The sheer volume of things I don’t understand is shockingly huge. The way I survive the looming mass is through ignorance. I honestly don’t know how much I don’t know. I know it’s a lot, but I have no concept for where the boundaries are. It blends into the horizon at some point, and I deal with it like I deal with the vastness of the ocean, I look only at the surface. I’m ignorant of the rest.
On the other hand, I don’t like to “not go somewhere” in my exploration of what my Master reveals in Scripture. Hold back your surprise, I know, you never saw that one coming. The result is this ever so slightly diminished ignorance, sliver by slender sliver. So small are these delves into Scripture, the vastness of my ignorance isn’t truly affected. But, I try not to skip anything anyway. And then we have lines like this one, one’s I would rather skip.
Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death.
Exodus 22:19 NASB
Anyone who would do such a thing doesn’t want to hear that God condemns them to death. Anyone who wouldn’t do such a thing doesn’t want to hear that there are those who would. Either way, no one wants to read it. Let’s skip it, and move on. I would prefer to move on. But it’s there, it’s all by itself, like the condemnation of magic, like so many others that God points out singularly. No caveats, no extenuating circumstances.
So, it’s important for the people Moses’ day to know this, and to know it’s important. It’s like the law about a woman giving birth prematurely after being struck during two men fighting. That happens enough it needs to be mentioned? This happens enough it needs special attention? Do we even want to know that?
Here’s the thing, God hates it, so don’t do it. For our Creator, such a practice earns you being cutoff from socializing with anyone, ever. On the other hand, don’t comfort yourself that this one isn’t your issue. One what? This particular sexual sin. Our Creator takes them seriously. Very seriously. So should we.
Okay, that’ll do it. Next law…
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation
Knothole Theology 