Ok David you answer me this.
If all that your saying is accurate then why did God say in Deuteronomy he doesn't accept bastard children?
Hi again Daniel, if you look at
Deuteronomy 23:1-3 in context, you would have to add, Ruth the Moabitess, to the list of those who should not be part of the Messianic line .. see
Deuteronomy 23:3, if we were to go by Deuteronomy's out-of-context exclusions alone.
There is also this to consider from the OT. The word of the Lord, given to us through Isaiah the Prophet, shows us God's gracious intentions where Deuteronomy 23's exclusion of certain people from the religious assembly & life of Israel is concerned. Take special note of what God says about such people in v5 below, both of His choice to accept them, as well what He will do for them, all such "excluded" people who have come to personal faith in Him, that is
Isaiah 56
1 Thus says the LORD,
“Preserve justice and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come
And My righteousness to be revealed.
2 “How blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who takes hold of it;
Who keeps from profaning the sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
3 Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say,
“The LORD will surely separate me from His people.”
Nor let the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the LORD,
“To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
5 To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial,
And a name better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.
6 “Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD,
To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath
And holds fast My covenant;
7 Even those I will bring to My holy mountain
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar;
For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”
8 The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares,
“Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.”
Perhaps heading back to
Deuteronomy 23 at this point and taking a deeper look into what was said and why (concerning the laws of exclusion from religious assembly) is in order, because the passage above from Isaiah, and the Messianic line itself, both seem to indicate (to me, at least) that there is far more going on there than a cursory reading/understanding of that passage at "face value" (if you will) can tell us, don't you think?
I will do so myself (and get back to you if I discover something worth sharing) as I believe that you have brought up an interesting Biblical topic that is important for us to consider
(because neither should we find Deuteronomy 23's laws of exclusion to be w/o merit ... because we don't like what they say or because they seem so out-of-place in our modern world, etc. ... w/o first understanding why the exclusions were put in place by God to begin with
).
--David
p.s. - as an aside, I believe it was your provocative title that generated more "action" on this thread than you may have otherwise expected
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+7:14
