Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 22-24.

As I read this it occurred to me that verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3 of chapter 22 resembled the laws in various states which are often called “Castle Doctrine” laws (a slightly oversimplified definition of “Castle Doctrine” laws says that if you catch someone attempting to break into your house you may use deadly force to stop them).  So, the verses say, “If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed.”  It seems likely that the meaning of this law is that if the break in occurs at night, we should assume that the homeowner acted in self-defense, but if it occurred during the day, they had the opportunity to summon assistance in restraining the intruder (who would then be a witness to the intruder acting in a manner which forced the homeowner to protect themselves, which is covered under a different law mentioned later).  I personally do not think this law applies to Christians, but it provides a model to evaluate whether secular “Castle Doctrine” laws are just.

I wrote yesterday about how Moses had trudged up and down the mountain multiple times carrying messages back and forth between God and the people.  When Moses went up the mountain the last of those times in yesterday’s passage, God gave him these commands for the people.  Moses then returned and gave these commands to the people.  The people replied to Moses’ recital of these commands by saying, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”  Moses then wrote down everything which God had said to him.  The following morning, Moses got up and built an altar.  On that altar, Moses caused a sacrifice to God to be offered and used the blood of the sacrifice to seal the people’s agreement to the Covenant, after once more reading God’s commands to them.   And once more, for the third time, the people said that they would do everything the Lord had said.  The first of the commands which God had given the people through Moses, which echoed what He had said to them directly, was that they were not to make any gods of silver or gold.  Yet, a short 40 days after agreeing that they would follow those commands, they had Aaron make a golden calf for them to worship.  I do not want us to look at the Israelites and think, “How could they so quickly forget what they had promised?”  Rather, we should look at this story and think about how quickly we also lose the commitment we made while experiencing a spiritual high.  We need to find ways to keep ourselves from allowing that to happen to our commitment to God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.