What's Happening This Friday? Blasphemy!

R T writes : (see comment on the last post)

"Such gems as "do not cook a young goat in its mothers milk" - although that has some significance as you will hear!

No blasphemy - what do you consider to be blasphemy? We are not told the punishment for blaspemy in Exodus 22.

Plus I have done a little research into The Churching of Women which we touched on last week."

7.30 for 8pm as usual in the usual place.

P.S. - That's not a picture of R.T. by the way...

Understanding Holiness in The Old Testament Law (more exciting than it sounds)

Last night we looked at just four laws from Exodus and wrestled with why God gave these specific instructions. Simon explained that the law takes the form of an ancient Middle-East treaty. See http://www.aracnet.com/~wing/suzerain.htm for example.

But what's all this stuff about clean and unclean and not touching certain things - or even women at the wrong time of the month (some of the guys could see other reasons for keeping away...)?


It seems God was trying to help the Israelites understand holiness and the seriousness of sin. These diagrams may help...


This is the basic Old Testament understanding:

How do things change? By sacrifice or sin:

This is of course a picture of what will have it's greater meaning when Jesus comes:

Everything In Scripture Is There For A Reason

Last week we made the effort to look carefully at some of the (apparently) obscure laws in Exodus 21 and discovered just how brilliant and ground-breaking they are, setting the pattern for modern UK lawmaking, including lex tallonis, causuistry, case-law, and recognising the difference between murder and accidental homicide!

The "story" continues this week in chapter 22. Come and find out more!

Meanwhile... the passage last week seems to sanction the death penalty, albeit in a society where imprisonment was nearly impossible. Is capital punishment still appropriate today? Comments please.

Had An Accident At work

picture: http://www.talkoncepersonalinjury.co.uk/

Have you has an accident? Or what about your livestock? What about one of your donkeys?

This is what the law says:

33 "If a man uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit must pay for the loss; he must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his.

So over 3000 years ago, God was already sorting out compensation claims. But are today's laws a fair reflection of how God sees it? What do you think?

Come on Friday to discuss some more of the Maker's Instructions....

Come to St Mark's Next Sunday (Not The Pub!)

There will be no Friday meeting this week at the pub.

Instead join the other St Mark's congregations at 10 am in church for a United Celebration.

Ten people will be confirmed by the Bishop of Bradford. That's not him in the picture!

A Most Holy Place

Join us this Friday to explore the mysteries of the Ark of The Covenant. Rod has promised us a scale model - either this week or next week - and it will be better than watching Harrison Ford open the box!

Living Biblically?

Up to now it's been story time on a Friday night in the pub, but after a brief pause for theological reflection, this week we hit the diffficult task of exploring the laws given to Moses.

So on Friday we are attempting to understand 12 chapters-worth of The Maker's Instructions.

Any thoughts before we begin?

PS: Don't be put off commenting by the requirement to have your thoughts quality-assured by the blog admin. It's just to prevent some of the dodgy spam comments that link to dubious other sites.