Deuteronomy chapter 22

vs 1

This is, after all, a nice thing to do. It's like returning a lost wallet or puppy. It's actually like a mix of the two!

vs 2

Obviously today you could hand it into a police station or something similar. Unless you found it out in front of your house, and there was a reason why the person looking for it would come to your house. The point, anyway, is that it's a loving thing to do, and you should go as far as possible to help the person, even if you don't know them. Remember, keeping an oxen or sheep on your property is actually costing you grassland that you could be grazing your own animals on.

vs 3

There's so much junk in the world today that it's hard to know if someone has lost something or just dropped it on the side of the road. The amount of umbrellas I see, where people have just discarded them where they stood because they broke - I mean sure, you're getting wet, and you might be a bit upset at the fact that your umbrella broke, but why chuck it straight on the footpath?

vs 4

Or, in modern times, help someone with a flat tyre. Of course, helping a donkey out of a ditch is a more simple problem than helping someone who's car has broken down. I mean, as I have had it said once, if you pull over and know nothing about how to fix an engine, someone who does know might go past thinking, "That person is OK." I think perhaps we assume people will be OK too much. Like, we assume they'll have a mobile phone and stuff, and there's nothing we can do to help. Some friends from our Qld church once filled the back of their car with bottles of cold water and drove up and down the highway handing them out to people who had broken down, just because they knew that it would be nice (in a Qld summer, I'll bet it was!).

vs 5

So many arguments, so many intricacies. God did not say "Let there be pants, and they belong to men." In fact, people didn't wear pants in Israel! It was about the cut of tunics, I'm told. I like the argument that men shouldn't dress up like women in order to sneak into secret women's quarters and commit adultery. I guess women wearing man's clothes could be for the purposes of an Osama type education or work exercise, which would be unnecessary if Israel were looking after its widows and orphans appropriately. Since in modern day we have designer clothes, and more equal opportunity, I think this is a lot less of an issue. What about transvestites? Hell, I don't know. I can't see a problem with it, really, if it's just that they like wearing the clothes. If it's because they want to be a member of the opposite sex and can't afford a sex change, that's probably going to be more of a homosexual/rebel against creation issue.

I guess at the end of the day the fact is that while we would like to think that there are some things that are harmless and that should be a part of some private sphere that no-one can talk about, even what happens in a marital bedroom will be judged by God, and God can ban pretty much whatever he wants. I would say that there's nothing wrong with a woman wearing a guy's shirt in the morning while she cooks breakfast or whatever (you know the scene in the movie I'm talking about), but since God can ban the colour orange if he wants to... Hell yes, it's arbitrary. Everything God does is inevitably arbitrary, when you come back to first principles. I'm not saying that God does things without reason, but that he creates reason as well as doing.

Anyway, I'm not going to judge people by their clothing. Not with regards to spiritual efficacy, at least. And I would be prepared to sail somewhat close to the wind on this one. Close hauled on the port tack, just like Hornblower. I'm rambling now.

vs 6

Don't destroy the whole family. I'm guessing it's something to do with sustainability.

vs 7

There is no reason given. Sustainability seems the obvious reason. But there is also a justice reason too, I suppose. To be honest, sustainability is not a broad brush across the OT, while justice is, in my opinion. Anyway, anything I say won't stop hippies from reading it as a command to hug trees. This command is knit into God's promised land promises - "that it will go well with you and you will have a long life."

vs 8

Also, don't install spikes on the front of your car. I mean, it's just stupid. Who are you, Mad Max? In fact, according to this Christians should all drive those cars that have high pedestrian safety ratings. Also, banning people from going on your roof is allowable, so don't feel the need to go for actual crenelations. Of course, I want them on my house, but only because it would be a castle and be awesomely cool.

vs 9

So does calling them two separate vineyards make it okay? I think the issue here is purity. It's symbolic. So surely having two separate vineyards is fine.

vs 10

I assume that they'd go around in circles, but also again I think this is symbolism of purity. And there are more commands like this. Verse 12, well we'll get to that tomorrow.