relationships (Deuteronomy 21:10-23) Respect and Love

(Deuteronomy 21:10-23)  “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, 11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her.

15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, 16 then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. 17 But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

18 “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, 19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. 20 They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

22 “If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

TODAY'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATION:

To apply these principles today, we must realize these verses are NOT saying that having an unbelieving spouse is okay (if you are a believer), or that having more than one spouse is okay, or even that divorce is okay.  God has given His laws and directions in order to look after people and protect the vulnerable - within whatever circumstance mankind creates for themselves.  And when the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth to die in our place and rise again, He fulfilled the law so that no one is to be put to death now, yet we can still learn from these verses.

We can see here very clearly that we are to listen to our parents and respect them.  We should treat all people fairly and with respect, especially our spouse and our children.  We should never facilitate or overlook bad behavior, while at the same time, we should never take advantage or abuse the "innocent".

It's amazing how quickly our "love" can become self-centered, selfish, manipulative and/or complacent.  That is not love.  God's (agape) love is not a feeling, but a choice and an action.  It is all about choosing to love, unconditionally, no matter what.  It is all about choosing to serve and give one hundred percent, without expecting anything in return.  It is all about putting the Lord first in our lives, so that as we draw closer to the Lord, we draw closer to each other.  When believers put all of this into practice, it "works", and it is a very beautiful thing.