Category: Old Testament Law

Book Plunge: Improbable Issues With The God Hypothesis Part 4

Is God immoral? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

To begin with, in this chapter, I find it problematic to say God is either moral or immoral. He is good. Morality is doing as one ought which places an ought above someone that I don’t think applies to God. The only actions God is obligated to do are those that He has promised or fit into His nature.

So let’s get into what all Brucker says:

The origin and the existence of our innate moral display is almost as mysterious to many people as is the origin of the universe, but monotheists claim to have such sure knowledge that the non-religious do not.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 55). Kindle Edition.

Historically, monotheists have said everyone has access to the natural law. Everyone knows right and wrong. It’s almost as if Brucker didn’t bother engaging with any contrary thought before writing this book. Nah. That can’t be it.

If a monotheist believes there to exist a divinely-inspired moral code, they must also believe their all-powerful God to have the utmost morality and would apply it accordingly if they wish to label him as omnibenevolent and omniscient. If our moral perspective has been inspired by God, there ought to be an ultimate and non-flexible moral code. With that system for absolute morality, God must also be superfluous when following such a code himself. Furthermore, I would suggest that a knowledgeable and metaphysical mind would demonstrate a moral code inconceivable to the human mind – assuming of course that a mind such as that exists. The moral perspective from 3,500 years ago was much different than it is today. Progressive modern societies have demonstrated that we can collectively decide that senseless and unwarranted murder is reprehensible – something that the God of Abraham could neither command nor display.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 55-56). Kindle Edition.

So several parts here.

First, this is why I don’t say God is a moral being. It implies God is a part of creation following a moral code. Second, since I don’t have that, I don’t say God is the ultimate in morality. He is the ultimate in goodness. Third, God did condemn murder a number of times in Scripture so I don’t know what Brucker thinks he has done in discovering some new moral law or something. If your achievement for a progressive society is “We know murder is wrong” that’s not much of an achievement. Tune in tomorrow boys and girls when he discovers that water is wet.

He naturally goes with Elisha and the two bears. You can see more on that here. He also says we think God has only one principle. Love. Not at all. He has many others, including justice.

He also says that God says rape is okay citing this Scripture.

When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive’s garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 59-60). Kindle Edition.

So if the women are killed. That’s awful. If a man spares a woman and takes her into his house and provides for her, that’s also awful. Note before the man does anything, he has to wait a full month! That’s a common pattern in rape isn’t it? This was actually a way to look out for a woman and make sure she was provided for.

But what about this?

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 60). Kindle Edition.

Even a non-Christian has taken this one to task.

What about atheist morality?

Christians have often been said to have proclaimed, “We get our morals from God. Thus – Atheists have no morals.”

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 62). Kindle Edition.

This does not follow. That an atheist doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean he  doesn’t know the moral law any more than he doesn’t know the basic laws of physics.

“What is keeping an atheist from murdering, stealing and raping?” It would take a sufficiently ignorant individual to say such a thing, as thousands of morally efficient atheists continue to prove them wrong today.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 62). Kindle Edition.

Except saying “Plenty of atheists don’t do this!” isn’t an answer to the question. I totally agree that plenty of atheists don’t do this. What is the reason? Someone like Tom Holland would say it is because they have a Christian background they refuse to acknowledge. What happens when those atheists get in power and no one is there to hold them accountable? Just look at how the Chinese and Russians in atheist regimes have treated their enemies.

Christians haven’t always done better! True enough, but yet when Christians act evil, that is in violation of Christianity. No tenet of atheism is violated when an atheist does evil.

Jesus spoke of many moral attributes that any modern secular humanist or atheist would consider as quite immoral. He advocated deserting one’s family if it meant a closer relationship with him. Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Also, the limbs must be cut off from those who steal. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut if off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. How about killing enemies of him and his own? But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 63-64). Kindle Edition.

The first one is classical hyperbolic language and if Christianity is true, it would follow. What would we think of someone who said they wanted to serve God, but that their family would come before God? This does not mean you ignore your family, but your ultimate priority is to God.

The second is also hyperbole. It’s a shame that has to be explained to someone like Brucker. This is the way Jews spoke.

The final is a parable and historically, it is not about Jesus.

Naturally, Brucker has to say something about same-sex relationships.

But are homosexual tendencies unnatural? It is entirely reasonable to believe that the early members of the Abrahamic religions may have been unaware of such tendencies outside of human behavior. Today, over 1,500 species within the animal kingdom have been discovered displaying homosexual behavior among those populations – many of which maintain that homosexuality for their entire lives.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 70-71). Kindle Edition.

Indeed. So let’s look at the argument.

If a tendency is found in nature, it is natural.
Same-sex behavior is found in nature.
Same-sex behavior is natural.

That checks out.

Then there has to be this other implication.

If a behavior is natural, it is a good behavior.
Same-sex behavior is natural.
Same-sex behavior is good.

That also checks out, but if these syllogisms are accurate, we should be able to fit anything in and it fits. We can’t be selective or we are as Brucker says earlier, begging the question. Let’s go.

If a tendency is found in nature, it is natural.
Eating one’s young is found in nature.
Eating one’s young is natural.

If a behavior is natural, it is a good behavior.
Eating one’s young is natural.
Eating one’s young is good.

Brucker will have to show what part of either syllogism he denies and why.

I find this to be ironic because if an architect who designed human life existed, then he most certainly created the homosexual desire.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (pp. 71-72). Kindle Edition.

This does not follow at all. A Christian can easily say our desires are fallen. We have taken good desires and corrupted them.

The emotional pain and possible subsequent suicide are the fault of religious faith, something that I would expect a loving and morally superior God to neither directly or indirectly inflict on an innocent person. Does it not seem irrational to believe that a loving God would require one to relinquish their identity to achieve eternal life with him?

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 72). Kindle Edition.

Brucker is awfully dehumanizing here by making who one does or doesn’t sleep with the basis of their identity. A Christians says the person’s identity is “Made in the image of God.” Who they sleep with is very very secondary. Also, if anyone commits suicide, religious or not, it is the person who does it. Others can influence it, but the person who does the act is the one who made the decision. They are not forced.

Every moral epoch that has been reached was not through the work put forth by the religiously-inspired but through secular and reason-based thinking.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 72). Kindle Edition.

I am sure someone like Wilberforce or King would be shocked to hear that their moral changes came about because of secular and reason-based thinking. Of course, I am not at all saying that religious thinking is not reason-based. It may or may not be. The same applies to secular thinking.

Stripping the argument of any philosophical connotation – by strictly looking at the morality within a structured society – it becomes quiet obvious that the inclination for doing well is merely a genetic byproduct meant to ensure the survival of species. Morality could be considered an evolutionary necessity, saying that those within any social system will survive far longer if those within that system treat one another with kindness and thus avoid recessive conflict. Let us take a bee hive for example. Within each and every hive, there exists an instinctual moral conduct. They work together, push through the adversity the colony may face, and protect the queen at all costs. The same can be said of an ant colony and the tireless efforts put forth by the worker ants; they help one another maintain the integrity of the group.

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 74). Kindle Edition.

But if this is the case, then we are really pretending. There is really no true good and evil. There is just the want to survive. Yet what happens if I acquire power and no longer care about the survival of others? Plenty of atheist regimes show us what happens and about these, Brucker has nothing to say.

So, an atheist will burn in hell for eternity for not believing, but a mass-murderer will dine in heaven if he prays for forgiveness. What kind of morally-superior God would allow for such a loop-hole to exist? With that, I truly believe that religious belief is to blame for all negative behavior because religious beliefs allow ignorance, racism, and bigotry to flourish while hiding behind the facade of “moral pureness.”

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 77). Kindle Edition.

So if God punishes a wicked person, He’s evil. If He forgives him, He’s also evil. Got it. Would Brucker prefer God want to punish someone instead? Also, what is responsible for the mass killings in atheist regimes? Is it religious belief?

There is naturally material on slavery to which you can search this blog for. Brucker also says that morality evolves, but if good and evil are constantly changing, then there is no absolute good or evil. He also cannot condemn past societies. Perhaps they were just doing what was moral for them then. There can also be no moral progress. Progress assumes a goal beyond oneself one is trying to reach.

Finally in wishing for a hope for the religious he says

What if they were to realize collectively that there was no absolute purpose to life and the order of the universe?

Brucker, J. D.. Improbable: Issues with the God Hypothesis (p. 82). Kindle Edition.

I contend the people who think this are truly the most dangerous ones of all. It’s a shame Brucker wants us to embrace them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

What’s going on with this punishment? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

An atheist in a Facebook group I’m a part of shared this passage from Deuteronomy 25:11-12.

11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

Well, that seems a bit excessive doesn’t it? Isn’t this a woman just trying to defend her husband? Why would you give such a strong punishment for that? I was also told that defending this is like defending acid being thrown in womens’ faces in Muslim countries.

The good thing about being an internet atheist is when you’re in a discussion, you don’t have to actually interact. You can just have righteous indignation. If you find it offensive, well that’s enough. You don’t need to bother to understand another culture.

However, when we want to study a culture, we need to try to see what was going on and why that law was made.

Let’s start with something first off that’s not in the text explicitly, but is part of the cultural context. The ancient laws were didactic. That means that they were not hard and fast rules but general guidelines. A judge would take into consideration all facets and hopefully, make a wise judgment. If this were not the case, why would they even need judges?

Second, this is not really about defending her husband. A swift kick would be a lot better. This woman is wanting to do a lot more than that. She’s wanting to do long-term permanent damage not just to him, but to his future. He’s destroying his ability to reproduce and thus cutting off his entire family line possibly.

Besides this, generally, if you were wanting to repel someone, bending down and grabbing a man by his testicles is not the best route. You are putting yourself in a vulnerable position after all if you miss. and possibly making it be that you are a barrier to your husband’s attempts to engage with the interlocutor.

Also, something we have to remember about stiff penalties, is that they were meant to be a deterrent to crime. In many cases, they’re successful. Remember a few years ago when that kid went to Singapore and vandalized a car and got caned multiple times as a result? I understand he assaulted his father when he got back to America. I guarantee you he won’t try anything if he returns to Singapore one day.

So what about acid throwing? Well, from my reading into Muslim cultures, and I tried to find pro-Muslim material, it really looks like many times, a woman could get acid thrown in her face for anything, be it going to school or even refusing sex with her husband. These are hardly parallels.

Let’s also remember the Law was never meant to give us a key to a perfect society. It was meant to help curtail a wicked society at the time. It was a schoolmaster until the better law of Christ came along.

You can be offended at this passage. You cannot like it. Neither one counts as an argument though.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Seduced Slave Girl

What happens if a slave girl is seduced? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As we go through Leviticus, we come across this law in chapter 19.

“‘If a man sleeps with a female slave who is promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. 21 The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the tent of meeting for a guilt offering to the Lord. 22 With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the Lord for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven.

So what is going on here?

First off, nothing is said here about how the sleeping together came about. Most likely, it is not rape, but seduction. It also says nothing about who it is that has slept with the girl. It could actually be the master himself. It could be just a way of saying anyone who does this, including the master.

Why is the death penalty not put in place here? It is not because the girl is a servant, but it is because she is not married. She was to be redeemed and to be a wife and she hasn’t been and when men wanted to redeem wives, they generally wanted to redeem virgins.

When it comes to the money that is paid, it is not clear who it is that gets the money. Is it the master or is it the husband-to-be? I also think it’s worthwhile to point out the woman doesn’t have to have any penalty on her. Instead, it is the man who is to take responsibility. Even if this is seduction and it take two to tango, the man is seen as the one who has done the seduction.

Also, if the marriage was called off because of this, what happens to the girl? She remains in the household of the master and likely he has to keep providing for her. This would mean a master better think twice if he wants to be the one who is sleeping with the slave girl.

Also, how is all of this information coming about? We can seem to gloss over that idea, but if we are talking about finding out who did what and making proper restitution, what does that entail? That’s right. An investigation. This would be a matter that would be looked into.

Why is that important? Because this is nothing silent, but it is something that is public and the man would have been seen as having done a shameful thing. If the woman let herself be seduced, this would ultimately be her own punishment as everyone would know about what she did. If a man doesn’t want to see his love life come under scrutiny like this, it would be wise for him to just avoid interacting with the girl altogether. (For an idea of what that could be like, think back to any major affair that has happened whether it be Ravi Zacharias or Bill Clinton.)

Again, all this shows that the Bible treats sex and marriage seriously. We would be wise to do the same even if our laws are different.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Sexuality and Shrimp

How do we handle the law today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is not an easy topic as thousands of pages have been written on the topic of the role of the law in the life of the Christian. Much of the epistles in the New Testament is all about this problem really as Paul and others have to quote the Old Testament often to establish their points. Jesus Himself in the Gospels had to explain how the Old Testament was being misunderstood so it is not a shock that we today can struggle with it at times.

For instance, we have all these rules on sexuality, but then we have rules on not eating shrimp. What’s going on with that? Shrimp is an abomination and so are two men sleeping together. Why do we forbid the latter and yet happily go to a place like Red Lobster and dine our hearts out?

As I’ve said, I should not be expected to be the final word and answer all questions, but I do want to give some general guidelines.

First, we must always remember that the Law was given to Jews in a specific time and a specific place. The Law was never given to the church in the sense that God directly covenanted with the church through the Law. The covenant with the church is done through Jesus.

However, this does not mean that we dispense with the Law entirely. Paul tells us in the New Testament that everything that was written was written for our benefit. Even if we are not bound by it, we can still learn from it.

Second, the Law often had meanings behind the surface level. Paul uses this in 1 Cor. 9 where he quotes about not muzzling an ox while it’s treading the grain. God’s principle concern is not with the ox, but with the idea that one who works should get to partake in some fruit of the work.

Let’s consider another idea. What about building something on the roof of your house to serve as a barrier? In this case, this was done because the roof was often treated as a separate room and people would regularly go up there. You build a barrier to make sure no one falls off and suffers injury or death. We don’t do this today because we don’t use our roofs this way, but if you have an apartment complex with a balcony of some sort, there will be a barrier to prevent falling.

So what about mixed fabrics and clean and unclean animals? The animals could be because some of them contained a mixture of different locales in that they were creatures of earth and water or water and air or air and earth. We might not know the reason entirely, but they did. Mixed fabrics were to avoid a similar mixture and remind the Israelites of purity. We are to take this as having moral purity.

Third, most all of us follow the Law to some extent. Last I saw, many atheists are not going out and championing murder since the Bible says “Do not murder.”You can be an atheist and think the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a beautiful command and should be followed, but it comes right between Leviticus 18 and 20 with its sexual rules. Atheists accusing Christians of picking and choosing can be just as guilty. Both sides can easily use prooftexts for their own benefit.

Fourth, we can see how the New Testament handles this. While John 8 with the woman caught in adultery was not likely written by the author of John, I do think it shows a real event in the life of Jesus. In it, Jesus never questions the statement of the law that an adulterous woman should be stoned, but he does say that if you want to play that game, how many of you deserve a punishment as well?

In 1 Cor. 5, we have a man sleeping with his stepmother. The couple could have had a similar punishment, but this time Paul says to remove the man from the church. It’s worth noting in that day the man could not just go down the block to another church. The exclusion was to make him come to his senses.

Paul as a good Pharisee knows the law, but while he still upholds that sleeping with your stepmther is wrong, he doesn’t uphold the punishment of the Old Testament. It’s not because he’s opposed to the Old Testament. It’s because he sees things through the lens of Christ now instead.

Several times in the epistles, homosexual practice and sex outside of marriage is condemned. There’s no hint that these have changed. Yes. I have read some of the revisionists trying to say otherwise and I just find their cases extremely weak.

Let’s also return to Leviticus 18. In the final section, God tells the people that for these kinds of practices, the people are being driven out. This means that they should have known better.

In the same way, in Romans 1, Paul speaks about general revelation and says “Because of that, people should have known idolatry was wrong.” Why? Looking at the universe, you should be able to tell that it was made by something greater than something like an animal.

After a vertical error, he then moves to a horizontal one. Just like people got the nature of God wrong, they got the nature of God wrong and same-sex relations were his prime example. We should be able to look and tell that male and female go together and no other combination does.

These are just some general guidelines. Does this answer everything? Of course not. There are many books on these subjects. For homosexuality in particular, I recommend Robert Gagnon and books where he does take part in a counterpoint discussion are some of the best.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Bestiality

Why does the Bible condemn bestiality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

As we continue through this section, we see this verse and it led me to thinking more about why some actions are condemned in our society today and why some aren’t. Our culture is becoming more of an anything goes culture and I don’t doubt that within a few years, bestiality will be being protected by some of the elite in our society. Time will tell if I’m right.

When I was married, my wife did tell me about a girl who made videos where she actually talked about sex with her dog. I think her name was Whitney, but while trying to find out, my search engine blocked out the results. Thus, I cannot guarantee this, but such a person did exist.

Now I did ponder this some yesterday about why our culture condemns this, but the verse before, we don’t have a problem with homosexuality. If sex with someone of the same sex is one of those barriers that we think needs to be taken down, why not go further and say the species doesn’t even matter. We’re already moving into pedophilia after all.

Now some could say that an animal cannot give its consent, as consent seems to be one of the main points today in sexuality. Whatever goes is okay provided you have consent, but why should this stop with animals? We who love our animals still treat them in ways that they definitely do not consent to. I can assure anyone that when I put Shiro in his kitty carrier to go to the vet, he does not give me his consent.

To go even further, every pet owner dreads the time when they have to go to the vet to say good-bye and have their animal put to sleep. As Shiro is getting older, I am dreading this time more and more when I think about it. If we can let our pets die without their consent, then why not go the step of bestiality?

From a Christian perspective, bestiality is the crossing of the species and going against the design of our bodies and nature. Humanity was made to be with humanity. We are lowering ourselves from rational animals in bestiality to just animals. Again though, I am sure before too long there will be defenses of bestiality being more present and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some out there right now.

A question now asked is how many of these laws apply to us today. That is an important hermeneutic question as when these verses are brought up, before too long someone brings up mixed fabrics or dietary laws. I plan on addressing this when we continue in this series. We’ll see you then.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Homosexuality in Leviticus

What does the Bible say about this topic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Now we get to this verse:

“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

For some reason in our culture, this is always a hard topic. My personal suspicion on this is that we live in a culture that wants to move away as far as possible from the Christian understanding of sex and in actuality, just make sex more meaningless and more of a hobby that people do together. If we give any essential qualities to sex, then we also have to have proper rules and morality for sex. It’s why I am sure bestiality and pedophilia is just around the corner. Time will tell if I am right.

Let’s state something upright. There are several works out there that are tempting to make the Bible not condemn homosexual behavior. They really don’t work well at all. This has been the standard interpretation for thousands of years and there is no new data around the text to have it say something different.

Now we could debate if some people are born with homosexual tendencies or not, but that’s not my purpose here. Even if we did grant that, many of us men are born with the tendency to pursue women and we have to control that impulse just as much. If any desire we have is condemned by Scripture, no matter how much it seems innate to us, we have to curtail it.

Also, contrary to what some people think, there are a number of people who struggle with same-sex attraction and yet marry someone of the opposite sex and it still works. Does it require a lot of work to make a marriage like that succeed? I am sure, but at the same time, that is the case with every marriage. All of them take work and that includes in sexual practice even with two people who are heterosexual.

One of the reasons is that gender really matters in the Bible. It’s not a social construct. At the same time, the Bible never says what makes a man a man or a woman a woman. Going back to Sam Andreades who I referred to yesterday, he does state that gender is best found in relationship. Women are the best at bringing out masculinity in a man and vice-versa.

Our bodies are different for a reason and come together the way that they do for a reason. Who we are is not an accident. The way we come together and reproduce is not an accident either. If anyone should have a thorough understanding of sexuality, it should be a Christian. Sex is not something that is outside of a Christian worldview and must be somehow grafted in. It is the idea of our creator and His invention. We have the Song of Songs in our book after all.

FInally, none of this is hatred of people who have homosexual tendencies anymore than speaking against adultery is hatred of people with heterosexual tendencies. On this end, I recommend Preston Sprinkle’s People To Be Loved.

And yes, we definitely need to show love to the homosexual community. We don’t approve of all they do, but we should celebrate their personhood. They too bear the image of God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Sacrificing Children

Do we sacrifice our children to Molek? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we get to this verse in Leviticus, many in our society would think that this is not applicable to us. After all, we no longer sacrifice our children to pagan gods, and I’d say for the most part, this is true, but do we sacrifice them to secular gods? I contend we obviously do.

These are gods such as convenience, autonomy, sexual freedom, etc.

For us, we call it abortion today. It is one of the sacraments of our culture. It is one of the rare places where the science is ignored entirely and everyone becomes philosophical all of a sudden.

So what science is ignored exactly?

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.” — Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8

“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” –Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition, Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. p. 16.

“Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.” –William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology, New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.

“Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite, a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition.” — E.L. Potter, M.D., and J.M. Craig, M.D. Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant (3rd Edition). Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975, page vii.

“It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of life of a new individual.” –Bradley M. Patton, Human Embryology, 3rd Ed., (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), p. 43.

“It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being.” –Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 85-86.

“Perhaps the most straightforward relation between you and me on the one hand and every human fetus on the other is this: All are living members of the same species, homo sapiens. A human fetus after all is simply a human being at a very early stage in his or her development.” –David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003) 20.

“A human fetus is not a nonhuman animal; it is a stage of a human being.” –Wayne L. Sumner, Abortion and Moral Theory, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 10.

Actually, our age is worse than the pagan ages. They did a great evil in sacrificing their children, but they often did it for the good of the community thinking they would have a great harvest and saw it as a real sacrifice. When our children are sacrificed today, they are sacrificed more for individual goods than anything else.

Sometimes, I wonder if a future culture will look back on us and wonder what we were thinking by allowing abortion. How many lives have been lost due to this great evil? We have a modern-day holocaust going on and I look forward to when we realize that is happening.

So yes, we do sacrifice our children today, except we don’t consider it a sacrifice and it is not to a pagan deity, but secular ones.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Get Your Own Girl

How should you treat your neighbor? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So far in this list, we have seen a load of people mentioned who are somehow related to you. Now God goes even further and says to avoid your neighbor’s wife. This is something that is extremely relevant today as we normally do agree that you shouldn’t sleep with relatives, but somehow, we do have many people today who sleep with their neighbor’s spouse or at least pursue that.

This is especially the case in the age of social media. A friend told me sometime within the past year about going through divorce records in a court, though I don’t remember what for, and being surprised how many times the word “Facebook” showed up. The problem with this is that you can get easily attached to someone you haven’t met and since they’re a fantasy, they can be whatever you want them to be.

Ladies. Prince Charming will likely snore when you go to bed at night.

And guys, her hair will not stay beautiful and pristine when she wakes up in the morning.

Very few people will wake up one day and say “I think I’ll have an affair today.” It generally starts with something innocent. This is one reason why when I normally message a woman and I think it could be a long conversation, I will include her husband in it as well. I also have some rules set up for whenever I go on dates again.

The action of an affair with someone else’s spouse damages relationships across the board. In my DivorceCare group, we watch a video every week from DivorceCare and one lady does describe how her ex-husband was sleeping with her ex-best friend. I’m pretty sure this other lady was her best friend before this happened.

Even if someone is a skeptic of Christianity, I am sure they will agree with the passage in Proverbs that says that jealousy arouses a husband’s fury and he will not be bought off. He will not be pacified when he seeks revenge. He will refuse a bribe however great it is. There’s something about this activity that gets spouses engaged on a whole new level.

This should also tell us that sexual activity is not like anything else that we have. A husband might be upset if his wife plays tennis with another man or something of that sort, but once he finds out she has slept with someone else, at that point normally all bets are off. Who knows where this could go from here?

So what’s a simple solution? Easy. If you want to sleep with someone, make a lifelong commitment to them first and go through with it. Don’t hedge your bets and say that we’ll be together for now, but there’s no need to make a commitment. You or they can just run out at any time then actually. This is something especially women need to realize who really control the market. Have a guy give a lifetime commitment upfront.

For both sexes, once you are married, build up yourself and your own relationship. If the grass looks greener on the other side, water your own side and care for it more. Be very careful on social media as well. Marriage is a terrible thing to destroy even if it is necessary sometimes such as in abuse and adultery.

The alternative of destroying relationships is far worse.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Sex Rules

Why this long list? Lets plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Leviticus 18 seems really repetitive. The writer, speaking for God, goes through and lists a number of people one-by-one for the most part, tells who they are, and then says to not try to have sex with them. Many a reader could get confused by all of this. Wouldn’t it just make sense to say “Only have sex with your spouse.”?

One of the reasons I think this is done this way is because to say sex is the great obsession of our society is an understatement. However, our society is not the exception in this. I remember hearing before that we have even found cave drawings of women with exaggerated proportions. An early form of pornography perhaps?

There’s no reason to think Hebrew society was any different and especially if you have 70 people go to Egypt and then a few hundred years later even with high child mortality rates there’s a great number of them, we can easily guess how they spent their free time. Not only that, but after the wilderness wanderings and when they get settled in the land, promiscuous behavior is a problem. Heck. While they’re in the wilderness, promiscuous behavior is a problem.

This is a problem of human nature.

As a divorced man now, I realize that for the time being for me, sexual activity is off the table. Is that hard? Yep. Do I like it? Not a bit. Is it a temptation for me to want to break the rules? Yes. That can include anything with a woman in person or just watching pornography at home. I still abstain from all of those and sometimes, there can be strong temptations. I have already set up hard rules when I start dating again for how I will behave in certain scenarios.

This is a hard path to follow. I have no doubt that some people are non-Christians today because they do not want to follow Christianity’s sexual ethic. I am not saying at all that’s right. I will say it makes sense. We all to some extent love sin. That’s why we do it so often.

Notice something. It’s easy to look at this list and see all the negatives. No list is needed for the positives. God nowhere has to tell the listener “Go and have sex with the wife of your youth.” That doesn’t need to be said at all. There are no restrictions put on the married couple together.

He’s not opposed to that. He created the system. He designed all the parts. He made all of it to work together. Christians have a status of being seen as anti-sex when we should be seen as the most pro-sex people of all. Unfortunately, we have developed a reputation of being seen as prudes.

Sex is not evil. The body is not evil. Both of these are good things and God designed them to work the way they do and in a marital unit, to be able to enjoy the gift of sexual intimacy. We should mind the negative rules, but let’s not forget the positives that don’t have to be said here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Discharges in Leviticus 15

Why are discharges treated so seriously? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It might seem odd in looking at marriage to go to Leviticus 15, but these are issues with regard to sexuality. Normally, the Bible is not that explicit concerning sexual terminology, though Song of Songs is exceptional in some ways. Many times, it uses euphemisms to speak of sexual activity or of sexual body parts.

Obviously, a discharge refers to something other than just going to the bathroom or else every man who is unclean after an emission would be pretty much constantly unclean, including the high priest. It more refers to emissions of a sexual nature that are likely outside of regular sexual activity. Sex isn’t dirty, but there are times to abstain to focus on holy aspects, as Paul advised temporarily for married couples in 1 Cor. 7 and sometimes would happen in the Old Testament in the wilderness wanderings when God was about to do something grand.

The same applied to a woman during the time of her period. For her, this is especially evident since she has a flow of blood and the loss of blood in this way was considered unclean. It’s worth noting this does not mean evil. It was no sin to have a period.

So now we have to ask a question that might seem obvious, but it is one worth thinking about. Why does God have all these regulations concerning the human body? Many of them also concern matters that were not sinful but would just happen over the course of time.

For one thing, the body matters. Many of us can treat the body as a negative. We refer to it as a prison. The body is something good and it is something that God will raise us up in again. Too many of us sing songs that are practically Gnostic where we compare the body to a prison. That doesn’t come from Jesus, but it comes from Plato instead.

Second, sex is something sacred as it is the connecting of two sacred bodies in the most intimate way possible. As a divorced man now, I am having to make the pledge that until I remarry again, I will be abstaining from sex. It is not because I delight in abstaining. It is not because I can celebrate and say “Whew! At least I don’t have to do that anymore!” It’s quite the opposite for me and for many other men who are divorced if not all of us.

So why do it? It’s the right thing to do. It honors God, our future spouses, and ourselves. Granted I have a future spouse, she will know that I was faithfully pure both inside of marriage and outside of it. Today, we often treat sex as a casual activity that you just do for recreation.

Christians are to hold to something different, but we are not to give the view that we are anti-sex. We should be the most pro-sex people out there. After all, God created this whole system and meant for us to enjoy it as well. He just wants to enjoy it in the way it was meant to be enjoyed and ultimately, the way that will provide us with the best joy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)