Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast is Wednesday, March 19th. And we are in the midst of, at least in my family, spring break is going on. We've got a lot of being at home and different things going on. Josh has got some baseball games. We're just hanging out at his family. I like spring break spring breaks a good. It's a good pause. It's a good break as it were from everything else going on. It's appropriate naming. Then it is totally inappropriate naming. Yeah. Yeah. We're not doing it. I'm not doing a lot. I'm here. We're here. But yeah, we like it. The one thing that I think about every time this rolls around is that, man, we have about a. All right. How do you do? How have you guys been? So it's, yeah, I've been we're, I've been central to that. You're helping out a lot. We're going to have a a great conversation about mobile phones too. So how do you deal with that? That's also a question, like, how do you deal with that? I'm the kind of person who. I'm, I've never. I'm Yeah. I'm with you on that. Yeah. Hey, we got an email in and this email came in over almost yeah, two weeks ago now. Yeah. All week and a half ago. And so we apologize for not getting this to this earlier Lillian, but you send an email that you and the kids were watching something about the, not resurrection, but the re animation of the woolly mammoths that they're looking at trying to bring back the woolly mammoth. That's Yeah. Doing edits on a particular elephant. So these would be genetic elephant edits, that most resembles the woolly mammoth and trying to bring them back again. What are your thoughts on that? PR? So I think it's dangerous to mix genetic strains. Obviously it's feels like Jurassic park. Isn't this what they did? They were re reanimating dinosaurs and they brought it back to, anyway, I know it's a movie. Okay. So there's. Part of me thinks this is me taking dominion. This is us taking dominion over creation. Clearly God intended for us to discover these things because we did. And the fact that you can splice genes and make them do things that they weren't originally designed to do, I think could be a very compelling prospect for creating greater health in the future. Now, of course, as I say this, I recognize there's a lot of things that could go wrong here. People could mistake this for something else. We talk about gene editing often when we talk about babies, and designer babies and paying for this versus that. Obviously lots of ways that there can be bombshells here. But I also think about the prospect of healing diseases and ridding ourselves of cancer. I think that would be a really noble pursuit. And if gene editing helps us with that, then I think, Hey, bring it on even though it can be hazardous. And I think that's true for a lot of things that we enjoy the privileges of. We also see as Christians, there are two sides to every story. So I think cautiously, I think it would be good for humanity to take steps forward in this area. Now, when it comes to simply doing things for the sake of it, just because you can, and I didn't read the article, so I don't know if that's what they're doing. But I do think there's inherent dangers that we need to be very careful about for obvious reasons when we're protecting the Imago Dei. But for that same reason, I would say if we can utilize our technology to further the health of man, then great, we should do that. You made a comment and I don't want to overly. Parse out every word that you say, but it stuck with me in that response. You said obviously God meant for us to discover this because we did. Yep. I meant that. I think I agree with that. I stand behind it. 1000%. I think I agree with that from the perspective of God's sovereignty. And I believe that he ordains all of these things. Absolutely. We're not discovering anything that God's what, how did you guys figure that out? I didn't mean for you to figure that does that inherently or necessarily mean though that every discovery should be thought of in, at least in some sense with a positive. Yeah, of course not. Of course not. There are other things that are inherently sinful and no one would, no one to disagree with that. Whatever scripture says is clearly wrong. We should say that's wrong. So even if there's inventive ways to do sin, we shouldn't say, Oh man, what a novel way to approach that sin. Let's continue to do that because it's good. We don't look for the silver lining on every discovery that's out there. And again, I'm going to say, if it's inherently sin, then no, we do not inherently sin. And I think that's where here, when we talk about gene editing, we're not talking about something inherently sinful. In fact, what I think we can say is that God was already doing a little bit of gene editing and I'm using air quotes here early on. We just do it through natural human means called procreation. But if one tribe intermingles with another tribe, that's what you're doing. You're editing a new genetic. code, taking the X and Y chromosomes and you're putting two things together that now make a new thing. So I think you want, I know Mueller says this all the time. Whenever you take steps away from the natural order of things, you put yourself in increasingly more hazardous territory and I would not deny that even a little bit. But again, I do think for the sake of what we can do with it, there should be some people who are thinking as they take technological steps forward as possible and where possible. And I think this is perfectly suited. So I think the reason why so many people are reticent, maybe if you're listening to this, you're going, okay, what are the dangers here? So often the dangers are, some of this comes from aborted fetal tissue. Some of this comes from dealing with things that we are going to, Create a custom baby. When we, those are some of the dangers that this whole concept can produce is where are you getting the stem cells from that you're doing some of this research on? Where are you doing, is it right for a couple to get together and say, we want this baby genetically to be geared this way and this way, where does that line? Exist and where do we cross that line? And I think across the board, we would have to say if this is using aborted fetal tissue then we would throw a flag on the plane and say, this is out of bound, this is wrong. We shouldn't do this. And then when it gets to the customization of genetics, that's where it just gets so difficult and so tricky. You mentioned tribes marrying one with another one. I think the difference there and wherein I'm more comfortable with this is, that's still God doing the, all of the grunt work, all of the work on. Sure. Creating that life that's going to come out of that and we're not interfering with that process at all. And I think there, we talk about shared and unshared attributes in partners as we go through and talk about the character of God and everything else. And certainly one of the shared attribute with God is that active attribute of creativity that he is a creator and we share that in the sense that he's given us the ability to create. But I think the question is, where is, where's the line? Where do we have to say, okay, that's too far in our creative pursuits on our end of things. And this certainly. Yeah. And I guess that's where I would say for the average Christian, it takes a lot of mental sweat, equity to say, where is that line? And to what degree can I participate in human society? In fact, there's lots of Christians that will argue. Even some of the current vaccines that we enjoy that no one thinks twice about there's a. There's a history that you alluded to, and some people know about, and they're going to stumble over that very thing because they're going to say then I shouldn't even take this thing because this has connections to that thing. And this is where it's the real world is a challenging, difficult, sin laden world. And our job is not to throw our hands in the air and say let's just give up because we can't do anything about this. But to think carefully about what we're doing and to think again, this is going to come back. This is why we do this podcast. We need to know our Bible so well. That we begin to have biblical instincts that allow us to look at problems that are complicated and sticky and have a lot of holes and say, how do we put this piece together the most faithfully that we can honoring the God of our Bible and saying, what would our Lord have us to do with these things? They're not always easy solutions and to simplify or rather oversimplify these things does ourselves and others a disservice. I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. The secondary question there, we can answer this one a lot faster. I think, what do y'all think about paternity leave? P A W, paternity leave. Oh, I see. What they did. Yeah. Paternity for animals. They're starting in Emeryville, California in New York City. It's been on the table for a while and that's adorable not mandated yet, but companies heading in that direction. So you have a new puppy. Let's just put the best bit on this new puppy. She needs lots of time and attention. You named her maverick or him hat. You named a maverick. It needs a lot of attention. They need time off to take care of their animals. Calculate that before you have a puppy. I'll give you one more short answer to this. No, because next, because it's not it's goes back to the Amagra day to argue that people need time away to care for their fur babies is not the same thing as a mom who has an actual real. Live, actual baby that depends upon her. Yeah, that needs to care for it. That's the image of God. Your dog, your cat was not created in the image of God. It was created as something that you were to exercise dominion over, and you can use a crate and create train that puppy while you go to work and then you can come home and let it out and play with it and everything else like that. And I'm seeing that as somebody who has a dog at home. So if you think I'm just a full blown animal hater, I'm not, I just think this is absurd. And so the answer is no, we should not have paternity leave. If it wasn't for the fact that people are confusing their animals for humans, I could see a company offering this as a benefit, not a mandated thing that they have to do, but saying it's a benefit. If you're part of this company, we, if you want to have an animal. This is to take a week off. Hey, we provide benefits for that. You could do a whole week or whatever it is. I could get behind that. And so yeah, a company is free to do that as something they choose to do as a benefit for their employees, part of their package. Great. but because there's so much confusion today about, and you use the term fur babies, that's what people call them, I think it does confuse a lot of people in terms of saying this is just as significant as having a baby. And we would say that's not the case. So I'm not opposed to it. In and of itself, but I am opposed to the confusion that it often creates, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm just opposed to it. Period. Yeah. Yeah. No one's looking at you saying that you're going to have a company and you're going to offer. Paternity leave. Yeah. So anyways, let's jump into our Bible reading. Do not make 24, 25, 26 and 27. We got four chapters to cover, so let's get after it. We've had quite a bit of Googly, but we thank you Lillian for the question and kiddos that were contributing to that as well. Yeah, sorry. We got to that later. We were moving and it just got, it just kept on getting scooted and Hey, it got, where did this thing go get scooted to? We looked down to the carpet, boom, there it was. So we brought it back to it was we did not allow it to go extinct like the woolly mammoth, but we found it and we brought it in. That's right. Hey, Deuteronomy 24 here in this chapter, Moses gives instructions regarding marriage and divorce and civil issues about not abusing the weak or the vulnerable. And I think the thing That really jumped out to me in 24 is just how seriously God takes marriage. And he talks about it here and just the idea that you can't just casually take a spouse and leave a spouse. And I think that's become our cultural view of marriage. We're going to get married and if it doesn't work out, okay, whatever, no fault divorce. You, we referenced Mueller a minute ago. Mueller talks a lot about the fact that's been the downfall of marriage in our society and our culture is the introduction of no fault divorce that people can just agree to part ways quote unquote, amicably and be fine with that. But I think here we see that God cares about that. He says, Hey if a man divorces his wife and she goes and she gets married to another person, and then that. And then divorce that, that original guy, he can't decide, Oh, you know what? Actually, I miss you. Let's, why don't we make this work again and try to get back together again because of the physical act associated with marriage that does represent the unity of a husband and a wife. That's been there from the very beginning with Adam and Eve. That is so significant that God says when that takes place outside of the context of marriage, it's as though that that, that. And that's where Jesus picks up on that and Paul picks up on that and talks about that in the new Testament in the context of divorce and remarriage. And so it just, we see here, I think a lot of times we read the old Testament and we point the finger and go look at all the polygamy that was taking place there. Did God not care about all those things? I think what we see here is God did indeed very much care about marriage and his design for marriage all the way back in the beginning in Genesis carried through. And he was he was cognizant of it as he's given the law here. Yeah, that reminds me of Hebrews 13 let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge a sexually immoral and adulterous idea that encapsulates some of the, what you're talking about is let marriage be held in honor among all. There's a, there's certainly a low view of marriage and we would do well as a church to really esteem it. And I think that looks really practically in loving your spouse showcasing that love, wearing your wedding ring all the time. Not that I think anyone's not wearing it, but just. Demonstrating a high view of marriage that shows your kids, shows your community, shows your people around you, that this is an important feature of what it means to be human. Not that every human is going to be married, but those of us who are married and even those of us who aren't, we esteem it because of what it represents. Yeah. And if you're listening to this and you're married and you have a divorce in your background, even as. A divorce as a believer in your background, I don't want to sit here and make you a punching bag. In fact, Paul would say, stay married to the one that you're married to currently and be in that relationship. Be in that marriage and be faithful in that marriage and do what Pastor Rod was just saying there. Honor your spouse in that marriage. And so this is something that wherever you're at and whatever state you're at, and Paul talks about that and in first Corinthians chapter seven as well, it'd be in that state. And be faithful to the Lord in that state and recognize for those of you that are single, maybe that stays not for the rest of your life. For those of you who are married, that the idea is that the goal is that the target is the plan that you are in that state for the rest of your life until the Lord calls your spouse home to be with him or calls you home to be with him either way. So chapter 25, then we get into more laws about marriage, but this time about Leverett marriage and other various laws for the people and Leverett marriage has to do a lot with what we read about in the book of Ruth. And so here you've got somebody who dies in the next of kin was called to marry that person, take them as a spouse and to produce offspring by them so that they could carry on the name, the family line of the. the deceased individual there. And so we see this in Ruth when Ruth meets Boaz and we'll get there in our daily Bible reading. Boaz finds out there's another person in line. This is part of the lever marriage laws. And that person decides that they don't want to take on Ruth. And so they go back to this passage in Deuteronomy 24 and they take off the sandal. They go through the whole thing to demonstrate, Hey, I'm forfeiting my right as the next in line on marriage principles to Ruth and I'm giving her to Boaz. And so we see this Actually acted out in the book of Ruth for us. But Deuteronomy chapter 25 is where that comes from. Yeah. I love that sandal ceremony. Can we reinstate that? Maybe for the upcoming marriages, we do a sandal exchange. There we go. Yeah. We'll do that. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So chapter 25, verse four, you shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. This is something that Paul is going to quote later on. And he's going to use it and say is it the animals that God cares about? And he says, how much more. He cares about human laborers. And so what you have here is Paul showing us how to utilize the old Testament. Now, on the other hand, I would say that what Paul is saying is not that God does not care about the animals. I think that we've demonstrated throughout the text that actually God does seem to care about the animals. But his point is that this is there to say, if God cares about the animal, how much more does he care about the human? And later on, Jesus is going to come after people for this very thing. Because the Pharisees, the Sadducees had this legalistic approach. On the Sabbath in particular where they're willing to pull their animal out of a pit, but not a human out of their misery so notice that when scripture talks about animals and it does in a positive ways We should be people who care about animals, but the animals are never as important as the human. Let's just be clear on that Animals are not as important as humans. And even though a company, again, may offer a paternity leave, it doesn't mean that you should necessarily esteem an animal as important as a human. I know that's a confusing thing today. And it's even funny that I'm having to say that, but I think there are people who would struggle between their favorite animal and their least favorite neighbor. Yeah. No, I agree. And that's why we would say no to paternity leave. I don't think Moses would have allowed paternity leave back in the camp of Israel. Again, if it's a benefit and the player wants to offer, I'm okay with that. Fair. All right. Chapter 26, then we get into more of the laws and offerings or laws and the rules and regulations. Now, as they enter into the promised land, they're instructed to give the first fruits offering to the Lord upon entering the land. So they weren't supposed to get in the land and just start. Living in the land and enjoying all the produce for themselves and taking it all for themselves and stockpiling things. They needed to first give the first of the produce of the land back to the Lord as an offering of thanksgiving and also as a demonstration of trust that he was going to continue to provide for them. And so this is chapter 26 when they got in the land. Hey, Give your offerings, give your tithes to the Lord first, and then you can live on what he provides for you afterwards. And I think the modern day principle that we would take from that is, is what we talk about, is giving from the top and not from the bottom. That we would say, Hey you don't give over what's left over at the end and go, okay, Lord, this is what I have left over at the end of the month. Here you can have this, but you say, no, I'm gonna trust the Lord and I'm gonna recognize that this is a gift from him. So I'm gonna get from the top, I'm gonna get from what I earn at the outset. And then I'm gonna understand that I'm gonna budget in light of what I. I earned from the outset, I'm going to enjoy the rest of it. Okay. Real quick though. Can you talk about why the girl has to get her hand cut off when she sees as a guy by the private parts? This is chapter 25 verses 11 through 11 and 12. Your eyes shall show no pity. This is the only time where physical mutilation is ever prescribed. So can I just briefly talk about why that is? Thanks man. I appreciate you just throwing that out there. It's there. I was thinking some, they're going to, they're going to notice that. That's one of those that are going to stick out in your reading. You're saying, wow. Why? Other than the sense that it was just it's forbidden and it's out of bounds and this is a sign of going Hey, this is not okay for you to do I don't know that there's anything that's ever jumped out at me is going there's any spiritual significance there but so but physical this is the only place that we do this that physical mutilation cut her hand off aside from stoning people to death right for other physical mutilation, not physical judge I think this is God just saying this is not a death penalty punishment. This is a But this is a punishment. Like we're going to, we're going to make sure that people are aware that this is what has taken place here. So real quick I think this is Lex Talionis I for I tooth for tooth equal punishment for equal the, yeah, the punishment fitting the crime. And the reason why is because if you were to do this, the assumption is that she's trying to, in some way cut off his progeny. Cut off his ability to do something with his family. Let's just be clear on that part. So when God does this, he's saying, look, I for an eye, tooth for a tooth, this is what you're going to do. If she's trying to do this and you get what you were going to do to yourself. That's the short answer that I think makes the most sense of the passage because she's trying to, yes. Okay. I was everyone clear. What I'm trying to say without saying it all. That's why I think the cutting off is such a big deal. It's a Lex talionis thing. I for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Gotcha. Anymore on chapter 26 though, the giving of the first fruits. Nope. Okay. chapter 27. No, no controversies there. Chapter 27, the Israelites here we have our to build an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal. And we're going to find out why in really the next chapter, except that here it's told you're going to go and you're going to pronounce curses for disobedience there from Mount Ebal. And so we're going to see that in tomorrow's reading chapter 28 and chapter 29 of Deuteronomy. Let's pray. And then we'll be done with another episode. God, thanks for your word and that the passages that we get to read today, help us to read thoughtfully and carefully and slowly and not just to rush through these things, not just to let our eyes glaze over the words on the text and move on to what's next, but to really soak them in and ask the good questions and the right questions and dive in deep and give us the wisdom to know. And we thank you for the resources that you've given us to be able to consult, to ask our questions and get them answered. And we pray that we would just be a good and faithful. Recipient of your word that we would steward it well and not just treat it as something to check off and move on And so we pray for a great rest of our day today in christ's name. Amen, keep reading your bibles tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily bible podcast. Y'all come back now you hear bye

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