Adultery, Rape, & Incest (Deut. 22:22-30)

6/24/2009 10:19 AM

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY

 

My Worship Time                              Focus:  Adultery, Rape, & Incest

 

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Deut. 22:22-30

 

            Message of the verses:  “22  "If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 23  "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24  then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. 25  "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26  "But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27  "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. 28  "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29  then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. 30  "A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he will not uncover his father’s skirt.”

            Adultery, rape, and incest are three sub-sections in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on Deuteronomy and I will write to all of these laws since this is ground that has already been covered while studying Exodus and Leviticus.  Adultery is sex between two married people, (a man and a women), who are not married to each other and it is punishable by stoning. 

            If a man rapes a women in a city and she does not cry out, and the women is engaged, (same as marriage without sexual involvement), both shall be stoned because the woman did not cry out and therefore it is assumed that she did it willingly.  If this happens in the country and the woman is not engaged then the man must marry her after paying 50 shekels of silver.  If the woman is engaged the man must be stoned because he is sleeping with someone else’s wife.

            A son shall not sleep with his step-mother.  This is the sin that was described in the Corinthian church and this is what Reuben did as described in Genesis even before the law was given and Jacob did not count him as his first born after that.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  These sins are as serious today as they were back when these laws were given even though the punishment is not the same, yet they are still noticed in heaven and also if these are acted out in one’s mind they are as if they still happened.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Give myself to the Lord for worship and service.
2. Put on the spiritual armor:  The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.
3. Trust the Lord to guide my path today.
4. Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
5. Learn contentment.

 

Memory verses for the week:                                  Ephesians 3:14-18

 

14.  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

15.  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

16.  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,

17.  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

18.  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

 

6/24/2009 11:18 AM