25TH January Morning
Numbers 5-9
I stated earlier that the book of Numbers is a book about the walk with God. When God took the Israelites out of Egypt, he told them about the destination of their travel but he never told them about the Journey. It happens when you are dealing with God. God will always tell you about the destination of your life and warn you about the consequences of your choices but he might not always detail the way to all that. He never told the Israelites about the wilderness, the thirst, and all the predicaments and the hardships they were to undergo.
Secondly, God did not use the short and known route on the tradition map that could easily get them to Canaan easily. He had to take them through the wilderness and make them go around and around and keep them in there for forty years. He kept them in the wilderness until all those who came out of Egypt died (Except Caleb and Joshua). The reason for this cannot be explained by any other reason but the fact that, God wanted the Israelites to have a walk with him before they got to Canaan. God will always have a walk with you before you get to his promised land to you. This walk will have many features and all sorts of incidents as we will see but most of all these are intended to shape us and mold us into different people from the people who begun the journey.
While the first prerequisite for a walk with God is Faith, the second according to the book of Numbers was purity. The Israelites had to be pure so as to understand that the God who led them was a one God who is pure and whose intention is to purify them. Chapter 5:1-4 God orders: “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.” The Israelites did this; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the LORD had instructed Moses.
What we see here is purity by separation. We can precisely understand these verses simply in two angles, one that is Physical (which exegetically fits the passage) and the other can be assumed to have Spiritual implications as a primitive Jew mystified. As I had already demonstrated in the book of Leviticus about contagious holiness, here the Lord wants the slave-Israelites to understand that for the population to be secure about infectious diseases, those who are ill should be segregated from those who are not so as to control infections in the camp. This is a health law and has all to do with our bodies and nothing else.
However, what we can draw from this, is a God who is concerned with the least detail of our lives. God minds your body and so you should mind it. God never gave secure means like our world gives today; he ordered separation and quarantining the diseased. He did not advise the other members to avoid contact, or actually to use a condom or any other preventive ointment, but he insisted that the sick be separated from the healthy.
I have always had this crazy idea, I wish whoever was affected by H.I.V was quarantined and we had regions in each country or community for the infected. Or at least marked the sick, this would be a necessary evil. Many western scholars have looked at this purity segregation as stereotype and abusive to human dignity, but I personally think that we must come to grips with reality. If our modern so-called incurable diseases were not commercialized and turned into billion dollar projects, we wouldn’t have any more disease spreading and surviving from one generation to another.
We cannot assume to fight H.I.V while cuddling it at the same time. We can argue in all the way we want, but I think the idea of segregation and isolation of the sick was more effective than our modern approaches. God wants us to segregate ourselves from our communities whenever we get to know that our presence is going to do more harm than good. All in all, what God wants us to know is that we are physiological beings who walk with a God without a body. We are in a sinful world, where our bodies can be hurt by both curable and incurable diseases.
What we need to know as we walk with God in this wilderness is that we must isolate and distance ourselves from those whom we officially know are sick. We should not use the means of this world of dealing with danger. We should not use gloves, condoms, ointments and detergent to avoid infection, we should in principle avoid and isolate ourselves from danger. It is better to prevent than to manage evil.
That is what God intended to teach the Jews then and what he wants to teach you and me today. You cannot afford to trust a condom or an injection in contact with danger. It is not impossible to walk with God with a sick body, it is only painful, frustrating and difficult to maintain the walk while you are sick. Avoid the diseases you can …my dear Christian. Avoid all that you are sure is dangerous.
In chapter 5:5-10 God continues to handle the issue of purity walk in this sense: The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘When a man or woman wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD, that person is guilty and must confess the sin he has committed. He must make full restitution for his wrong, add one fifth to it and give it all to the person he has wronged. But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the LORD and must be given to the priest, along with the ram with which atonement is made for him. All the sacred contributions the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him. Each man’s sacred gifts are his own, but what he gives to the priest will belong to the priest.
While it is good to say sorry, it is always better and Christian to fix what you have broken (if it is fixable). We are materialistic beings, as Christians walking with God, we are called to fix things we have damaged in the courts of our neighbors. You do not walk around hurting people and destroying property then just writing convincing apologies and not doing the needful of fixing what you have broken.
God wants you to repent your sins against your fellow people first to him, and then to the people you have offended and finally, you need to attempt and fix the damages. So the sequence is as thus:
- Step one: Repent to the offended
- Step two: Fix the damages. (if mendable)
- Step three: Repent to God.
This is the biblical way, of walking with God in a community of other pilgrims. We all know that as we walk we hurt some people as we walk, however, we need to understand that repenting your sins to God is very important but it is not whole before God until you reconcile with the offended neighbor.
This what Jesus warned all of us against in Mathew 5:23-26 when he said: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
This is what it means to walk with God in a community. We must understand that we do not walk with God in a certain Utopia or some imaginary world, we walk with God through our individual relationships (when we are alone) and we also walk with God in the corporate sense (the way we deal with other people). How we deal with the problems or even success with other people demonstrates the purity of our walk with God in this world. We must understand that how we deal with others does not determine whether we are fit for heaven (reads: eternal life), but our behavior with other people exhibits the walk we walk and with whom we walk that walk.
In Luke 19 we see a story of a tax collector who had hurt almost every entrepreneur and business person in his town. And lo and behold, Jesus visited his house and he decided he (Jesus) was going to walk with him (tax collector) and when this walk began, here is the reaction of the tax collector: But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8). Zacchaeus said sorry to God, and he also said sorry to the people, but to demonstrate how sorry he was, he did and actually practiced the sorry. He returned and gave away all that he had acquired through hurting and manipulating others.
The word of God and actually God himself does not take lightly the issue of restitution in all our community wrangles. He put it thus in the book of Leviticus 6: 1-6: The LORD said to Moses: “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do–when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found, or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering. And as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that is, to the LORD, his guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the LORD, and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him guilty.”
Look at how God emphasizes this process and procedure: repent to the offended, fix damages (wherever possible), and then repent to God. We can choose to violate this procedure and assume that we can please God while hurting his people, or actually soothe people with gifts while enjoying what is rightfully theirs but this is not a Christian walk. God reemphasizes this even in Exile when he says:
And if I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right–if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. (Ezekiel 33:14-16). We are called to walk with God thus, there is no other excuse. While it is worth it to talk the walk, we must walk the talk then.
Another interesting point that is presented in chapter 5 is one about JEALOUSY and SUSPICION: Briefly the text says: Then the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure–or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure–(Numbers 5:11-14).
If you are one of us (we who are in intimate relationships) then you are also a victim of trust issues. Human beings are genetically selfish people and when they are in love, their worst fear is the possibility that they might be sharing their loved ones with another person. Because of this probability and unsubstantiated allegation, individuals in relationships become too possessive and jealousy piles up in their hearts and minds.
Personally, am a jealous man, and quite possessive. I also defend myself by justifying my possessive behavior as my love-language. I am jealous and possessive with my wife, because I love her, and she is the only one for me in this world. I also think that whoever is not possessive with their loved ones is because their spouses are not that important and deserve such an attention that one awards to their beautiful cars.
As we all know, however much a man loves his car, he might lend it to a friend, but few (if any) would dare lend a spouse to a dear friend. So if a man or woman is not strict and possessive with their loved ones, then it sends signals to us that their spouse has the same value like that of a car or any other materialistic thing. What we see in the book of Numbers here is an observation that God had made and he decided to help marriages. The marriages in the book of Numbers suffered jealousy, suspicion, and possessiveness.
Let us put this out of the way, Jealousy, Suspicion, and Possessiveness in marriage is not wrong. We are sinners and if there are any saints among us, then those saints are in a sinful world. And that actually makes even the most holy and faithful among us, vulnerable. We all need help and that help can be garnered from our fellow partners. So when a husband/wife is jealous, suspicious and possessive with their spouse, it is a sign of two realities: 1. that they love their spouse and 2-that they are doing their protective job.
As you may or may not know, marriage is a combat business. When you are in a serious and honest relationship you are at the frontline of the battle and the enemy shoots at you directly. It is the time when you need your spouse to cover you as you cover her too. When you are in such a committed relationship you know that your friend decided everything she is and has is yours and so are you to her. So each has an obligation to steward the other in all circumstances. And this is where Jealousy, Suspicion, and Possessiveness comes in. Trust me, there is no problem with all that, the issue is in how and what one does;
I will come to this but first allow me to say this: Jealousy is an expression of love, even God declared himself a jealousy God. When your spouse is possessive and jealous with you, you need to understand that it is not about you but rather an opposition directed to any other force that might have a claim on you. Jealousy and possessiveness, is a love perimeter wall built around what you love and this huge wall, has only an exit but no entrance point. So it is a wall that prevents outsiders from accessing you, but not limiting you (the loved one) to access them.
And this brings me to the ‘HOW’. Jealousy, Suspicion, and Possessiveness are not the problem at all, and actually, as I have emphasized, they are expressions of love in a sinful world. You do not know what it means to be in a relationship with someone who is indifferent. He or She does not care and never minds you. It is not a big deal, what time you come back home, who you talk to, at whose you sleep at, who you associate with, when and where…etc. all that is not their business.
It makes more sense and meaning when your spouse pays attention to the details of your life and gets involved to always help where necessary. The fallacy of “you are mature, you know what to do when and where” is very dangerous to our relationships. You cannot afford to have two separate lives in practice and claim to be in unison as two different entities. When a man leaves his mother and father and cleaves to his wife, they do not add-up to two but they become one.
There is, therefore, nothing like “it is her body not mine, his life not mine“. We are one, you need to cover me and I cover you because as I do that, am not doing you a favor but am helping myself since we are socially connected. This does not mean that one’s individuality is killed, but rather that it is actually promoted in that sense.
The greatest second commandment from our Lord, was: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF. The kind of love that Jesus commands us to love others (spouses in this context) is a Referential Love. It is a love that can only be as much and as practical to the extent of how much we love ourselves. It begins with us as individuals, and then we extend that to those we consider part of us.
So when you are jealous and possessive with an individual, it is because you value yourself. Now I said and wrote all that because I wanted us not to always demonize and stereotype those who are possessive. However, I have to warn you that in a sinful world everything good can be abused. So while Jealousy and Possessiveness are good things and practices of real love, they can be misused and turned into destructive practices.
Sometimes a partner becomes too suspicious and too jealous – especially in the early part of a relationship. Certain acts like asking who you have been hanging out with or who you were talking to on the phone can be signs of what I call misguided jealousy and extreme suspicion. Individuals, who are chronically jealous or suspicious, often misinterpret what is going on—taking what might be an innocent event and thinking about it in the worst way possible.
For example, if a boyfriend or girlfriend does not immediately return a phone call, a highly jealous individual will jump to a negative conclusion (my partner doesn’t love me or my partner is cheating). Jumping to such conclusions can drive people crazy and it often fuels their suspicion more. Such behavior becomes irritating and unbearable not to mention invasive and even emotionally abusive. Negative thoughts, doubts, and insecurities often lead to more negative thoughts, doubts, and insecurities. Jealousy can go seriously awry. Some people, for no apparent reason, become consumed by it, undermining their self-esteem, and even drive their partner into another’s arms—the very outcome they had feared.
Not only do highly jealous individuals drive themselves crazy, they often drive their partners crazy as well. Being around a suspicious person is difficult to deal with. No one likes to have everything that happens turned into a negative event. In the worst cases, they become violent. (Jealousy is indeed a leading cause of spousal homicide worldwide.) Poorly applied Jealousy can be an expression of a person’s sense of insecurity or a sense of loss of self-control which makes them focus on the perceived wrong-doings of others so that they can feel justified about harboring suspicions in the first place.
When it is an abused Jealousy, people often compare themselves to their rival, they feel threatened, and they imagine the worst case scenario—that their partner or spouse might leave them for someone else. We must always know how to manage and properly use jealousy in all our relationships. God does not kill others nor does he commit suicide due to his lovers talking to others or coming late.
Verses 15-31 is a passage about: a Lie Detector. A lie detector is a machine that investigative organizations use to help them know the truth from the statements of suspects and criminals. As human beings, we are beings with the ability to withhold some information from others. For instance, few of us really know what our spouses do outside our knowledge. Few of us really know whether all the kids at home are our biological children. Few of us know all the businesses and the resources of our spouses. Not many people do understand how much money is on the account of our lovers and actually how many accounts they have. We live with people who have conditioned us to know what they want us to know.
In the Old Testament, however, it was not so. God was the lie detector. If you happened to be suspicious with your spouse, you took them to the priest and exercised a ritual that included some offerings, sacrifices, and threats of curses. In this exercise, God involved himself in the marital affairs of the couple and in a very phenomenological way, something happened to the guilty party. It was upon this scenario that, all truth was revealed. Lies were exposed and the guilty party suffered the consequences.
In our modern world when someone is put on a polygraph (Lie Detector Machine), there are series of questions that an individual must answer so as to test their consistency. What we see in the book of Numbers, however, is that the priest does not ask any questions to anyone. All the priest does is to do his priestly thing and offer all that to the God who is omniscient. I think this is a lesson to all of us, we should not interrogate our spouses in search of truth, all we should do is to talk to God, to reveal to us the entire truth in his ways.
When we spy on our spouses instead of praying for them we hurt ourselves the more. Our worldly systems of lie-detecting are vulnerable given the fact that they are man-made gadgets that can always be compromised or actually beaten by the very men who made them. Many people in the history of polygraphs have beaten these machines. We need to talk to God, who is way beyond ourselves. That is what the priest was doing.
Another interesting thing about this chapter is the danger of knowledge. While one spouse never minded about knowing more than he/she knew about their spouse, there was no problem in the family. No one was cursed not even the guilty party. But the moment the husband or the wife (in the Jewish community wives could not report) went, chaos was raised and all the community knew who was guilty and who was to be stoned.
The message is simple and straight; in marital relationships, ignorance is healthy and good for the survival of a relationship. Marriage is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there are things you do not need to know, not because you shouldn’t know, but because you cannot manage the information. We must understand that the notion of “what you don’t know might kill you”, ought to actually read: “what you know will kill you faster”.
It is better sometimes to be left with the information you have if you are to survive emotionally and practically. Do not dig a deeper ditch of information such that you won’t be able to cover or even jump out. Let something be and pray to God to have his way on all the suspicious issues in your marriage or relationships.
25TH January Evening
Numbers 6-10
Chapter 6 is about a vow, and I will talk about that in other specific areas in the Bible as we continue. Chapter seven, eight, nine and Ten are about reorganizing the worship system and ensuring effective and efficient worship systems are put in place. It is unfortunate that in our modern days, these have been turned into liturgy something I will also handle in the future.
God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.
Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER
@Think and Become
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iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 