Meats and Tithes

Deuteronomy 14, Food Laws, and Covenant Holiness

Well, if you'll turn with me in your Bibles, please, to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 14, I will attempt to be quick and brief because, as most of you know, the world's about to end. At least, if you've been listening to certain people on certain Christian television networks, the fourth or fifth or seventh blood moon is happening right now.

The moon is being gobbled up, an eclipse is taking place, and it's about over with right now. So, I may not even get through this chapter. We don't know. So, I'll try to be quick about it. It does strike me as a little bit ironic that, while this is going on, I'm going to attempt to make some sense out of food laws, out of Deuteronomy, chapter 14.

I don't know if there's something significant about that or not, but I'm going to do my best here in Deuteronomy, chapter 14. Most of you know that we have been working through looking at God's law, looking at the Holiness Code in Leviticus.

We're continuing that as we look at various laws in Deuteronomy. I did find it interesting, by the way, that, as I was teaching in Zurich, as I would make reference especially to Leviticus, as I was listening to the translation, I was a little confused because I didn't hear anything that sounded like Leviticus.

The Germans don't use those titles. They have Moses 1, Moses 2, Moses 3, Moses 4, Moses 5. That's basically how they do it. So, this is just the third of Moses. So, it took me a while to figure that out, but I found that interesting.

I don't know if you found it interesting or not, but you now know all about it. So, Leviticus, chapter 14, I'm only going to read the first two verses. I'm not going to go through the whole list of all the various animals and all the rest of that stuff.

And then I'm going to skip toward the end and read a section from the end and try to make some meaningful comments from our text this evening. Deuteronomy, chapter 14, you're the sons of Yahweh your God.

You shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead. For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

And then, if you'll skip toward verse 22, it will sound a little bit familiar. I did not intend it to work out this way, just in the providence of God it worked this way, but we just read Deuteronomy 26, and there is a close relationship here with where we're going to be in Deuteronomy 14, verse 22.

You shall surely tithe all the produce from what you sow, which comes out of the field every year. You shall eat in the presence of Yahweh your God, at the place where he chooses to establish his name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear Yahweh your God always.

If the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring the tithe, since the place where Yahweh your God chooses to set his name is too far away from you when Yahweh your God blesses you, then you shall exchange it for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which Yahweh your God chooses.

You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires, and there you shall eat in the presence of Yahweh your God and rejoice, you and your household.

Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town, for he has no portion or inheritance among you. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town.

The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan, and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand, which you do.

Amen. All right, so here we have a chapter that most of us would say, well, look, in Mark chapter 7, Jesus declared all foods clean. And he did. That is exactly what is said in Mark chapter 7. And so, why are we bothering?

Why Christians Still Need to Understand Old Testament Law

Well, again, from the beginning, I have been desiring to make sure that all of you, including even the youngest amongst you, really, if you're listening, if you're hearing what I'm saying, would feel comfortable giving an answer within the context the Lord places you for people who would say, you are a hypocrite.

You are only picking and choosing from the laws of the Old Testament what you're comfortable with. And if you'd just get with the program, if you would just realize that these things were either irrelevant to us today, they only had to do with the Jews, whatever, if you'd just realize these things, then you wouldn't be such a stick in the mud, and you'd be able to move along with the church as it grows and develops and evolves and moves along with the culture, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Obviously, we have already seen numerous instances where the Old Testament law, specifically the moral law of God, was taken as a given, as an understood in the New Testament. Those people who say, well, it just has to be repeated, we need to have a New Testament book of Deutero-Leviticus, or something like that, to make it valid, just simply cannot provide a text from the New Testament that actually says anything like that.

Instead, when you have Paul remonstrating with the Corinthians, the background of what he's saying and what he's assuming that they should know comes directly from the very text we've been looking at.

And of course, we looked at Leviticus 19. We saw how many of the laws there are just givens in all human societies, let alone givens in the sense that the church should be seeking to understand these things and make application so we might live in a holy way before God.

And so when we come to this section, is it enough for us to simply say, well, Jesus has declared all foods to be clean, therefore we don't need to worry about this anymore? Well, what I want us to see is what made these various foods, or in this case, animals, detestable.

Verse 3 says, you shall not eat any detestable thing. Well, I'll be honest with you. A lot of the things that are said to be legal to eat, I find detestable anyways. So detestability is not a matter of taste.

There are all sorts of things that Brother Callahan will eat that I will not eat. I don't care if he killed it or not. I don't care if he knew it by name before he slaughtered it. I'm just not going there.

So what does it mean for something to be detestable? Well, I think when we look at it, that what we need to understand is what we have here is a matter of discipline. And it's laid out for us. You are the sons of Yahweh your God.

Now that's not a real overly normal phrase. You are the sons of Yahweh your God. That's an intimate relationship that is being spoken of there. And so when it says that, then it goes on to say, you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead.

We saw that's a parallel back to Leviticus 19 .28, this stuff about honoring the dead. And did you notice, I just happened to catch it, it's just amazing this was the case, but in Deuteronomy 26, when you gathered the full tithe and you were to present it to the priest, what was one of the things you said?

I have not eaten any of it for what? For the dead. We've talked about the fact there is this honoring of the dead, and so you would have offerings to them. There is a fear of the dead, and so you have the alteration of one's appearance to avoid the curses of the dead, etc., etc.

The point is, they were not to behave in such a way as to deny the fact that they knew that their lives were in the hand of God. This was really a major issue for them because the people of that day lived in a religious context where there were so many things that could affect your life.

Because there was not one main God, the creator of all things, who was working out his will. You had gods who had authority over a certain part of life, another over a certain part of life, and even that was limited, so you could have the curses of the dead overthrowing even the wills of certain gods because they might not be aware of what's going on.

All this kind of stuff, and the Israelites were not to give in to any of this kind of temptation. They were to live in a completely different way because they are said to have an intimate relationship with Yahweh your God.

Verse 2, For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. So there is election here.

There is merciful, gracious election, has chosen you to be a people for his own possession. The very same language that Paul uses of Jesus in Titus chapter 2, a people for his own possession drawn directly from these words, making application to Jesus' salvific work in the salvation of his people, even us.

And so there is something very, very special here. This is not just, this is not how you would read the devotees of the ancient gods speaking of their gods in that day. These were hideous deities. They were not someone you would want to be a son of in the first place, let alone would you have this kind of speaking of a holy people.

And so the point is, why all these food laws? And I know people have invested a tremendous amount of time looking at these going, well, you know, the ox, the sheep, the goat. Again, this sounds like Brother Callahan's fall checklist here.

The deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat. I don't know if you can shoot an ibex. I don't even know what an ibex is. But the antelope, the mountain sheep, I mean, these are all Brother Callahan's favorite people.

And they're all clean. OK? They're all good. People have put them in a list, and then they've taken the ones that were not supposed to eat over in a list over here. And they've tried to figure out, is it fat percentage in the meat?

Is it the possibility of diseases? You know, all this kind of stuff. And I'm not saying that there isn't a possibility of some of those things. But I'll be perfectly honest with you. I just don't think that's where you're supposed to go here.

I think that God, what he's doing with his people here, is he is saying, I am going to give to you good things. Everything you have which is good comes from my hand. But since you're my people, I am going to make you a special people.

And I'm going to mark you off from the rest of the world by the observation of proper disciplines that show your love for me. And because I've called you to have this special covenant relationship with me, to be a holy people, a separated people, the way this is demonstrated to the world is that I lay out what is clean and unclean, and by your concern to be pleasing to me, you observe these things and you do these things.

Now, some of you might say, well, that hardly seems fair. I mean, okay, nevertheless, verse 7, you are not to eat of these among those which chew the cud, or among those that divide the hoof in two, the camel and the rabbit and the chaffan, for though they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof, they are unclean for you.

So, what if you just happen to love rabbit? I mean, it is just, I mean, you love rabbit, you love rabbit steak, and you love rabbit stew, and you are just, you are the rabbit aficionado. And God says, you are not supposed to eat that.

And so, what are you going to do? Well, people, that is not fair. The point is, well, it is not a matter of fairness. God lays these things out, and what do you love more, rabbit or God? Just really quite simple at that point.

If you want to be a part of the holy people of God, He gets to make the rules, in essence, as to what that people is going to look like. And so, I do not think it is a matter of, you know, all the meat in the good list is necessarily better than the meat in the other list.

Now, I do not know about you, but I am not eating camel one way or the other, but there are people that do today, there are people that eat camel, and, you know, when you start getting into all the birds and the fish and all the rest of that kind of stuff, you know, okay, you are not supposed to eat the buzzard.

Well, that one was pretty straightforward. I do not think there were too many people crying about that one, but still, I just do not think that we need to be looking at that and trying to figure out, well, there was a specific genetic reason or something like that.

I think God has the right to say, here is the good things I have given to you, but these things I forbid to you, this is what makes you a holy people to God. And your choice is, do you love God, do you want to be pleasing to Him?

This is what He has revealed, this is what you do. And I think that a lot of times in the Christian life, we get into danger when we start looking at how God has laid out how we are to be pleasing to Him, what behaviors are pleasing to Him, and we start trying to analyze them in such a way as to say, well, you know, I am not really sure why God says I should not do X, Y, or Z, I mean, I think I should have the freedom to do that because of this or because of that.

And we hear some of the most tortured reasoning, instead of just starting with the idea that God says it is displeasing to Him. Now, is it right to ask the question, well, why is the opposite behavior pleasing to God?

Certainly, I think that is something that has often given us a tremendous amount of insight. But God has the right to say, you do not do this. And the idea that, well, God is keeping something good from us, it is interesting that will sort of be debunked a little bit later in the chapter when it talks about the tithing system that we will look at just briefly.

But I think when we look at all of these names and animals and things like that, the primary thing to learn from this is God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, and that is a high calling worth not eating rabbit for.

That is a high calling. Now, by the way, the second point is sort of apologetic in nature, and I am going to be brief, but check something else. The rabbit. I remember years ago, I had an atheist come after me, and he had a glimmer in his eye.

Because it says right here, the rabbit chews the cud, and rabbits do not chew the cud. Now, you see, there is a specific biological construction in the digestive systems of certain animals that allows them to chew the cud, and rabbits do not have it.

Rabbits do not chew the cud. So see, God did not know what he was talking about. And this is one of the first interesting allegations of contradiction that I dealt with as a... I think I was just starting in seminary at that time, somewhere around in there, dealing with a local atheist who threw this my direction.

And so I did put some thought into it, and my recollection is very clear that it struck me that this is an excellent example of how modern man will take a modern standard of biological analysis and looking at genus and species and so on and so forth and say, see, this can't have come from God because it doesn't use the terminology and use the categories that we use today.

Ask yourself a question. You ever looked at a rabbit? They had a... I don't know why, but the church we were utilizing for our classes in Zurich, they had a retirement thing there. This is why they had it.

They had a retirement home there, and they had two Shetland ponies and the biggest, fattest rabbit I've ever seen. I mean, that thing could have fed the entire retirement home if they had decided to...

They were running out of food or something. It was huge. Ever watched one? Ever watched... What is it they're doing? This is going to go over really well with the audio recording. But you look at an animal, and in those days, and God's speaking to these people, and they ask to speak to them in such a way that this can be functional and meaningful for them.

Can you tell the difference between a rabbit that's going... And any animal that does chew the cuds, and they're going... They all look like they're doing the same thing. And you see, it was a functional identification, not an anatomical identification.

They couldn't have done the anatomical identification in the first place. So it would be silly to make that kind of a standard that they could not follow. It has to be a standard that they can follow with their eyes and the identification of these animals, and it makes perfect sense to describe it in the way the Bible does.

And so it's just one of those many places where you have to stand back, and when you hear the accusation of inaccuracy or contradiction or something like that, ask yourself the question, is this simply a difference in how to identify things from the ancient world to the modern world, or is it a true contradiction?

In this case, it just simply becomes one of those examples where the contradiction is in the mind of the modern. It is not in the actual text itself. But just one of those things that came up many, many years ago.

I noted in verse 21 as well, it's repeated what we saw at the beginning. For you are a holy people, the Lord your God. This is in regards to allowing an alien to eat something that dies of itself, if that's part of their culture.

But you're not allowed to do so. Now is God saying, go ahead and let the alien kill himself? Is God not showing interest in the life of the alien? No, it's the distinction in those who are the covenant people of God and those who may be living in the land but are not the covenant people of God.

This being a holy people, these laws are for them to demonstrate their faithfulness to, their covenant relationship to, and their love for their God. And I think that's reiterated in what you have. Now, briefly in verses 22 and following, you have a reference, as we saw in chapter 26, to the tithing system of the nation of Israel.

Now there was a, the Ma 'aser Rashon was the first tithe. The Ma 'aser Shani was the second tithe. And in essence, what you had was, this was, yes, Shani, that's what it said. Yes, that means second. I'm not sure if that has any relationship to Shani at all, but it's there.

So I heard it too. I made the connection. I just didn't know if anybody else was going to find that to be at all interesting. But anyhow, so you had first a full 10 tithe that was taken and was given to the Levites, who were basically, in the legal sense, in the initial sense of the formation of the nation of Israel, were the governmental system.

They were the ones to be making judgments. They were the ones to be doing all these things. You had a full 10 that was provided to them. Then there was the Ma 'aser Shani, the second tithe, which was taken off of the 90.

So it's not a full 10. It would end up being 9 of the total, but now it's 10 of 90, so the total is 19%. And it is taken only in the six years before the seventh year, which is the year of Jubilee, a year of allowing the land to lie fallow.

And that's what's being discussed here in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And notice something very interesting about it. If you were to take it, you were to, in verse 23, you shall eat in the presence of Yahweh your God, the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear Yahweh your God always.

So what's the purpose of the Ma 'aser Shani, the second tithe, is learning to fear Yahweh your God. But notice it's not given to the Levites. You shall eat in the presence of Yahweh your God. So you bring this second tithe with you.

You go to what would eventually be Jerusalem, but initially it was wherever the tabernacle was. And so you go to that place and you eat and you rejoice in what God has given you there at that place. But then, if the distance is so great, I mean, if you're trying to bring the firstfruits of your land and you're trying to bring the firstfruits of your flock and the wine, I mean, that would be very heavy and this would be very difficult for you to do.

So if it's too far, then you can go ahead and sell it and take the money and go on down to Jerusalem and have yourself a very good time. Because that's what it says. You may spend the money, verse 26, for whatever your heart desires.

For oxen or sheep or wine. Now, why would you buy oxen or sheep? Well, probably for peace offerings and atonement offerings. What are you doing here? You are providing support and sustenance to the tabernacle and eventually to the temple and to the sacrificial system going on there.

Or wine or strong drink or whatever your heart desires and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and do what? Rejoice, you and your household. You're to rejoice. You're to have a celebration.

You're to take that 9 and you are to rejoice before Yahweh your God because He is the one who has prospered you and given these things to you. Now, in the process, verse 27, you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town for he has no portion or inheritance among you.

Now, at the end of every third year, you're supposed to do something else. So years 1, 2, 4, and 5, that's what you're to do. You're to, the ma 'aseh shayni was the, was the, to be taken and either brought to the place and eat and celebrate there or you'd sell it and then go to Jerusalem or wherever the tabernacle was and take care of things in that way.

But then the third and sixth year, because the seventh year is different. Third and sixth year, you have a, you do something differently. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year and shall deposit it in your town.

The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you and the alien, the orphan, the widow who are in your town shall come and eat and be satisfied in order that Yahweh your God may bless you and all the work of your hand which you do.

So here was a portion of a welfare system, in essence, not the way we understand it. You know, there's major difference between the poor in the days of the Bible and many, many, not all, but many of the poor today.

These were people who were working very, very hard, but they were not able to, you know, they were just living at the sustenance level. The economic systems of those days, the economic systems of the days of Jesus, were not what they are today.

And when you had famine, you would have drought. Drought would result in famine, etc., etc. There were many people who were just right on that borderline. No matter how hard they worked, they were right on that borderline.

It wasn't a matter of people not working hard. It was a matter of what the economic system could produce. And so, at the end of every third year and every sixth year, so right before the year of Jubilee, well, not the 50th year, 7 times 7, 49, but that seventh year of release of freedom, there was to be a collection of the ma 'aseh sheni, and instead of going to celebrate and rejoice, what you do is you deposit it in your town.

And the Levite and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are in your town shall come and eat and be satisfied. And so it was to provide sustenance, just as we noted, for example, earlier, that when you gleaned your field, what were you to do?

You weren't supposed to go all the way to the corners. You weren't supposed to go all the way to the edges. You're supposed to leave that there so that people who are willing to work and come get it would be able to have sustenance for themselves.

And here is another way in which this was provided. And so, again, this was to teach the people to fear God, to trust Him to provide for them if they were faithful to Him, but also it provided, in a sense, the means for the society to provide for those who were right on that level, right on that line between being able to make it and not be able to make it.

And so here you had the tithing system. That first 10 goes to the sacrificial system, to the Levites, the priesthood. Then you have the ma 'aseh sheni, the second tithe, which every third and sixth year goes to the poor, the first, the second, the fourth, and the fifth.

You either ate of it yourself in the presence of the Lord or you sold it and then went in the presence of the Lord. All of this was to teach the people to fear the Lord. The seventh year being, the land was to lie fallow.

We know that one of the reasons, for example, that Israel was sent into captivity was because they had just simply ignored all this. They just ignored it. They didn't do it. They began joining land to land.

Greed took over. And instead of allowing the land to rest, well, we can't do that. We can't compete with our neighbors if we're not constantly having that source of income, etc., etc. And one of the things the prophets bring to bear was this very fact that they had ignored God's commandment and God's law in this matter in regards to how the land was to be dealt with and how the society was to be supported and how there was to be this care for one another that is a part of the very system.

So we look at this, we look at this text, and I'm afraid most of the time people start reading through it and they, okay, these animals, those animals, some type of a tithe and wine and first fruits and phew, right on by it.

The reality is what we see is God's concern for His people. There is an inherent teaching against the idea of greed, teaching against the idea that would eventually be very central in Israel's experience of the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer simply because they were ignoring the freeing of the slaves, the allowance of the land to lie fallow, etc., etc.

And, of course, all that went back to the fact that they did not see themselves as a holy people who had to express their love for their God by their willing obedience to His law and their willing submission to His law and doing what would be pleasing in His sight.

And so these laws, again, if we will just listen, they had a function in their day, yes. Did Jesus, is anything after verse 3 in regards to the food laws incumbent upon us today? Not according to Mark chapter 7.

He declared all food to be clean. But why did God give those laws? And what people will tell us today is, well, you see, it was just all arbitrary then. We don't have to worry about any of this today.

If anything has been fulfilled, whether it be the ceremonial law presenting Jesus, whether it be the food laws that Jesus does away with in Mark chapter 7, any of these things, well, that means all of it in toto.

That is a very simplistic and very foolish and unworkable approach. You wouldn't do that with anything else, but for some reason people try to do it with the Bible because they're trying to get around the moral element of God's law that we see the New Testament makes clear application to in its repeated assertions to us, you shall be holy even as I am holy.

So even in a text like this, which most people would just say, ah, you know, okay, it's animal stuff, let's move on. We can learn important things about God's provision for His people and even make application to ourselves today as well.

God's Provision, Tithing, and Care for the Poor

Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, we do thank you for the opportunity we have of possessing your word and looking back upon your dealings with your people and recognizing that you have worked with your people with great wisdom.

Lord, we know that you work with us with great wisdom as well and great patience. We thank you for it. We ask that once again, as we have opportunity to speak to those around us, and if they raise these objections to your word that we would be prepared, that we would honor you with our responses and with our handling of your truth.

All to your honor and glory, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.