So often Biblical verses are completely misunderstood because they are not read within the context of the culture for which they were written. God was always referring to specific practices and goods available on the earth during a very specific historical time when He gave His Biblical prophecies. Those prophecies made perfect sense to the people of that time.... but because times and technologies have changed, we often miss what God was getting at because we are no longer familiar with what on earth He was talking about.
Take this verse for example:
"You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together." - Deu. 22:11
People of modern times read that verse and can only scratch their heads, or make up farfetched mystical reasons. But the less mystical among us wonder: what on earth is wrong with wearing a blended fabric? Everything we own today is made of blends. Almost no fabric sold on earth is straight linen, straight cotton, straight wool. How can we follow the Bible when it makes no sense?
Well, back in Moses's day, this verse made perfect sense. What God was saying was: "Don't buy the cheap fabric, buy the good quality durable stuff!" Back then, wool was pretty common but linen was harder to manufacture and therefore more expensive. Yet in a desert climate, obviously linen was far nicer and cooler to wear during the hot days. (I can't even imagine wearing a wool robe in the Sahara! Except maybe at night, when it gets almost to freezing.) So, because linen was expensive, merchants would create cheaper blends of half and half. Half linen, half wool; kind of like our junk metals today. Cheap jewelry is made from base alloys mixed with better metals, to make the metal cheaper. This mixing also makes the metal inferior. Cheap jewelry breaks, discolors, and doesn't look good for very long.
If God was writing to us today, He could very possibly say: "Don't buy cheap jewelry that turns your finger green! Buy the real stuff!"
This insistence on quality can be found throughout the Bible. The food laws, for example. God commanded His people to only eat meats that were farm-raised, and therefore more expensive. His people were not to scavenge for rabbits or squirrels or (shudder to think) rats. They were to buy meat from cows, oxen, chickens, animals that had to be fed and cared for by a human and were therefore higher quality and more costly. He was saying: don't eat the cheap meat! Buy the quality stuff!
Looking at how horrible the average American diet has become, this should make us stop and think hard. God takes a huge interest in our health, since He said, "I, the Lord, am your healer." (Ex. 15:26) A vast majority of our health depends on what food we consume. If we are consuming garbage, it will degrade our bodies and make us sick. That doesn't please our Healer! Therefore, He commands us to only eat good quality, healthy, whole foods.
Sticklers for the 'letter of the Law' make up a lot of mystical reasons for eating ONLY what the Bible called out. No pork or lobster or shrimp, only beef and lamb and chicken and etc. God gave these laws because because back in those days, pork and shellfish were not safe. It is very easy for these scavenger animals to have corrupt meat if it is not harvested and stored in exactly the right way. (They didn't have refrigeration, for one thing.) Thankfully, today's technology and know-how enables us to safely consume these meats without danger of poison. But the Bible also gave Peter a very interesting vision:
"I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came to me. When I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, 'Rise, Peter; kill and eat.' But I said, 'Not so, Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.' But the voice answered me again from heaven, 'What God has cleansed you must not call common.'" – Acts 11:5-9
This vision was a parable telling Peter that he could go teach the Gospel to non-Jews. But at the same time, the Bible is always literal as well! It was understood in the Apostle's day that, because of this vision, God had repealed the food laws and would now allow His people to eat anything they could find in the marketplace. This is why a ham roast became tradition for Sunday supper. Those who believed in the freedom of God would purposefully eat ham, an unclean meat, to prove their reliance on grace!
I believe that God eased the food laws because technology had advanced during Roman times to the point that pork and shellfish could be raised and consumed safely. I believe that there is a rational, caring, understandable logic behind every single law in the Bible, and that if we can understand that rationale behind the Law, we can perfectly follow it... even if we don't appear to follow the letter of the law. This is the difference between the Law written 'on our hearts' instead of teaching the law as 'rule upon rule.'
I believe that the basic idea behind most of the food and clothing laws had to do with quality and dignity. Here is more on that subject:
"Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners." – Num. 15:38
This is an interesting verse and commandment. Back in Moses's day, only priests wore tassels like this. So God was saying, 'you are a nation of priests.' (Which God says literally later on.) And blue dye was the most expensive dye that could be bought; so God was saying, 'dress in only the highest quality materials.' They were to be priests who were to represent their God with dignified, quality apparel.
What would God think if He looked at our people now, who so often dress in the cheapest most undignified junk they can scrape together? What image are we presenting to the world? What kind of God are we saying the Lord is? We wouldn't go to a business meeting to represent our company wearing sweatpants and a stretched-out tee shirt, yet we go into public like this. We are ambassadors sent from Heaven to earth, to speak to the people of earth on His behalf and represent the most powerful God in the universe. I believe He would like us to dress the part.
Now the question comes: if we are supposed to dress in only quality clothing and eat only good quality food, how are we going to pay for this? The fact is that most of God's people are impoverished. But God provides that answer too:
"Does not wisdom cry out, and understanding lift up her voice? ... Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding, I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, all the judges of the earth. I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, and my revenue than choice silver." – Pro. 8If the Bible is true, then those who seek wisdom will end up with riches and honor. I cannot list here the number of verses that promise that God will send prosperity and wealth to the righteous. There are too many. Of course, the blessing of wealth is one concept of the Bible that today's believers have completely abandoned. Most even believe now that wealth in and of itself is evil. They base this belief on Jesus's teaching in Matthew 6:
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
There is so much to explain in this passage that it is daunting. But let's begin with the evil eye. Most Christians have no idea what the Jewish concept of the evil (or 'dark') eye is all about. As we can gather from the context, the evil eye has to do with money. In Jewish culture, there is a commandment to always do tzedakkah, or 'good deeds.' This is not a suggestion, but a requirement. The practicing Jew MUST do good deeds, which mostly means giving away money. Charity.
The 'evil eye' is when a Jew who has extra money looks at a beggar or someone who has need of money and refuses to see him, ignoring that person and going on his way without giving tzeddakah. We have the 'evil eye' when we look at a homeless person asking for cash, and we know in our heart he's genuine, but we ignore him and keep walking. Jesus is saying that if you do that habitually, you will become filled with darkness.
I'd like to point out here that you can't give money away to beggars if you don't have any to start with. There is an inherent assumption in this passage that Jesus is speaking to wealthy or middle-class people: people who have money and can do tzeddakah. In other words, he is not speaking to the people who need the tzedakkah (charity) given to them!
Jesus is telling us to lay up treasure in Heaven but not on earth. Back in his day, rich men would create warehouses where they would store all the extra wealth they didn't need. Jesus often preached against this practice, instructing the rich to give their excess as charity instead of keeping it locked away, and in exchange God would prosper them all the greater. This is a solid Biblical principle we can find in multiple books. So again, Jesus is speaking to wealthy individuals.
No one can serve two masters; you do not have to serve money to have money. And the truth is, those who slave all of their lives working for money often are the ones who don't have any! A righteous man, according to the Bible, is given money and power by God but he does not serve them. Instead, he makes his money and power serve God. He is the master of his goods, not the other way around. He uses them to do good things in the earth, to give charity and to improve the lives of others, and in this way he is a minister of the gospel. His money becomes a message.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink etc. Elsewhere in the Bible, God explains that God will feed the righteous from the bounty of Heaven! He will see to the needs of the righteous by Heavenly, not earthly standards! Think about this. Heaven has gold streets, and gems in abundance laying around in piles. There is so much wealth in Heaven we can't even imagine it. THAT is the standard God will use to see to the needs of His righteous ones; not the measly wimpy earth standard of barely having enough.
I haven't found a place in the Bible that commands God's people to be poor. In fact, the only verses I can find on poverty are that poverty is a curse that will be visited upon God's enemies. Jesus did say, "blessed are you poor," but he went on to say, "for yours is the kingdom of God." Yes, that place with gold streets and piles of gemstones laying around, the standard by which God will bless His people on earth. In other words, blessed are the poor because they won't stay poor!
So why are so many Christians poor? Simple: because they believe they should be. If they want it badly enough, God will let them have it. It's not His will, but He lets us have our own will in life. It's clear that the Church doesn't always (or even often) do what God says.
If taken as a whole, the message of the Bible is one of dignity, quality, prosperity. God's people will be blessed, they will increase in influence and wealth, and they should dress the part. They should eat good food. Righteous women should dress their families in the finest garments. And these righteous, wealthy folk should be very generous with charity and give everything extra to someone who needs it. That is the life of the righteous.
So in the light of all of this, let's look at today's lifestyle.
We are taught that being poor is good. It makes you more righteous somehow, despite the fact that statistics will always show that there is higher crime and distress of every kind in low-income areas. When we shop, we are taught to buy only the lowest-priced (cheapest, often the shoddiest) items in the highest possible quantity. Buying garbage in bulk that we don't need... and storing it away in our warehouses, hoarding junk. We need one of every single color! We need 'collections'! We end up with four closets and two dressers full of ugly, stretched-out clothes and cheap, uncomfortable shoes that were worthless when they were new!
When we eat, we are taught to buy the largest possible quantity at the lowest possible price... which means, of course, that we are gorging ourselves to excess on low-quality trash. This will not only make us seriously overweight, it will throw our health, our moods, and our organs into complete chaos. According to the Bible, our Creator and Designer made certain foods to run our bodies, just like gasoline runs a car. You can't pour lemonade into a car engine and expect the thing to run. You have to give it gasoline. It's the same with your body: you can't pour empty, worthless stuff into your stomach and expect your body to be able to process it correctly into fuel. It won't make fuel out of it, it will just store all that worthless filler away as fat, because it can't do anything else with it.
In today's average American lifestyle, these basic areas of life (and a whole lot of other areas I won't get into) are out of line with the Bible. We are being disobedient to God and we didn't even know it. Does God care what we eat? How we dress? What kind of home we live in? YES!
We need to pay attention to what we buy: we need to purchase higher quality items, and quit worrying about paying more for them! A good and honest merchant is worth his pay. If he delivers a good product, pay him appropriately! Stop trying to rip every businessman in the world off by demanding super deep deals and savings. Be generous! Stop having an evil eye! Let your money go, buy good quality merchandise, be generous. Give to those who have need. If you have four closets of clothes, go through the stuff and sort out what you really need, and give the rest away. Stop hoarding. Come in line with God's law; it will save your life.
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