Faithbase

Hello and welcome to Thinking About the Bible. In this series, thinking about God's law, we are now at the seventh commandment. You shall not commit adultery. This is Exodus 20 14 and again pretty straightforward. I do want to touch on something we talked about a little bit in the introduction to this series that this command has to do with the hierarchy of order or representation in this covenant relationship and in this case it's the the hierarchy of order and the representation not to God but within the society, within culture. So we are represented in culture individually of course but also by family and so when you have adultery that is disrupted. In the ancient world there was the question of appropriate legal lines for inheritance. If there was adultery there was a question of whose child this really might be if someone was in line for inheritance or something so or not something but inheritance that's what it was all about and carrying on the family name. It would be horrendous to someone in that particular world in that ancient world to have an illegitimate child be the one who inherits your property or to carry on your name under false pretenses. So adultery no inappropriate sexual relationship in other words no sexual relationship for a married man or married woman with anyone outside of the covenant relationship but I do think that the the broad the more broad application of this of this law is the principle of appropriate sexual relationship only. So fornication any kind of sexual relationship outside of the marriage covenant would likewise fall under this this whole category of appropriate sexual behavior. Now the reason adultery is such a horrible thing a reason that fornication is such a destructive thing is because it cuts at God's primary means of bringing about the kingdom of God realizing the kingdom of God the rule and the reign of Jesus Christ in this realm and that is the rejoining of humanity and one man and one woman who come together in the covenant relationship and as I've written and spoke about elsewhere sex is marriage because it's when that that relationship is consummated in the sexual relationship when that covenant marriage is consummated in the sexual relationship that this rejoining actually takes place. So this is very important in our world today we have mass confusion sexually and this all comes back to the the failure to obey this law both in its most specific application or and in its broad application but our our nation and our world is in chaos sexually and culturally in chaos and I believe it's primarily because this particular law has been thrown out the window well you throw this out the window of course you throw about everything else out because you're simply saying well God has no right to tell me what to do if there is a God someone might say but this this is something that we should not only teach and model but should seek to have part of our cultural norm in this nation and across the round the world I should say so anyway what I'd like you to do today when you think about God's law is to think about ways that you can make more concrete your embrace of the covenant relationship of marriage in your own life if you're married if you're not married I would ask you to consider what it is that you hope for in the future in marriage and to do your very best to do your level best to remain out of any kind of a sexual relationship until you have entered the marriage covenant so we'll see you again tomorrow as we continue to think about God's law