Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast,

The Whole Council of God. Father Stephen holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies, and it's an Orthodox

priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Moving on, Numbers chapter 6, verse 1.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

Speak to the children of Israel and say to them,

when either a man or woman vows an extraordinary vow to sanctify himself

as one of purity to the Lord.

Okay, so now we're shifting again, but a little, right? So we're moving to another topic, but this one is also about taking vows. That was about someone taking a vow before God. Moving to another topic, but it also involves people taking vows before God. This is what we're about to read about is what was called, what called in the Bible because it's in the New Testament

too what's called a Nazarite vow and this is a vow that a person takes to set themselves apart as it

just said set themselves aside to God and we're going to see this could be usually this is going to be

for a period of time and they're going to abstain from certain things and they're going to do certain things that we're about to read about. Sometimes certain individuals, this is going to be for their whole life. So Samson in the book of judges, he's supposed to be a Nazarite and follow these rules for his whole life. St. John the Baptist, St. John the Foreruner was a Nazarite, his whole life, had these vows his whole life. St. Paul is going to take one of these vows for a short period of time. So both of those are things that happen. The ordination was with priests. This is more like monasticism actually is going to grow out of this later on. But we'll get to that. So here's the beginning of the list of things. Verse three,

he shall separate himself from wine and intoxicants. So that's one of the ways we know Jesus wasn't an Azorite because he drank wine. But St. John the four-hunter didn't. Remember Christ says,

St. John came neither eating nor drinking. Then he says he came eating and drinking.

Not drink any wine and vinegar made from wine

and any vinegar made from intoxicants. Neither shall he drink anything made from grapes, nor eat

fresh grapes or raisins. So we're going extreme on the, this is like being a vegan, not a vegetarian.

This is, we're staying way away from wine. Verse four, all the days of his separation, he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape

vine from seed to skin.

All the days of his vow of purification, no razor shall come upon his head until the days are

fulfilled for which he vowed to the Lord, he shall be holy.

They shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.

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