Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jensen Holt McNair. I'll be honest with you. When I first read our

passage for today I was not excited to talk about it. It's not an easy read and

it's a passage that many have had a hard time reading through and understanding.

See, Deuteronomy 22, verses 13 through 30, lay out expanded laws on the sexual ethic of God's people.

Moses tells of specific instances like a man taking advantage of a woman who is betrothed to be married,

or two adults having a consensual affair, or a son sleeping with his father's wife

and he explains what God's people are supposed to do when these things happen in

their communities. Many of the instances are punishable by death. Others

involve payments to be made to repay the damage that has been done. And honestly, from a 21st century

perspective, as I read it, it's hard not to think that the laws

are archaic, outdated, and overreactions at best.

Like I said, it's a tough read. But if you've been around for this series going through the Torah,

then you know that we live in a completely different culture than the ancient Israelites that Moses is speaking to in this text.

And so if we had the time to go through these examples and to dive deep into the cultural context,

we would see a god who is protecting his people, and especially

the women of Israel from being taken advantage of in a culture that didn't always do so.

Now I'd encourage you to continue reading passages like this

one and doing the hard work of understanding context to help you get a picture of

who God is behind these laws that can sometimes seem so different than our own.

But today, today I want to focus in on why, even with the cultural context going on here, why this

this passage is still always going to be incredibly offensive to modern ears.

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