Letting Things Exist in Their Purpose

Synopsis     Deuteronomy 22:3-14     3/6/2018

Moses established in the law that people should wear the clothes appropriate to their gender. As an extension of this principle, Moses taught that people should avoid mixtures that have as their intent, the disguising of something’s true character. So, he forbad mixing wool and linen fabric, different kinds of seeds in a field, or unequally yoked animals.

Additionally, he forbade harvesting two generations of animals at the same time. A hunter could take the off-spring or the parent, but not both because this thwarted the animals achieving their purpose in reproduction.

Letting Things Exist in Their Purpose

It’s the purpose for which a thing is made that matters. That’s seems to be God’s view anyway. Our post-modern tendency is to think of it in exactly opposite terms. As long as we know how to manipulate a thing, we should be free to do whatever we want to it.

Authenticity

I have this tendency to want to make Jesus relevant to the world – to mix the experience of Jesus with the best this world has to offer. It’s disingenuous. It’s dangerous. And it doesn’t work.

That’s not to say Jesus doesn’t speak into culture or our contemporary circumstances. He does to be sure. But this word comes by the Holy Spirit to a faithful heart. It’s a natural consequence of a relationship between persons – human and divine. It’s authentic.

But God is determined to be more than a set of principles that can be co-opted by clever post-modern people. If I come to Jesus wanting nothing but a self-help program, then I stand in danger of everything I thought I wanted blowing-up in my face. I could lose both my hope for something larger in this life and the possibility of heaven.

Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Luke 5:33