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The Torah and Apostolic Scriptures call us to a high standard of holiness and faithfulness, as seen in the Torah passage כִּי־תֵצֵא Ki Tetze (“when you go forth,” Deut. 21:10–25:19) and 1Cor. 5:1–5. When immorality creeps into the congregation, it must be addressed with wisdom and compassion. Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) called us to be a “light of the world” (Matt. 5:14), modeling lives of integrity and self-control (Acts 24:25; Gal. 5:23; Titus 1:8; 2Pet. 1:6).
Tolerating unrepentant sin within the body weakens the witness of the community and dishonors Heaven. Though difficult, confronting sin with grace (mercy and favor) is an act of love — for the individual caught in sin and for the whole congregation. As we strive to walk in the ways of Adonai, may we have the courage to uphold righteousness and the humility to receive correction when needed. Only then can we fulfill our purpose to be a holy people.
Here are other questions addressed in this study:
- Ezek. 18:21–22 says a wicked man practicing justice and righteousness is enough to have Heaven forget his sins and transgressions. Does that mean that there is salvation without faith in Yeshua as Messiah? (00:48:00 in the recording)
- Deut. 24:16 says children won’t be executed for the father’s sin, but there are parents today who are being charged for mass shootings by their children. The biblical instruction on negligence in not putting railings on roofs (Deut. 22:8) has a lot to say about this. (00:56:12)
- What biblical evidence is there that the blessing for the whole world through Abraham (Gen. 12:3) would be the Messiah? (01:04:23)
- What’s behind the prohibition of men dressing as women and women as men in Deut. 22:5? What does it have to say about gender identity? (01:11:41)
The positive side of commandments: A new look at loyalty, honesty and contentment in Deuteronomy
There are a lot of unpleasant topics compressed into Parashat Ki Tetze. The book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ way to compressing the entire law into one book. Through these seemingly unrelated and disjointed little rules, instructions, ordinances, etc, judgments, these are all items that fit together in a particular order. Those are all the topics of the passage that we’re looking at today with Parashat Ki Tetzi, and they roughly grouped under the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th commandments. This reading touches on such topics as the respect for life, loyalty, theft, honesty, lust and coveting.
The sixth commandment says, Do not murder. Well, when you turn the command from a negative statement to a positive statement, you get the command to respect human life.
“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.” (Deuteronomy 22:8 NAS95)
Here the Torah tells a homeowner to put a parapet, or a railing, around their roof, or some sort of obstruction on your roof. Why? So someone just doesn’t teeter off the roof or so that when a child goes up to the edge that they can’t just go right off the side.
We use all kinds of big legal words, like negligence. Are you negligent? What is negligence?
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, defines negligence as, “Failure to use the degree of care appropriate to the circumstances, resulting in an unintended injury to another.”
American law takes into account different degrees of negligence and we also have various degrees in modern law today about murder. We use big words such as negligence to explain how we can end up contributing to the physical harm or even death of our fellow man even though we had no intention of harm.
The seventh commandment is the commandment against adultery. “You shall not commit adultery.” Well, how would you turn that around into a positive statement? Be loyal, be faithful. To treat the relationship that is between you and your seriously and guard, protect and foster it, and to help it grow. The commandment against adultery is not limited to the marital relationship. It also means that we are to be loyal to our family and friends and to be dependable. We are to work on our relationships and to affirm them.
The eighth commandment says, “You shall not steal.” The positive affirmation of that is to mind your own business. We are told not to steal from our fellow man but this also means that we are to mind our own business and not expand our boundaries onto those of others.
The ninth commandment, says “You shall now bear false witness against your neighbor.” What is the positive version of that commandment? You should be honest, trustworthy and dependable, that’s the positive corollary of refusing to bear false witness. We need to say what we mean and mean what we say.
With the tenth commandment, which says “You shall not covet….” But coveting is more than just admiring something someone else has and wanting something similar for yourself. Coveting is desiring what your neighbor has so that they no longer have it. So it is akin to stealing, but it is much more insidious. With coveting, it is the thought that goes before the action. The positive flip side of this commandment is that we should not want what is not ours to be content with what God has given us. We should not want something that someone else has because we don’t think they have a right to it.
Paul’s rebuke: Immorality, arrogance and the consequences of condoning sin
“A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he will not uncover his father’s skirt.” (Deuteronomy 22:30 NAS95)
We are going to focus our attention today on 1Cor. 5:1-5. It is a short passage, but it packs a real punch. Paul does not pull his punches in telling the Corinthians that they are condoning and justifying very reprehensible behavior.
“It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (1 Corinthians 5:1-5 NAS95)
Paul bluntly asks the Corinthians if they are hurt by the fact that condoning and even applauding something that’s so reprehensible that even those of the nations think that what they are doing is disgusting and morally abhorrent, but they have become arrogant about the situation when they should be in mourning instead. Well, they were so clueless that they didn’t even know that they should be mourning rather than embracing it and proud of it.
Paul says that he is talking about an immorality that is not even known among the pagans, those that are don’t have a connection with the God of heaven and earth. That word under the hood there is porneia. You might recognize that term. We talk about that a lot, and it’s an infection in our culture today. Even thought this is a classical Greek word, the classical Greek philosophers do not use it a lot.
However you will see the word πορνεία porneia in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and also in the apostolic writings, as well as its verb equivalent, porneo. Although it is often translated as immorality, it is more literally translated as “prostitution” or “fornication.”1
Porneia is used in the Septuagint to translate these words in the TaNaKh:
- זָנָה zānâh: “Lay down like a prostitute, harlot” (Jer. 2:20; Micah 1:7).
- זְנוּנִים zᵉnûnı̂m: “Harlotry, prostitution” (Hosea 1:2; Nahum 3:4).
- זְנוּת zᵉnûth: “Unfaithfulness” (Num. 14:33); “prostitution” (Jer. 3:2; Hos. 4:11).
- תַּזְנוּת taznûth: “Harlotry, lust” (Ezek. 16:15; 23:7f, 11).
One of the earliest stories where the Greek Septuagint uses the word portia is in the story of Tamar, the daughter in law of Judah, who was accused of engaging in porneia (Gen. 38:24). As you may recall, she was married to Judah’s oldest son, Er. When Er died, she was married off to the middle son Onan and then when he died, she was pledged to Judah’s youngest son, Shelah, but Shelah was just a child, so she was sent off to live with her parents, supposedly until the time that Shelah would be old enough to fulfill the duties of a husband to her, but when Judah did not fulfill his promised, she took matters into her own hands. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to force the issue of Judah’s failure to fulfill his promise to marry her to his youngest son.
You will also see the word porneia often used as a euphemism for idolatry. In the ancient world, sexual immoral behavior was not only condoned by the pagan deities and ritualized, but such behavior was considered a normal part of the religious worship cycle.
False gods and fornication: The timeless appeal of religious debauchery
In our day, with the rise in neo-paganism, religiously sanctioned sexual debauchery has also become fashionable again. We’ve major festivals that happen here in Northern California, where people to get together and blatantly engage in religiously sanctioned fornication and sexual immorality. Metaphorically, porneia stands for religious idolatry as Israel is the bride who is “unfaithful” to her “husband,” the Lord God.2
The prophets, especially Hosea and Ezekiel, use that image.2 The entire book of Hosea is a living parable of the consequences of religious idolatry. God told Hosea to take an unfaithful woman as his wife (Hos. 1:2), who later became a religious prostitute. This relationship symbolized Israel’s unfaithfulness and idolatry. God tells Hosea to go find her and buy her back and bring her back home, even though she wasn’t repentant at the time (Hos. 3:1-5).
Yeshua told a parable that is similar to the story of Hosea and Gomer with the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). When the son comes to his senses and comes back home, the father celebrates and fully restores him to the household. The son, who thought the grass was greener on the other side, found out the grass was green over a septic tank. He lost everything his father had given him. He comes back asking to become his father’s slave. But what does the father do? The father throws a lavish party for him and prepares the best food for him.
Both Gomer and the prodigal son found themselves in a situation where they had no future, no hope, but they were loved and brought back to fellowship.
That should sound like something from Ezek. 36:22-32, where the prophet says that it is not because of Israel’s righteousness or because of their uprightness that God is going to act to redeem them and bring them out of their exile in a foreign country. Remember that their enemies absolutely destroyed the Temple, destroyed Jerusalem’s walls, destroyed everything and flattened the entire city. On the surface, they have nothing to go back to, but Adonai says, “I am going to bring you back.”
How could they convince the superpower of the world that had destroyed their country and sent them into exile in the first place to allow them go back home and restore what was demolished? What prospects do they have? Little to none. Who will do the rebuilding? The people are. But who is actually going to convince an emperor to give the exiles their home back? Who will convince the emperor to issue an edict to rebuild a stronghold of a nation that had been a terrible thorn in the sides of several empires for a long period of time? God did and He worked through a pagan emperor named Cyrus to do so. Cyrus gave the edict to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
The most common false deities found in all pagan cultures are fertility gods and goddesses. You’ll see them in Africa, you’ll see them in Asia, you’ll see them in Europe, you’ll see them in the Middle East. They’re all over the place where you’ll see figurines of various sorts, and they have a lot of commonalities in their various features. Nations can’t survive without fertility of crops, livestock, and even their own fertility but rather than asking the one true God for these things, they developed false gods to give them these things. God specifically told the people of Israel to completely wipe out the worship of these false gods.
These false gods were contacted through use of mind altering substances, and the sensual arts. So the fertility cults were extremely attractive across all kinds of cultures, through many centuries and they are even attracting followers in our “post modern world.” Human nature has not changed.
God tells us that we come close to Him through sobriety, periods of fasting, abstinence and self control. There are the things that you just want to do, but fasting teaches you what I will not be mastered by your stomach or your tastebuds, that food will not be your master. Even though there’s something I really want to do, I will be able to have the victory over it. It will not master me.
We’re coming up on Yom Kippur soon, and it talks about that you are to humble yourself. It is basically you are to crush yourself. When we are brought low, we can also recognize when others are being brought low, and rather than look down on them in judgment, we can look to walk along side them and have compassion.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.” (Revelation 3:15–18 NASB95)
When we are in a society, like that of Laodicea described in the book of Revelation. We live in a comfortable society where all our needs are met, where we don’t think we need anyone or anything. They were not hot or cold, they were luke warm like they were in a tepid bathtub. We’re in that kind of a society where we are neither hot nor cold or just basically drifting. When you are drifting in a river, you at the mercy of the current.
If you’re drifting out in the ocean, you at the mercy of the waves and the wind, and they’ll just push you wherever. When the engines in the large fishing boats lose power, the waves will turn the boat parallel with the waves, which is a dangerous situation to be in, especially if the waves are big because they will roll the boat right over.
Paul tells us that the Spirit should have mastery over the flesh, not the other way around. The Adversary wants to appeal to our senses, he wants us to be mastered by our senses and to be luke warm and soft.
The book of Revelation both warn us that pagan cultic idolatry involves both economic and social “adultery” because the nations are trading with this power that is leading the world astray. But God condemns such idolatry, and He will vindicate the victims of such corruption.
The instructions by the Jerusalem Council to the new believers coming to faith in Yeshua from the nations in Acts 15 instructions were very important because these new believers were coming out of religious culture that used food and sensuality to make contact with the supernatural demonic world. The Apostles were adamant that gluttony and debauchery are not the way you are going to reach and commune with God.
When Balak commissioned Bilaam to curse Israel, he commanded Balak to make various offerings to try to appease God and Bilaam’s resume showed that he claimed to be in communion with many different gods but when he was sent to curse and debase the people of Israel, he met with God’s still small voice.
Are we controlled by our impulses or do we control our impulses? God’s model for us is that husbands should have love and respect for their wives and wives should have respect and love for their husbands.
““Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”” (Acts 15:19-21 NAS95)
For example, the Torah says not to drink blood because life is in the blood. Now the pagans believes that life was in the blood, which is why they would drink the blood of powerful animals or even powerful humans to try to intake of their power. This is another example of the close relationship between porneia and pagan religious practice.
Another issue that Paul is calling out, besides immorality, is the problem of arrogance and false pride.
The Greek word that is translated as “become arrogant” is φυσιόω phusioō which means “inflate, puff up; become conceited, put on airs.” And phusioo is “(a)pparently related to phusa, ‘a pair of bellows,’ this rare word in classical Greek means ‘to puff up, to inflate’ (Liddell-Scott; cf. Moulton-Milligan).” (CBL)
“The problem of spiritual pride or arrogance in Corinth centered around their presumptuous and ungrateful attitudes (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7). This aberration led to divisions in the community (cf. 1:10–17; 4:6, 7), immorality (5:1f.), abuse of the Lord’s Supper (chapter 11), abuse of the spiritual gifts (chapters 12–14), as well as numerous other problems.” (CBL)
‘A little leaven’: Paul’s call for spiritual purity in a culture of immorality
It’s poignant that Paul follows up his redressing of the Corinthian congregation’s being “puffed up” about their tolerance of the biblically intolerable behavior by using the biblical illustration of matzah (unleavened bread), chametz (leavened bread) and Pesach (Passover) (1Cor. 5:6-8).
“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8 NAS95)
This is one of the clearest and earliest examples of 2nd Temple Jewish discussions of what leaven really means spiritually. When leaven or chametz is under control, it can be beneficial, such as when making sourdough bread, but when it’s uncontrolled, it’s just rotten.
So Paul in talking about Passover and Unleavened bread, he is making a contrast here between the leavened bread, that which is puffed up with malice and wickedness, and comparing it with unleavened bread, which is about sincerity, truth and being authentic. It’s not puffed up, it’s not bloated. So that picture, then that is being given to this congregation in Corinth is that they are boasting like a big puffy loaf of bread, but their big puffy bread is full of malice and wickedness. Rather, you should be looking for bread that is not puffed up, that is sincerity and truth.
Summary: Tammy
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