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The difficult job is difficult when you don’t do the job that God asks of you in the way He asks you to do it. If you try to obey God in your own strength, in your own way, you will not succeed. Do we take the direction of “I willed it, and I did it” or “Not my will, but Your will” (Luke 22:42; Matt 26:39)?
Do we look for reasons to separate ourselves from each other or do we look for reasons to congregate together? From the marriage to the family to the congregation to society at large, it’s a good thing to let go of non-essentials that divide us from each other.
For example, Adam Smith (1723–1790), who is considered the father of market economics, is known for two main books: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The Theory of Moral Sentiments was the first book he wrote, which is all about applying the Golden Rule to commerce. He taught that the best kind of trade between individuals and nations happens when people go into business for mutual advantage.
When we go into business for competitive advantage — to crush and dominate each other — this is destructive. And a consequence of that taking advantage of people, rather than seeking sustainable comparative advantage, is the kind of exploitation that detractors pounced on, successfully applying the pejorative “capitalism” to market economics. And we’ve seen how the immoral pursuit of commerce has fulfilled some of what capitalism.
Division with the intent of restoration (1Corinthians 5)
In the Torah reading וַיִּשְׁלַח Vayishlach (“he sent,” Gen. 32:3–36:43), we learn that divisions must exist between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Edom, between the realm of the eternal (“spirit”) and the realm of the temporary (“flesh”). You have to quarantine and remove the evil from the community. It’s crucially important to deal with toxic elements in the Body of Christ, rather than ignoring them.
Jacob thought that Simeon and Levi’s annihilation of Shechem would start a war but what actually happened is that the people of the land who saw what happened in Shechem were too afraid of Jacob’s family to seek any revenge after all.
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler — not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”
(1Corinthians 5:9–13 NASB 1995)
“Remove the wicked man from among you” is a common refrain in the Torah (Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21). Just like cancerous tissue has to be removed from the physical body to save the whole, so too those who are bent on acting with evil intent in the body of believers have to be removed too. If evil is tacitly ignored or approved in a community, it will make the community worse, not better.
Removal of a person from the congregation must not be a “holier than thou” attitude. Rather, it must be a loving wake-up call to help people realize how far they have fallen.
Ou attitude must be “but for the grace of God, go I” and with the prayer that the person’s tears of anger will turn into tears of joy. We would want it to be like when Esau’s tears of foolish loss of his birthright and blessing as first-born turn to tears of reconciliation and joy.
When Esau saw Jacob with his wives and children, he must have had some sorrow in his heart because his wives were Canaanites and his children were not raised in the way that Jacob’s sons were raised. The holiness of Jacob’s family was a witness to Esau’s heart, just as the gifts that Jacob brought to him were. Esau was confronted with the blessing he passed on due to hunger and impulsivity and his brother takes his place, resulting in transformation and reconciliation between Esau and Yaakov.
Great evil done to Dinah and ignored by Jacob (Genesis 34)
One of the most difficult passages in Scripture is the account of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34. We learn about the general heart condition of the people of Shechem.
Jacob had purchased land in the area, and he had a stake in what happened in the land.
It’s interesting that Dinah is introduced here as the daughter of Leah, the “unloved wife.” We wonder if Jacob had a similar disdain for Leah’s children, just as he did for Leah herself. Dinah’s appears here as the “rejected” daughter of Jacob and Leah.
When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force. He was deeply attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her.
Genesis 34:2–3 NASB 1995
Shechem first saw Dinah, seized her and forced himself on her (Gen. 34:2). Then afterwards, he “spoke to her heart” because he had such love for her that his נפש nefesh (“soul”) was “clinging” to her (Gen. 34:3). דבק davaq can “carr(y) the sense of clinging to someone in affection and loyalty” and is used in commands about Israel’s ideal relationship with the LORD (Deut. 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:20; Josh 22:5; 23:8).1
Passion can drive us to both good and bad actions, and it’s important to cling to God, in other words, trust (have faith in) God. One can’t casually “cling” to anyone. We certainly can’t apathetically pursue a meaningful relationship with God. Doing the will of God is something that we can only pursue actively, not passively.
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
1John 2:15–17 NASB 1995
The problem is that Shechem let his flesh move first rather than his heart.
Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; but his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept silent until they came in. Then Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.
But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him in marriage.”
Genesis 34:5–8 NASB 1995
The entire time of this account, Dinah is held captive in Shechem’s house (Gen. 34:26). Hamor didn’t do the fatherly job of stepping up the right his son’s wrong, and Jacob didn’t step up as a father to seek justice for his daughter’s suffering.
Hamor, the father of Shechem, the father of the rapist, is the one who steps into action to try to bring about a reconciliation, but Hamor did not bring Shechem or Dinah with him when he met with Jacob and Dinah’s older brothers. Hamor refers to Dinah as “your daughter” in the plural when speaking to Jacob, Simeon and Levi, not in the singular. Jacob was not acting like a protective loving father toward Dinah in this at all.
Was Dinah a peace offering to Jacob could live in peace?
“Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. Thus you shall live with us, and the land shall be open before you; live and trade in it and acquire property in it.”
Genesis 34:9–10 NASB 1995
Jacob never advocates for Dinah at all. He seems willing to cast her off for the sake of a false peace, treating her like a property to be traded. Simon and Levi were repulsed by what they heard from Hamor and their father’s silence and take a different course of action.
“But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.”
Genesis 34:17 NASB 1995
What is the sign of circumcision? Why is this important to Simeon and Levi in the first place?
Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.”
Joshua 5:8–9 NASB 1995
Key to the symbol of circumcision was about not taking the mindset of slavery into their new land. When the descendants of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land after leaving Egypt, circumcision was a symbol of their cutting off the mental offspring of Egypt completely from them, to shake the dust of Egypt off their feet, in a manner of speaking.
Simeon and Levi are pretending to offer Hamor and the people of Shechem assimilation into the family of Jacob, but what Simeon and Levi are actually offering to Hamor and Shechem is the death of 1000 physical cuts, to cut them away from the family of Jacob rather than brining them into the family of Jacob. Hamor and Shechem were conspiring to slowly assimilate Jacob and his family into their family through a death of 1000 subtle spiritual cuts, but Simeon and Levi could see through Hamor and Shechem’s conspiracy. Assimilation occurs through slow drip of forgetting legacy and identity, which is what Hamor and Shechem were betting on.
Shechem put the cart before the horse, he could have simply went to Jacob first and asked for Dinah’s hand in marriage, married her properly and then their covenant would have been pure but because he thought with his lusts, rather than with his head, his actions ruined him and his community.
Jacob tried to ignore the evil that Shechem did against his daughter leaving his sons to step up to rescue and avenge Dinah’s honor. Later, King David followed Jacob’s unfortunate example by doing nothing when one of his sons raped his daughter, Tamar. Again, a brother of the victimized woman had to enact justice. In both situations, the patriarchs who ignored the evil in their midst lost face and their sons lost some respect for them. Parents who ignore toxic situations within their families risk worse outcomes than addressing them. It’s also important to take responsibility for one’s actions because the consequences of not doing so can be horrific.
It’s of utmost importance to obey God’s laws and live according to His boundaries. This is how to experience true freedom and safety. Every thought, every action must be put into subjection to the law of Messiah. If we don’t do that, then evil runs rampant. If we ignore evil, God will raise up someone to deal with it. If the elders don’t weed out evil and leave it up to the younger generation to deal with it, they will deal with it with God’s help. The generation that ignores evil will lose face in the eyes of those who are left to clean up evil instead.
Summary: Tammy