Deuteronomy 25:1-19

The Lord wants His people to do the right thing.  He wants His people to relate to one another in a way that reflects His character.  When we refuse to do this, there ought to be consequences and God spells some of them out for the children of Israel in this chapter.  Though our culture is very different today; the principles that are taught in this passage continue to be a very important part of honoring God and reflecting His character today.

JUSTICE: God is just and He wants His people to be just in their judgments of one another.  In the case of disputes between two people there ought to be a fare trial where the spiritual leaders of Israel were responsible to judge between the two and decide who was guilty and who was innocent.  The guilty person was to be appropriately punished within the limit of the law.  We have a tendency to manipulate the laws of our land in a way that we do not always do what is just.  Our courts try to detect the truth, but there are laws that prevent the truth from being discovered.  We must always remember that God is a perfect judge in that He always knows every truth and that He, one day, will judge according to His knowledge.  We must make every effort to judge according to truth and then appropriately punish the guilty.

MERCY: Within a family, if a brother married and died without having children, the law and culture of Israel required the man’s family to be merciful to the wife of their brother.  The younger brother or closest family member was to take her as his wife and provide a child to carry on the name of the older brother.  I believe that this was a specific law for the children of Israel as a means of protecting the distribution of land according to families.  However, the principle of providing for members of our family who come to be a part of our family by marriage is still very valid and reflects the mercy of God.  We ought to treat our in-laws with honor and respect.

PURITY: It is only natural for a wife to seek to defend her husband in the case of a physical confrontation.  However, she was not permitted to touch a man’s private parts in her attempts to defend her husband.  If she did this, her hand was to be cut off.  God is concerned with the purity of His people, and a man’s or a woman’s private parts are completely off limits outside of marriage.  We should honor and protect one another in a way that protects one another’s purity and privacy.

HONESTY: God made it very clear that His children were to have only one weight in their bags for measuring the goods that they sell.  Having two weights was a means of cheating in that one would purchase with one weight and then sell with another weight in order to pad his profits.  This practice was an abomination to the Lord.  God wants all of us to be honest in our dealings with one another.  We must charge prices that are fare and use honesty in our businesses.  God will honor this honesty as it reflects His character.  We must never compromise the truth in our efforts to pad our profits.