LEAVING THE PAST BEHIND

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.”

Deuteronomy 21:10-14

This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As Israel entered Canaan and took possession of the land the Lord promised, other nations would try and war against them to try and take their land away. Because of this, we saw earlier where the Lord made it clear that any attempt to attack His people would be fruitless, at least for now. You’ll remember that He promised to deliver into Israel’s hand any enemy who tried to war with them, ordering the Israelites to lay waste to any nations that were within the Promised Land. Essentially, there was to be no remnant left of the people who worshipped false gods and idols.

As we move to today’s passage, we find God further addressing conflicts with enemy nations, specifically discussing how an Israelite male should handle an encounter with a “beautiful woman…and (find themselves) attracted to her”. When that circumstance presented itself, the man was permitted to take her as his wife but only under certain conditions. For the scriptures tell us the woman was required to “shave her head, trim her nails, and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured”, all acts that were customary for any woman who was entering the Israelite way of life. Ultimately, they represented leaving their prior life so to join the holy family of Israel.

After this happened, note where the man was supposed to wait to see if their relationship was to work out before they went through with the marriage. After all, the woman leaving her family for a completely new culture and lifestyle was extremely difficult and not all women would be able to successfully make the adjustment. women would be able to adjust and make the change. This is why we find the scriptures mandating that the Israelite man was not to marry the woman until “after she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month”. This would allow time to see if things were going to work or not. If not, it’s important to see that there were protections built in for the woman. We read where the man wasn’t allowed to abuse her or “sell her…as a slave”. Instead, he was to “let her go wherever she” wanted.

As I was looking at this passage, I tried to do so under the cultural contexts of the day it was written. Think about it for today we wouldn’t think about requiring a woman to shave her head, trim her nails, or cast off her old clothes as she enters into any relationship, regardless of what she represented before. It’ something that would seen as odd and inappropriate in our time but not in early Old Testament Israel. It was just the way their society operated.

Despite this, we can definitely gain something from the symbolic nature of head shaving, nail trimming, and clothing abandonment rites of that day. For the matter of leaving one’s prior life behind for another is more than applicable in present times if we see how it parallels the way Christians are called to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. This new commitment requires one to be changed and transformed, leaving the world’s ways behind while adopting His ways instead. Surrendering who they used to be, Jesus believers are no longer to live for themselves or anything else except Him, taking up their cross and laying down their lives sacrificially just as He did for them.

Consider these verses that underscore this truth:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

When one comes to Jesus, they truly become a new creation. They can’t help but be as they adopt His ways over all others.

They discard their deceitful ways for a new, truth-centered, obedient attitude.

They willingly walk toward perfection in righteousness and holiness, never reaching it but never ceasing to attain it by drawing as close as they can to the Author of perfect righteousness, Jesus Christ.

And they continue to seek reformation and refining until that day when He calls all believers to Him and they dwell with Him in person. My friends, what an awesome day that will be but until then, let us ever seek to be like Jesus in every way, working every day to carry out His call to make disciples, baptizing them while teaching them to obey all He commanded.

Indeed, there’s still much work to be done. In helping others leave their past behind for a new life in Christ.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.