Heart Hygiene
Leviticus 19:17
17 " 'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
With this we enter the law. The Law, I should say. Laws from God. The double quotation marks are because God said this, and he gave Moses the exact words to say.
This chapter includes some of the Ten, such as 'Do not steal' and keeping the Sabbath, and other laws that seem a bit odd, like mixing two kinds of seed in one field and making clothes of two different fibers. I've never heard those last explained, but I suspect they are object lessons in purity of heart. I believe there is more likely to be a deep truth in those commands than that they are all archaic.
Take verse 17. It is very New Testament. It anticipates Jesus saying if we hate, we have murdered.
Because good things and bad alike begin in the heart. It is better to put the dispute in plain words, to the offender's face, than to nurture hate in the seedbed of the heart.
17 " 'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
With this we enter the law. The Law, I should say. Laws from God. The double quotation marks are because God said this, and he gave Moses the exact words to say.
This chapter includes some of the Ten, such as 'Do not steal' and keeping the Sabbath, and other laws that seem a bit odd, like mixing two kinds of seed in one field and making clothes of two different fibers. I've never heard those last explained, but I suspect they are object lessons in purity of heart. I believe there is more likely to be a deep truth in those commands than that they are all archaic.
Take verse 17. It is very New Testament. It anticipates Jesus saying if we hate, we have murdered.
Because good things and bad alike begin in the heart. It is better to put the dispute in plain words, to the offender's face, than to nurture hate in the seedbed of the heart.
posted by ruthees @ 1:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home