever town you're living in, and it's collected there and distributed to those who are needy, especially to widows and orphans and to the Levites. Because remember, the Levites, they're the one tribe that was not given any land. So, I mean, they have a little bit of land around the cities that they were given by which they can raise crops, but it's it's pretty limited so what god provides for them is this food that comes from the hands of others so anytime that the israelites were were giving an offering to god they were actually

giving this offering primarily to those who were in need of assistance so that would be you know especially the widows and the orphans and and the levites so first and second year it's brought to the sanctuary, a feast is enjoyed. Third year, sixth year, it's actually saved there in whatever town you live in, and it's presumably stored there and distributed over a period of time to those who are in need. So this was God's way of providing for those in the society who didn't have the means to sufficiently provide for themselves. So this is one of the ways that God instructs Israel in very particular and practical ways

to deal with the poor in the land, or at least with those who didn't have as much sustenance as other people did. And we'll see more of this in the next chapter. This theme of concern for the poor, it permeates the whole Old Testament, well, the whole scriptures, but especially the Old Testament.

and in particular it uh it permeates the book of deuteronomy so we're going to see more examples of this as we go along now the uh the seventh year is different in that the seventh year is what's called the sabbatical year just like the seventh day is the sabbath so the seventh year is a sabbatical year and what's different about the sabbatical year is that basically everything is allowed to rest so the land is not is not uh is not sown it's not plowed or sown or no crops are harvested anything like that so just like the seventh day is a rest for the people of god so the seventh year is a rest not only for the people of god but also for the for the land so the land gets its own sabbath so that's the way that's the way this works in the seven year period

first and second year fourth and fifth year tithes are brought to the sanctuary a feast is enjoyed third year sixth year tithes are kept in the particular cities and the the collection of that is used to take care of the poor and then the seventh year is this sabbath year and again just like we talked previous section concerning the the clean and unclean foods and all the regulations concerning that so also with the tithes and the offerings this is part of the old testament law so even though today in the christian church we sometimes talk about tithing it's really what we're doing is basically we're barring the language of the old covenant to talk about the offerings that we give today as christians but we got to be careful because

i mean i don't i don't know about you i was raised in a household where i was i was i had i had the misunderstanding that the giving of 10 percent was something that i was still legally, that is biblically legally, bound to give. But just like the clean, unclean food, just like all the other Old Testament laws, that was part of the old covenant. So Christians are no longer bound by law, by God's law, to tithe in the sense of giving a 10%. Now, of course, the New Testament talks about giving, talks about offerings, it talks about setting aside money to provide for the poor, for the church, for those who are engaged in the work of ministry. Of course, that's still part of the life of the people of God. But the specific way of arranging it in the

Old Testament under the Old Covenant is no longer applicable to us. So it's part of the Old Testament law. So yes, of course, everything still belongs to God that is given to us. And yes, of course, we still give charitably and take care of the poor and take care of the church and take care of those who who are laboring in the ministry but we're under we're under the new covenant and so those particular old testament laws are no longer no longer binding upon us as they were binding upon israel yeah i remember hearing you know the word tithe a lot i mean so this is there's one old testament word that most christians know it's tithe they know about this yeah this is giving yeah giving 10 i remember hearing things like if you i give 10 because i know if i don't give it

to god up front he's gonna get it from me some other way like as if this is the law no threat of all there at all yeah no threat yeah like you better do it or else like god will god will get it from you and it will be you know it'll be more than 10 or and the the fact is is that now and you see this in the New Testament church, that now we give out of love for God and neighbor. And there's not a set amount. We give what we are able to give. Sometimes this means that we give beyond 10%. Sometimes this means we give less than 10%. But Paul says that we ought not give under compulsion. And when there is a set amount that you are thinking that God demands from you or else, this is the very definition of compulsion. And this is not how it works now.

Now we are made free. We're living in a never-ending Sabbath. We're in Christ. We have all this rest. And this is supposed to, if you really understand your freedom, make you free to help others, to give to others. And this is how, so it's sort of like one of, the law actually can make you do things. It can't make you do things from the heart. It can just force your hand. It can't make you give cheerfully. No, no, it can't make you obedient in the way that God defines obedience, which is to not just do things, but to do things with the right motivation and in the right attitude the gospel however can do that because of what we have in the gospel that this stuff is created in us that we have a genuine desire to help those in need and this sort of

stuff and this flows from us so the law might be able to force your hand but the law has no ability to change your heart we still give but we give from an entirely different motivation and that's a good way to wrap things up i think we're at our 40 minute mark we are that is 40 minutes guys if you'd like to support the work over here at chrysler fast 1517 you can everything we do is listener supported so if you want to go over to any of the sites go over to the donate page give a one-time gift or you can become a monthly contributor if you're one of the people that do that thank you so much chad we'll see you next week see you here I'll see you next time.