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Principle

Under the Law of Moses, God commanded Israel to follow specific instructions after they took possession of the land of Canaan.

Explanation

The Law of Moses included several instructions specific to the period of time following conquest of the land of Canaan.

Special Dedication of Fruits

1 “And it shall be, when you come into the land the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you inherit it and dwell in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the produce of your land which the Lord your God gives you and put it in a basket, and go to the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be called upon there. 3 Then you shall go to the one who is priest in those days and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord my God, I have come to the country the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ 4 Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hands and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.
(Deuteronomy 26:1-4 OSB)

Dedication for Remembrance

Details

Principle

Under the Law of Moses, God told Israel to tithe for certain specific things.

Explanation

GOD instructed Israel under the Law of Moses to tithe. However, certain details are often overlooked about tithing under the Law. For example:

  1. Tithing was for specific categories of blessings received, not a blanket ten percent on everything, as is commonly believed.
  2. The tithes had a practical purpose, such as providing for the priests and the needy.
  3. Tithes were collected at varying frequencies depending upon their purpose.

Here is what the Scripture says about tithing under the Law of Moses:

Details

Western culture needs to reclaim some sense of morality. It's up to Christians to lead the way. Unfortunately, in many aspects, culture has greater influence on Christians than Christians have influence on culture.

There is no greater example of this need than immodesty. Without exaggerating, I cannot walk out my front door without witnessing immodest behavior. It's everywhere.

On one hand, I fault Christian parents and to a lesser degree, church teachers, for the avalanche in modest dress and behavior. Ultimately, parents are responsible for teaching their children.

But then I ask myself why the parents fail(ed)? As a fellow parent (of now-grown children), I question my own past fathering effectiveness in this area as the behavior hasn't always been what I would be proud to see.

In the end, each person is responsible for their own choices. Parental teaching can only go so far. But in aggregate, children who were taught Christian values and love for GOD are more likely to practice godly modesty.

As I have studied afresh the topic of biblical modesty, I conclude that one reason many Christians have given in to the pressure of cultural immodesty is that most of the focus has trended on outward behavior rather than on the reasons why modesty matters and the necessity of surrendering our will to Jesus'—the One a Christian claims to follow.

For this reason, I believe the Christian community needs fresh teaching on modesty, teaching that gets at the heart (pun intended) of the matter and focuses first on the logic of why modesty is needed.

For example, how many times have you heard a discussion or Bible class on modesty devolve into the fact that:

  1. Each person is responsible for their own thoughts and actions, or ...
  2. How, exactly, we are to determine what clothing is modest vs. immodest?

I believe the fact Christians ask this question is indicative that we've missed the mark, that we've misunderstood, or that we have a heart issue.

So we need to go back to the beginning and start over.

Will you join me?

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Each morning, we awaken to another day living in "upside down world." Few things make sense anymore and you can't trust much of what you see with your own eyes.

It's now obvious that a silent war rages over human solidarity.

On one hand, people are incessantly bombarded by efforts to divide us. Nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, sexuality, discriminated groups, minorities, political allegiance, vaccination status, and on and on it goes.

Despite these efforts, people are increasingly realizing they've been duped and manipulated. Unifying causes draw ever-increasing supporters, such as: love of country; moral values; defense for those who need help, such as the unborn, elderly, disabled, abused, and trafficked; and justice against those who have harmed others.

Only a few years ago, many of these topics would have felt on the fringe, if not entirely outside the scope of my focus area of Christian living. Some will probably get angry and leave because they don't like what I'm saying. But I assure you, this is squarely a post about Christian living.

Today, it has become obvious that these individual topics are not merely independent interests that coincidentally produce a similar dividing effect. It is time we wake up and see that division itself is the goal of those who wish us harm.

Everybody knows the saying: "United we stand, divided we fall." Christians know that Jesus said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Division weakens. The weak are easily defeated.

When Jesus sent out the 70, He told them: