There are so many ways in which we legislate our lives with rules and laws. For instance, diets create the laws, or boundaries, of what we can and cannot eat (although most of operate on the "see food" diet - if I can see it I eat it). We decide what we can and cannot watch on television, how late we should stay up at night, how our day should be scheduled and what our friendships will look like. These are all boundaries that we create.
We cannot go anywhere without being under the watch care of boundaries set for us by laws, ordinances, regulations, religions or families. Sometimes these are written laws (speed limits) or sometimes oral (you have to eat all your vegetables before you leave the table). Driving (speed limits), workplaces (appropriate attire), eating establishments (no shirt, no shoes, no service) and parks (keep pets on a leash) all place boundaries on our lives.
Week 5 of the story offers a glimpse at not only what rules God has given for us to live by, but why we have those rules. Imagine this new nation, now living on it's own after being slaves for hundreds of years, now building a community for living together. They must have had at least unwritten rules for their life together in Egypt, but they were ruled by both the national rules of Egypt AND the slave masters who ruled over them with whips. These were the models of what life together might look like now that they were on their own.
Along with that, if God was going to come and live with them (for the first time since Eden!), there needed to be an understanding how life was to be lived. There has to be some common base of right and wrong. How do we live life together in community? Who decides these rules?
For Israel, God begins HIS community by creating the rules which will govern their lives. As you read through them this week, and we talk about them on Sunday, we can see the wisdom and power of these boundaries for our lives.
An Apprentice of Jesus,
Kevin
No comments:
Post a Comment