Morning Light – Deuteronomy 14

[Deuteronomy 14] Should We Reject the Old Testament? In this chapter, Moses reiterates various laws, including dietary laws. Are we today subject to the dietary laws of the Old Testament? What if any value do the scriptures outlining the dietary laws have for us? Do we simply discard the Old Testament, for that matter? What place should the Old Testament and the laws of Moses hold in our lives? Many struggle with this and fall into the error of following stylized Pseudo-Jewish religion. This is not God’s plan. Likewise, others reject the Old Testament altogether. In this study, we will see the appropriate and, in fact profound relevance to our life in Christ that the Old Testament and Moses’ laws have for us.

[Deu 14:1-29 KJV] 1 Ye [are] the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2 For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that [are] upon the earth. 3 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. 4 These [are] the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, 5 The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois. 6 And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, [and] cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat. 7 Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; [as] the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; [therefore] they [are] unclean unto you. 8 And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it [is] unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase. 9 These ye shall eat of all that [are] in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: 10 And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it [is] unclean unto you. 11 [Of] all clean birds ye shall eat. 12 But these [are they] of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 13 And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, 14 And every raven after his kind, 15 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 16 The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, 17 And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, 18 And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. 19 And every creeping thing that flieth [is] unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. 20 [But of] all clean fowls ye may eat. 21 Ye shall not eat [of] any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that [is] in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. 22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. 23 And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always. 24 And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; [or] if the place be too far from thee, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: 25 Then shalt thou turn [it] into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: 26 And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, 27 And the Levite that [is] within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. 28 At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay [it] up within thy gates: 29 And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which [are] within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.

In v. 1, we see a prohibition against altering our bodies for artistic expression. The Amorites practiced self-mutilation for the dead. Their name means “sayer, to say, the act of speaking”. We live in an information age. The Amorites were one of the first nations Israel had to defeat when coming into Canaan land. Now God is warning them not to adopt the practices of the Amorites. It is interesting to consider the practice of tattooing one’s body in the light of this verse. The word Amorite means “to say,” and a tattoo is definitely making a statement. Making conspicuous marks between the eyes was also prohibited. Eyes have to do with vision and communication. It is said that eyes are the window to the soul. To place a mark, there is like putting a billboard up on the freeway – it is message related. These things were all done for the dead and prohibited in scripture.

Setting aside the actual marking of one’s body, what is the deeper meaning? Jesus said in Mark 12:27 that God is not a God of the dead but the God of the living. Where is our identity? What gospel are we preaching? If you look deep enough at the origins of popular gospel emphasis, you will find many core values and messages that have nothing to do with the Bible but rather the teachings of men like Scofield, Spurgeon, Calvin, Clarence Larkin, and many others. As modern belief systems developed, these men’s teachings were codified in textbooks of theology and made the basis of faith – as though all scriptural inquiry stops there. In other words, their interpretation becomes the message in place of the gospel. The life message of these men becomes the identifying characteristic for the different denominations. Thus, they are cutting themselves for the dead to make a belief statement. God wants us to learn to hold man’s teachings loosely to maintain our identity in Him. Isaiah warned of the character of religious belief in the last day:

[Isa 4:1 KJV] 1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

The seven women are the seven churches. They lay hold of a man (Hagin, Calvin, Billy Graham, Martin Luther, John Wesley), etc., and ground their identity in the man and his message rather than as Jesus said in John 15:4 “Abiding in the vine…” The result is (in verse 6) Jesus said if you abide not in the vine of Christ “men shall gather you and cast you into the fire…” In other words, you become fuel for the work of man rather than a vital component of the body of Christ. We must guard ourselves against being marked by men.

Verse 3 tells us not to eat any abominable thing. What do the dietary laws say to us? They are one of the most prominent features of the law. In the first centuries of the church, there was a heretic by the name of Marcion who established an alternative church that lasted for centuries. He ultimately rejected the Old Testament as originating from a demon called Yahweh, who was not the Father who sent Jesus. We are shocked by this – but when is the last time you read the Old Testament or the Bible for that matter through and through? We functionally reject the scriptures that we never refer to. This is common today in our pulpits where the Bible is seldom referred to and the name of Jesus even less mentioned. You can watch Christian TV or listen to the radio for hours at a time and never hear a scripture quotation or the name of Jesus.

The clean animals that were eaten had to divide the hoof and chew the cud. Heb. 4:12 says that the word is a divider. Chewing the cud is a metaphor in our culture for meditating on something. We must be willing to allow the word to rightly divide, including both Old and New Testaments, and to “chew the cud” to bring it up and let it go down, then bring it up again until we get all the nutrients out of the word that God has for us.

The ox, the sheep, and the mountain goat were acceptable for food. Eating food is a type of covenant. To consume a thing is to ingest its nature into our own. The ox is a servant wearing the yoke and plowing through life. Jesus promises us yoke easy and burden light but not the absence of any yoke at all. The sheep is a creature of the flock who follows the shepherd. John 10:4 tells us when we ingest the sheep nature; we will not be deceived or follow another. The mountain goat finds the high places and is, at times, a solitary creature. We have to know when to lose ourselves in the flock and when to draw ourselves aside and seek the high places of God. The deer was acceptable – the Psalmist speaks of the deer “panting for the water – so the soul pants after God…”

The only fish allowed to be eaten are those with scales and fins. Water is a type of the Spirit of God. God wants us to be able to NAVIGATE the currents of the Spirit, not just being a bottom feeder as most eels and skinned sea creatures are. Regarding birds, we see that almost all predatory birds are unclean – God does not want us to have a predatory nature in the things of the Spirit.

Animals that died of themselves could not be eaten. God does not want us partaking in death; He wants us partaking of life. Jesus had no death in Himself. He said in John 10:18 that He was, in fact, immortal and only died because He allowed Himself to die. When we read or ingest the Bible, we need to spend more time in the gospels than we do anywhere else. Heb. 1:2 says that the life of Jesus is the interpretive lens through which we filter our entire understanding of every other verse. This is never taught, and because of it, Christianity has a very different character than that of Christ. We want to filter our doctrine through our logic rather than bowing to the authority of Jesus’ character and Jesus’ love and Jesus own teachings about the Bible. If your understanding of the Bible is contradictory to the character of Christ – if what you believe is not something validated by Jesus’ life and acts and teachings, then you need to make an adjustment.

You further could not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. 1 Pet. 2:2 tells us to desire the sincere milk of the word. We are the sheep of God’s pastures, but how many times do we get scalded by the preaching of the word? We delight in preachers who “step on toes” and “tell it straight” – this is in direct contradiction to the nature of the gospel, which is GOOD NEWS. We say, “well, how else will they repent…” Harsh preaching is not the key to repentance and not the goal of repentance. Harsh preaching is to the Sunday morning service what Jerry Springer is to afternoon television. It is tabloid in nature designed to titillate and bring ratings and crowds. Rom. 2:4,5 says that the GOODNESS of GOD leads men to repent – IF YOU WANT MEN TO REPENT, you MUST give them GOD’S GOODNESS.

Lastly, the holiest of the sacrifices were to be eaten in the temple. 1 Cor. 3:7 says YOU ARE THAT TEMPLE. In other words, the study of the word, communion with the Spirit that takes place in your own meditation and prayer is the holiest, most powerful, and most desired. A personal relationship with God, with His word and His Spirit, is much more to be desired and sought after than what takes place in the corporate or pulpit and pew setting. Our dependency is not on God in the church but God in his word resident in our own hearts and lives.