Striking a Nerve: The Death Penalty and Family Honor in Exodus 21

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We are doing a crossover episode, continuing what we did the last episode with the man, the myth, the legend, one and only

Pastor Dominic Grimaldi of Street Talk Theology. Andrew, good to be with you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, thanks for having me because we're both on each other's podcast and we're working through Exodus chapter 21.

As we're going through this, this is a passage of scripture,

Pastor Dom, that a lot of people might find difficult. A lot of people might find it just something where, gee, how does this apply to us today?

As we saw in the first 11 verses we've already looked at in Exodus 21, boy, is there a lot we've already been able to apply, especially to our current culture.

I think we're going to have even more so in the next section here. The next section for folks, if you want to take a

Bible out, would be Exodus 21. We're going to look primarily at verses 12.

We'll see whether we can do this, but we're going to see if we can get all the way down to verse 19.

But you got two preachers and a text of scripture, so it may be very difficult because we might have lots to say.

That's probably just me, right, Pastor Dom? Not you. You're a quiet one. Yeah, I'm not as long -winded as Andrew.

But I'll tell you one thing, and I'm not throwing a plug in for Andrew, but if you ever do, anybody ever needs a good exhortation for the church or a challenge,

Andrew preached at my church, the church where I serve. He's definitely ...

Well, I know he's ... You available at all this year, Andrew? If somebody wants to have you,

I mean, are you available or you're all booked up for the year? Yeah, no, we have a lot of open dates. Even if you want to have me come back, because your wife's a good cook.

I'm just saying for the record, you know. Yeah, Andrew works for food plus honorarium, no,

I'm just kidding. You want me to read, Andrew? Yeah, so let's pick up where we left off.

So we're in Exodus chapter 21. We are picking up in verse 12, is where we could pick up.

But just, I don't know if we want to get some of the context of the ...

Yeah, I think we should. So let's pick up in verse seven, just so we have some context where it deals with slavery issues that we had dealt with last episode.

Yeah, and these verses from last week, you see the ... God has just fairness about them, you know, just really fair, and I think this is an important study.

Starting in verse seven. And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

If she is displeasing in the eyes of a master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed.

He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his treachery to her. And if he designates her for his son, he shall do to her according to the custom of daughters.

And if he takes himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

And if he will not do these three things for her, then he shall, then she shall go out for nothing without payment or money, payment of money.

And 12, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to debt.

You want me to go down to what? To 19. Let's go down to 19. 19, okay. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then

I will point you a place to flee, to which you may flee. 14, however a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him by deceit, you shall take him even from my altar that he may die.

And he who strikes his father or mother shall surely be put to death. And he who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his hand, surely be put to death.

And you want a 17, Andrew? Let's go down to 19. Okay. And he who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death.

Again, 18, if a man contend with her, contend with each other, and one strikes the other with a stone or with a fist, then he does not die, but remains in bed.

If he gets up and walks outside of his, on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished.

He shall only pay for the loss of his time, and he shall take care of him until he's completely healed.

Thus is God's word. Yeah, so as we look at this, you know, we looked at, boy, the first few verses, 7 to 11, you read, that really gets people to be upset when it talks about the slavery.

And all I could say at this point, without reiterating everything, would be to go back and listen, whether you're listening on Street Talk Theology or The Rap Report, just go back and re -listen to what we said, because we can't reiterate everything.

But this is dealing with issues of slavery. It's this really dealing with not just slavery, but laws about how we are to interact with one another.

He started with slavery, different cases there. Now we're talking about capital punishment.

Pastor Dom, is capital punishment a big thing? Is that a debated thing in our country today?

No, not at all. Yeah, and I think, you know,

I think a lot of things that are highly debated are biblical, like abortion.

That's highly debated, right? You've got a lot of stuff like that that's, you know, biblical, and it's highly debated, and it comes against the word of God, but it is highly debated.

And I just believe that we go back to an eye for an eye, right?

And I think that those are biblical mandates. And, you know, even the fairness,

I mean, when somebody is up for the death penalty, I think this was Andrew was talking about how we may go off topic a little bit, but if somebody was, you know, up for the death penalty, the government gives them exhaustive measures to make sure that his decision is correctly done.

So I think it's, I think under that democracy code, even we have here, I think in all fairness, they got a long array of appeals to make sure that the right decision came about.

And there are the reality, we have the issues today with death penalty where people get it wrong.

There are corrupt people who, for whatever purposes, maybe even in a sense of justice, do try to take the law into their own hands or try to force a decision.

And so because of that, you know, we do have people that make legitimate cases against the death penalty.

But this here is talking about laws when you're taking someone's life. And it speaks kind of strongly because if we're going to take lightly the taking of another life, people are not going to care whether they exterminate someone's life from them if they can get away with it.

And that's a dangerous thing. You know, if I was to come into Pastor Dom's house and take his computer home with me, he can call the police and there's some repercussion, right?

And I present a paper that, you know, an email that Pastor Dom said, hey, when you come to my house,

I'll give you a computer, right? I could defend myself, but if he kills me, well,

I can't defend myself, right? I'm dead. And so as we look at the scripture here, it's dealing with two men, they get into an argument and one dies.

And there's going to be a couple different things that we end up seeing in this passage. Let's start in verse 12.

It says, he who strucks a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

Now, Pastor Dom, if I just read that verse and not the rest of it, would I be guilty of doing something wrong in the interpretation of scripture?

Yeah, I think you'd be, well, maybe eisegesis would be a word we can use, but I'm sure our audience knows what that means.

Yes, that's almost like a, that's the heading of what's to be discussed afterwards.

So yes, I mean, that's the premise, but there are some strictures that goes along.

You'd have to read, you'd have to continue reading to put that in its proper context, I think.

That's right. The context matters. And so he gives us this one statement, but then he goes on further in these next few verses to explain that, right?

So if a man is put to death, that is the death penalty.

There is a consequence to that because we are created in the image of God.

And so when we take another person's life, there is a very serious consequence.

And quite frankly, Pastor Dom, I think you would agree with this. When we see, when you have a culture that takes crime serious, you actually have less crime.

I think of Singapore where, I mean, they're really strict with crimes. You steal something and you're going to be beaten publicly.

People don't do that so much over there because they know they're not going to get away with it.

We're here in America. I mean, it was interesting during COVID when in California, they just said, if someone steals anything less than $1 ,000, we're not going to do anything about it.

We're going to let it go. And all of a sudden, there's been robbery all over the place.

People knew, oh, I can get away with $1 ,000, okay. Now, I have to admit, I did like the one guy at the convenience store that everything was $1 ,000 with a 99 % discount at the cashier.

I was a smart individual. So, I mean, when we look at the context here,

Pastor Dom, is God stating or putting a higher, maybe accountability or consequence when we take a human's life?

Yeah, he is. And again, there's some, you know, I get it, I get it. I guess if I'm reading the context and looking at some of my criminal background, one seems to be manslaughter, one seems to be murder in 13 and 14.

And so God actually, you know, 13 is an interesting verse, Andrew. And I know that I'm not trying to go off topic, but I'm trying to stay in the context.

But verse 13 says, but if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then

I will appoint you a place that he may flee. So that kind of begs to be a little explaining.

I mean, so if he didn't, if he wasn't first, if he wasn't out looking for him, but he happens to come across his path, would not be a premeditated murder, but it would still be,

I guess, manslaughter, right? In that case. Yeah, and this is what we think of as first, second degree murder, right?

You have these different views. If it just happens, you know, something happens and manslaughter wasn't planned.

You got in a car accident, someone dies, where there's a difference between that and where you've planned it out.

You know, premeditation. Correct. And the thing I find very interesting in verse 13 is the way it says, it says, but if he did not lay in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand.

So whose hand is behind this? Who's the one orchestrating this? The idea that you see here is you have a person who's lying in wait.

And if he's lying in wait, he's premeditated, as Pastor Dom said, wants to kill the person, death penalty.

But if he wasn't lying in wait, it wasn't premeditated, but God, it seems like is the orchestrator, but God let him fall into his hand.

Then I will appoint a place for which he may flee. And this place we see later in Leviticus is the city's refuge.

Anytime you see but God, that's pretty interesting, right? But God who is rich in debt, right?

I mean, that's it. When I seen that, I said to myself, man, how do we get around that on the show?

You know, because that is a tough, because anytime you see but God is but God and praise God for but God.

Yeah, because this is saying the distinction here is one, you have a person who is looking to kill another person.

And then this one, it wasn't that the person was looking premeditated to get this person.

Something happened that we now put in God's providence. So going back just for a second, if I can turn on my past criminal life, that would be my perfect alibi.

But God told me, right? I'm saying I'm only kidding. But that is a huge, that is a huge part of the scripture.

And then obviously God does find a place for him to go on the lam so to speak.

That's right. And this is an interesting provision that you have in Leviticus where you have this city of refugees, right?

Exodus, sorry, if I got it wrong. We're still on, we're going back and forth on Leviticus and Exodus, right?

Yeah. So, but a city of refuge is a place where if someone accidentally kills someone, they could flee to a city of refuge so that the family of the person who died can't, cannot take, can't kill them, can't take justice into their own hands if they stay in the city of refuge.

Now, if they leave the city of refuge, then the family member can take his life up until the death of the high priest and then he is free to go.

But this is, as Pastor Dom, you were mentioning, this is this provision that God has to protect people who may have innocently killed someone, not purposely, and there's some provision that they can still live, but they have to live in this city of refuge.

And the idea there is, is that this is within God's providence that he allowed this to happen, which is something

I really think is important for us to understand because as you were bringing up, Pastor Dom, God is in control of everything.

So many of the people feel like, it's unfair, let's deal with the issue that's in our day and age now, the idea of immigration.

Should America just be open to everybody who comes in just because in their country, their country doesn't have the freedoms and the economy that we have here?

Well, we would say, but God, right? God had them born in that culture for whatever reason,

God wanted them there. Just because their culture is harder than our culture doesn't mean that God wants them here.

It means that we obey the rules, the laws of a land. And it's clear in scripture that borders are very, very, very biblical.

It's clear, borders are very biblical. And it's just, it is what it is.

I don't understand why, and Andrew, here's the thing, talk about fairness.

There is a way that you can legally become a citizen in this country.

There are ways that you can do that. You just crossed the border, right? No, you don't just, thanks.

No. I saw a video of this woman who was really upset.

Her husband had been in the country illegally. He got deported.

And she is trying to learn how to immigrate to his country to be with him.

And it's interesting because she's sitting there talking about the paperwork she needs to get and the different rules she needs to learn.

And it's like, oh, so you do understand immigration. But we have to rely on God's sovereignty in all matters.

Even if someone is accidentally killed between two people that are striking one another, maybe, you know,

Pastor Dom just gave me a little bit of a push and didn't plan. Things like this does happen where you push someone, but they fall over and they hit their head on the ground and they die.

Well, that we mark up as God's providence because it happened, right?

We don't say God caused it and made it happen. But at the same point, we recognize that this did happen.

And if that happens, we can't sit here and say, well, what was me? This should never have happened to me.

It happened. It was part of what God, God's providence. See, the problem, here's the problem what people don't understand.

If the root is bad, things are going to happen.

And if you illegally come over and yes, somebody gets in a crossfire, nobody wants to see that happen.

Nobody wants anybody innocent to be hurt. I know Andrew doesn't, I don't.

But the problem is if that crime was not committed, then this would have never happened.

So what people do is they look at the, they look at the, this is an army term.

They look at the fog of war, so to speak, instead of looking at the root of the problem.

The root of the problem, if there was no crime committed, then sometimes there's friendly fire and things.

But if there was no crime committed, then these things would have never happened. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Because they always look at what happens after the fact.

These people are dealing with criminals, sometimes drug dealers, sometimes not, but still illegally coming over.

And if something happens, an altercation, if somebody gets injured or something, you care for that individual too.

But at the end of the day, if the person did not commit a crime, these things could have never happened. Correct.

And we, but we always mark it up as God's providence. So I would say this, if something happens.

Right, I'm just talking about the culture. The way it's portrayed on the news, Andrew, it's always portrayed not about the criminal intent.

It's always portrayed about the fog of war, what happens because of that event.

But nobody mentions about the reason that that stuff happened. But even in a fog of war, we have to recognize that God's sovereign.

Right. So I mean, if you don't believe, the unbeliever is not going to believe that.

Right. Yeah. And that, but we should, well, whether they believe it or not, it's true. Exactly.

But it is something that can also be assuring. People don't think of it this way, but why, why did

Moses write it the way he did? Well, I can also see this as someone who, if you, if someone accidentally kills another person, they're going to feel very bad about that.

And if that happens, I can very easily see that people would say, well, you know, we want to be able to recognize that this was

God's providence. We shouldn't be beating ourselves up over it. I mean, we got to deal with the guilt and recognize it's wrong, but there's people that can't move on from accidents that happen in their life.

And so I happened to see in this also a little bit of a grace from God in the person who actually killed another person here, but it, because it's being said that this was done by accident, there's a little bit of grace, even in that situation, that it's

God who let that happen. So, so there's a little bit of a, for the person who is, has that survivor's guilt, that there's a little comfort.

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a, you could tell what passage like this is really a good passage to exegete as you're doing, we're trying to do anyway, but that but God in there leaves a lot of room for, you know, seeing how this happened.

And then, and even like we've heard the term better heads prevail, right? You know, so you get the guy, you know, kill the guy by accident.

So he's there, the family is in a rage, so this is a point where maybe people can think things out a little bit and hopefully come to the right, right conclusion, you know?

Yeah, and there's a contrast, right? That we see between verse 13 and 14, because. Oh yeah, verse 14 is a no brainer, right?

Yeah, so you have the overarching thing, verse 12, a man strikes someone, he shall surely be put to death.

But then we have verse 13, well, there's an accidental, it's not primitive. Well, first 14 is, it says, if however, the man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so that he, so as to kill him by deceit, you shall take him even from my altar, that he may die.

So the interesting thing that is described here is that you have a person who is planning it.

He's doing it, but I find it interesting. It says, even if he did it by deceit. Now, I find that interesting, because when you tie that with the mention of an altar,

I get the picture that Moses is drawing here, that you have someone that's trying to sound spiritual.

Look, he's at the altar of God. He's at the tabernacle, the temple, he is worshiping, but he was deceitful in the way he went about it.

Maybe he's in covering it up or the way he conducted himself. He planned it all along, but made it look like an accident.

God is saying, even if the guy is at the altar, he's in the temple, you take him out of that place and you put him to death.

Yeah, remember Joab? Joab, I think Joab committed premeditated murder or got caught in some type of conspiracy.

He was a, that's a guy, I don't know about Joab. I mean, he was, being hanging out with Joab, you can, he's a guy that was sanctified in spots, but when he did,

I think he went to the horns of the altar. Remember he was holding on to him? They drug him right out of there, remember?

And yeah, so every time I see that, I think about Joab. Well, and so what we see here is, yes, the

Bible does have a provision for capital punishment, but within that provision, we see distinction.

We see the distinction between those who premeditate and those who don't. And you can see the difference with those that are acting presumptuously.

Well, it doesn't, when you do that and you're deceitful in the way you do it, death.

But there's this means of grace, even for those who accidentally kill someone, that they can live out their life without fear of repercussion by going to the city of refuge.

That they don't have to always be looking over their shoulder. Andrew, now they're allowed to stay there till the death of the high priest, right?

Correct. Then they can go free. Correct. So is that, that's a time limit, obviously.

So if they go free, you would suppose the family still has a grudge.

I mean, will they still have a grudge after that or? Well, they're supposed to let that go at that point.

Okay. Right? Now, if this is the reality, if the family was to go after someone, you have the death of the high priest and they go after the person after the death of the high priest.

Now they're the ones who can be guilty. Yeah. And I did misspeak.

So I think I said, Leviticus, but the city of refuge is mentioned in Numbers chapter 35.

And so I'll encourage you guys to go and read that. There's also some laws in Deuteronomy chapter 19.

And so those are two areas you can go and look to get more understanding of the city of refuge.

So, you know, why don't we pick this up where there's a lot more in this that we will pick up after this, because there's a lot more to look forward to as far as what happens when someone strikes their father or mother.

And that's something that becomes really interesting. So let's pick that up shortly.

Well, if you want to get yourself a good, healthy body, if you're like Pastor Dom over here, and, you know, he hasn't been taking good care of his health.

You know, he just, he decided, you know, I want to spend my formidable years in prison cells where they don't really care if I'm taken care of health wise, but he's trying to make up for it now.

And so there's some things that Pastor Dom realizes he's got to do to keep himself healthy. And one of the most important things is to make sure he gets a good night of sleep.

That means I need a good pillow. You need a good pillow. And clearly, clearly, if you take a look at Pastor Dom or myself, you realize both of us did not believe in our younger years that, you know, we needed to have beauty sleep, because clearly we ignored a lot of that beauty sleep.

Speak for yourself, Andrew. You were a good looking guy in your youth.

I'll grant you. But if you wanted to get, and I'm being really serious, good day of sleep is one of the most important things that you could do for your health.

It is amazing how the human body regenerates and the way God designed us to get a good night of sleep is really, really important.

And so I want to encourage you to consider one of the things you could do for your sleep is to get a good pillow.

My pillows are just fabulous in helping me get a good night of sleep. They could do the same for you.

They have these great, comfortable sheets. I love their towels. I absolutely love their,

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I have that. But they have slippers, they have robes, they have sheets, they have towels.

They got a whole bunch of great products that I actually use.

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Andrew came and stay in my house, he had his own pillow with him. Who packs a pillow with them when they come and stay by your house as a guest?

Only Andrew Rappaport. No, not just Andrew Rappaport, because when I travel with Aaron Brewster, he has his own

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So thank you MyPillow for supporting that. If you want to really go out of your way and get yourself good, healthy products, you want to really decide, hey,

I'm going to stay healthy. You don't want to grow up to be like Pastor Dom when you're in your 80s like he is.

I'm not 80 years old. So you may want to say, you know,

I need to do something about my health. And if that's you,

I want to give you some things that, well, it's a little bit crazy, I know, but there's a lot of benefit to getting yourself both heat and cold therapy.

And heat therapy, people go, well, okay, I can do a sauna. And that is what you could do.

You get a good sauna, get in there. If you get a sauna that can get above 140 degrees, the infrareds can only get 140 degrees, but get yourself a good sauna, get in there seven days a week for an hour.

If it's under, if it can only get up to, like the infrareds up to 140, but if you can get it up to 175, stay in there five days a week for, you know, like 20 minutes, you get the same benefit.

And what heat therapy does is it will help within your body to get your blood circulating well.

It will generate, basically, when we look at the mitochondria, it's going to generate what's called brown fat.

It helps create more mitochondria. On the other extreme is cold therapy, does the same thing.

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slash plunge. You can get saunas and cold plunges. I have their cold plunge. That's how I start my day, five minutes, 45 degree water every morning.

That's how I start today. I know you're saying that's crazy. It is the most refreshing thing

I do all day. And after that, no matter what happens, I've already started doing the hardest thing all day.

But it is great for the health. Now, it constricts the blood vessels. So the two work well together if you do that.

But the cold plunge is great. They also have saunas. Now, their products are really good.

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I haven't used their cold plunge, but I have their sauna. So I want to encourage you guys, get healthy this year.

Make that your goal so that when you're 90 years old, you don't look like Dom looks today.

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I live in Arizona. Cold plunges is not a bad idea. So folks, if you want to help support this show, the great way to do it is to support our sponsors.

And we are grateful for that. So Pastor Dom, let's pick up where we left off.

And we're in Exodus chapter 21 as we're going through. Last time we spoke about this, we looked at verses 12 to 14.

I know, two preachers and we didn't get very far. It's a shocker. But as we look at what we want to try to pick up at this point now, let's have, if you could read verses 15 to 19 of Exodus 21, so we could see what we're dealing with here.

And just for context, we're dealing with the death penalty in verses 12 to 14, where the idea of someone who is purposely kills someone versus accidentally.

And now he's going to expand this a little more as verse 12 is like this overarching thing, right?

You kill a person, you deserve death. But then he starts making different ways of dealing with this.

Well, maybe you did it accidentally. Maybe you did it purposely. And now we get into some other areas.

So why don't we pick up in verse 15 and read down to 19. He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his hand shall be put to death.

And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. And if man contend with each other and one strikes the other with the stone with his fist, and he does not die but remains in bed, if he gets up and walks around outside on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished.

He shall only pay for his loss of time, and he shall take care of him until he is completely healed.

Amen. So it is interesting. Could you picture if we applied verse 15 in our society?

Could you picture what it would be like if you struck your mother or father? You'd be put to death.

In our culture, Pastor Dom, I just think so many think that seems so over the top.

You're going to kill a person because he struck his mother or his father?

That just seems like, well, you know, we were talking in the past, you mentioned an eye for an eye, which is the limit.

It doesn't mean if I do somewhere, I take your eye, I have to take, you know, that you have to take my eye.

It means you can't go beyond that. This one seems like maybe it's going beyond. I mean, you strike your father or mother, they're not dead.

So Pastor Dom, why might it be that if you, why is there such a serious consequence for this one?

Well, I mean, first of all, in God's sovereignty, that's who your parents were that were given to you by the sovereignty of God.

If you believe in everything is sovereign, by you striking somebody that God has sovereignly decreed to be your mother and father, you go against the

Lord's mandates of the sovereignty of God. Because, you know, the whole section, this whole section is all, even when we said, would

God let him fall into his hands? So I think this would go against the mandate of the sovereignty of God, of who your parents are.

Um, and again, it all falls onto that stricture. And you should respect your parents and honor your parents.

I mean, um, the Bible is clear that that's something that must be done.

So now going to the point of striking them is definitely warranted here as we see for death.

As hard as it may seem. Yeah. I mean, a person who doesn't respect his father or mother doesn't respect any other person.

And, and that's the thing I think that I see here is if, if you can't respect your parents, then you, you don't care for, for others because your parents are the ones you're supposed to have a greater respect for.

Can't even respect yourself if you can't respect your parents, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so there's a serious consequence to that, but guess what?

That does change the culture because this is a, clearly a culture that has an understanding of honor and shame.

And I think those are really lost in our culture today, Pastor Dom. You know, they carried over to the new

Testament to the honor and shame culture is huge. Um, and even carried over into the new

Testament, you know, um, but yeah. Yeah. Because if, if people don't, if people have a, a respect for their parents, let's use a totally different example, maybe going off tangent, but when you had arranged marriages, those last, why?

Because to be divorced would be a shame to your parents. It reflects on them and the choice they made for you.

And so even today, I know people who have been in arranged marriages, their, their family is from India.

I knew someone that went back to India to marry the first time he met his wife was at the funeral for at the funeral at the, at the wedding.

He met her for the very first time when he was marrying her. And they've, because of the honor of their parents, they find a way to love one another because it reflects back to the family.

And we live in a culture, unfortunately, where people don't respect their father and mother. And it is, it is been a downgrade of society throughout our whole culture.

And it's gotten worse and worse. And that honor and shame culture is interesting. There's sometimes you can't even understand some of the parables that teach, that Jesus teaches were not on their end, understanding the honor and shame culture.

Remember the guy that knocks on the door at midnight, right? You know, I mean, that's it. That's a parable.

People say, you know, and we know in Palestine, you know, there was no streetlights.

And this dude comes over, he says, man, I got three guests. And, you know, I'm going to be shamed if I don't have nothing to give them.

And you're going to be shamed if you don't give it to me. So, you know, we, people saying, hey, we, you know, you come over to my house at 12, one o 'clock in the, at night, it's going to be like, hey, can't you come by tomorrow?

But that was an understanding that parable, the honor and shame culture. I just thought about that when you were talking.

Yeah. I know if it's, I know it's off topic, but you said we'd probably go off topic anyway.

So I'm just giving credence to what you're saying. I tried practicing that when you, when you allowed me to stay in your house, man,

I was knocking on your bedroom door for hours and, and you, you just went like, yeah,

I'm ignoring that guy. I finally got so tired. I went to bed. Because I was on a, my pillow. You think

I want to get up and, you know, I'm enjoying my pillow. You want me to get up from a nice sound sleep?

That's right. They didn't have a, my pillow back in the first century. Yeah, exactly. So the idea here is it, it puts,

Moses is giving a very high view of respecting your parents in this.

If you were to strike your parent, you're, you're worthy of being put to death. But then verse 16,

I find very interesting because if we, if we look at the, the way people would argue, there's many people that argue that Christians were involved in slavery, that, that, that the

Bible promotes slavery. And when they say it, they're referring to the African slave trade.

And I don't know if you know this pastor Dom, are you familiar with the slavers Bible? Listen, I'm sure there is because I can name a few other

Bibles. But they're actually, when I was at the museum of the Bible, I got to see the, the slavers

Bible and the slavers Bible was a Bible that was in popular in some parts of the

South when slavery was legal in America. And there were certain verses that were not in that Bible.

One of those verses is Exodus 21 verse 16. Why? Because, well, when they wanted to change the

Bible to fit their behavior, you take things out like he who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or is found with him in his hand shall surely be put to death.

Now, this is right after the father and mother. If, if you don't respect your parents, it has such a serious consequence because you don't respect any other person.

But here now it's, if you, if he kidnaps a man, okay, he steals a person and sells them.

This kind of sounds like Joseph's brothers, huh? He and sells them. He surely will be put to death.

So this is somewhere now where the, the Bible clearly is against the

African slave trade, where in the African slave trade, you had Africans in Africa that kidnap people.

Oh, wait, is that not the popular line in schools? Yeah, that's right.

It wasn't whites who did the kidnapping. It was black Africans who kidnapped other black

Africans and sold them to slave traders. Some were black and some were white.

The whites didn't go into the interior of Africa. They just brought the ships and, and bought the slaves from other blacks.

But, but this has such a serious consequence that if you were to kidnap a man and sell them as a slave, it is the death penalty.

Andrew, so yeah, that's interesting. But let's just for a second, take that part just for a second.

I want to be careful. I don't want to take out of scripture, but it says he who kidnaps a man shall surely be put to death.

Let's just take that. Just keep the, the, the other part out. So today, if you kidnap somebody, you ask for a ransom, right?

And we know that's happening right now as we speak, right? In, in that one incident with, um, what's her name?

Katie, uh. Yeah, the, the, the, the person that's the media person's mother who, and I actually can't say that we know if it's a ransom.

Because now there's multiple people saying, hey, we know where she is. We know who has her, will pay us.

So, but there is, there is money out there to be had, right? Well, we don't,

I, I, when it comes to these things, I'm always careful with what we know and what we think.

It's good. Yeah, it's good. And, and so we know that they're, that she's missing. And there hasn't been proof of life provided.

And we know there's now multiple people claiming they have information and want to get paid.

But yeah, there, there, there, this does happen where people get kidnapped for ransoms. And so basically this says, if you kidnap, it's death.

Yeah. Whether you sell the person. Oh, that's, that's what I mean. Or they're found in your hand. That was my point.

Right? Yeah, there's, there's no, there's no bartering here. There's none of this, you know,

I kidnap a person, give me 8 million, give me 2 million, give me Bitcoin, give me, give me whatever.

There's none of that. It should be a death sentence. That's all, that was my point. Yeah. It's, it's, don't give me

Bitcoin. Don't give me money. Give me death. That's yeah, exactly. And that's usually winds up in the end anyway, but not all the time.

Yeah. And you know, it's very interesting because now we come back in verse 17 to the father and mother.

So this is very typical in Jewish way of writing is that you have something that is, it builds up.

So you're building up and coming down. And so it deals with striking the father and mother verse 15.

Then it deals with the kidnapping in verse 16. Now in verse 17, it says, and he who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death.

So now it's not enough that you strike your mother or your father or mother, but if you even just curse them out, you just speak ill of them.

You, you, you, you know, condemn them. You're worthy of death.

That really flies in the way of our culture. Doesn't it, Pastor Dom? Yeah. If that happened in our society today, where you talk about, there wouldn't be a lot of the way people, the way people treat their parents today is, is just,

I mean, this would really, if this happened today, who knows, we'd be reading about this stuff every day on the news.

I mean, hearing about it on the news, but yeah, it's tough stuff. No, I would actually say if we were actually, if this was applied today, you wouldn't be reading about it on the news.

You wouldn't, you wouldn't have to be worrying about gun control. It would, that wouldn't even be a discussion because people would have a respect for one another, right?

You know, you think back in 2020, it was very popular to say Black Lives Matter. And on my show,

I did episodes, both on this, on my rap report and my Apologetics Live podcasts.

I dealt with the issue that Black lives will not matter until all lives matter.

You can't say one life matters if you don't have respect for all of life.

And that's what this passage is saying. If you don't respect your parents' life, you're not going to respect anybody's life.

This is the issue is, we have to have a recognition that every human being is created in the image of God that makes them special.

That makes them someone who has to be valued, even if you don't like them.

Pastor Dom doesn't like me very much. I make fun of his New York accent, but he's got a respect that I'm created in the image of God, whether he likes me very much or not.

And this is what we end up seeing here is that if you even curse your father or mother, it's a death penalty.

And that seems kind of strict, but that's what God's word would say.

And I think that if you had such a strict law in practice, you would not have the rampant crime that we have in America.

Yeah, that's true. This is hard stuff. I mean, this is so different than the way our culture operates.

Sometimes I think more about in food analogies. I think I might've mentioned it in this week's sermon.

But if my mom cooked a meal, right? And they're usually

Italians. I mean, there's always plenty of food. But if there was a last piece of meat at the table or whatever it would be, we could not touch that unless our father first would, just the way it was.

And then after that, if the parent didn't want it, then the child can get it. But it was just that respect that we were taught just that is lost today.

I mean, it just is. And I know that I give my food analogies, but that's lost today.

People are just care about themselves. But this is hard stuff. This is that top down that you were talking about that's important.

But man, cursing your mom and dad, people who are Christians, hopefully everybody's a

Christian listening to this. And if they are, this is something you should think about. You know, having respect for your parents.

And obviously the parents should have and do should have respect for their children too.

Yeah. And you bring up an interesting thing with your food analogy, because if let's take that in our current day, what is it so that we would see now?

Maybe you see this at your church functions. You have a church function. Who is it that is being fed first in a lot of churches?

The kids. The mother goes up, gets food and gives it to the kids. Who is eating first?

The kids. My first pastor, all the kids would end up eating.

We had a professional chef, Dom, that was in the church. He'd always bring really great food.

He'd make something special whenever we'd have a church lunch. And the kids would go up and their eyes are bigger than their stomach.

And they would take all the best food and load it up on their plate and then throw it out.

And the adults would go and get the food after the fact. And all the good stuff was gone.

Wow. And so I said, you know, based on biblical principles, we are going to honor the older among us.

And I flipped it. And I said, you know, and I had some mothers like, oh, you don't know my kids can't wait. Your kid is not going to die waiting 10 minutes to eat.

Because if we didn't have lunch in church, you'd have to drive home and it would take you 20 minutes. So, you know.

The unprofitable servant parable, they would not like. Yeah. And so what we did was we said, we're going to respect the older among us and they eat first.

And I would say to the mothers, look, if your child can't wait those couple of minutes, you can get in line and get food and give it to your child and then get back in line to feed yourself.

You could do that. But the children are not going up first. But that is where our culture, you're right with that example.

It's got it reversed. Our culture, they focus on feeding the children first, not the father first.

And that is really pushed. And I may go out on a limb here,

Pastor Dom. I think a big reason for some of that in our current day is because of advertising.

If you look at the TV shows, the sitcoms, who is the brilliant person in the family?

It's the kids because they know that's where the advertising dollars are going.

They've redirected to where everything focuses on the children. The father is the biggest idiot in the house.

It's not father knows best. If for those of you who may know that TV show in America years ago, where there was a show called

Father Knows Best. You don't have that in the TV shows today. And the TV shows today, the father is the idiot.

The father doesn't know what he's doing. The kids are the ones that have all the knowledge and have to instruct their parents.

It is because of marketing, because they want the kids to watch these TV shows to feel they're the smart ones, all for advertising dollars, because they know that's who's watching the

TV. And so they gear it toward them. And you have a generation of people grow up thinking, yeah, the kids are the most important part of the family.

This is going to seem odd, Pastor Dom, but you know what? If you're married, husbands and wives, and you have kids, you know who the most important relationship is within the family?

Your spouse. Your spouse is the important relationship. The children come afterwards.

In fact, if you don't have a good relationship between a husband and wife, you're, and model that for your children, they're not going to see the value of the husband -wife relationship.

They're going to have the same, make the same mistakes where they value the relationship of children above spouse.

And then we've lost that today. You make a great point about model. We've lost that model today.

The mandate, the biblical mandate is that the parents model the relationship. And I think the kids learn from watching that, from seeing that in real time.

I think that's a whole, that'd be a whole nother Street Talk theology and theology throw down and all your, oh, that'd be a great, great topic about how that's lost today.

Because I think it's the model today. We've lost models. That's a great point.

It hit home when you said that. That's the truth. And you mentioned theology through it. And that's a podcast we do at the

Christian Podcast Community. It's another podcast. We do it monthly. This next one coming up, Pastor Dom, hope you're going to join in that one, but we're going to talk about demons and demon hunters and all that kind of stuff that people are, it's really popular in certain circles nowadays.

This, you know, demonology and all of that. So that's going to be what we're going to discuss.

I think I'm trying to look up, I think we're calling it deliverance, demon and spiritual warfare is what it's going to be.

So that'll be the next theology throw down. But I do think that this is the evidence, the fact that disrespecting your family, your parents has the consequence of death, just shows the importance of the family structure.

Now notice it's not if father or mother disrespect one another here, it is assumed that the father or mother are working together, but the children are the ones that have to respect their parents.

The children cursing out their parents is a death sentence. And what we see as we look at our culture, a core part of the culture of a good sound culture is the family.

You know, so many people, Pastor Dom and our culture, we'll talk about the fact that in the black communities, they're not well -educated and different arguments that are made and that the solution needs to be more money poured into those school systems and more money poured into keeping them, you know, so welfare system and things like that.

But the one thing you don't hear people talk about is the one thing that's necessary, which is a strong family.

You used to have in the black culture, a strong family value, because when they were under persecution from whites, they had to stick together as a family to fight the system, to fight the white man.

That, you know, if you think back to the times of the KKK, which were Democrats, by the way, that's who was, you know, was for slavery.

And they were part of the KKK and they fought against civil rights. But what you see then is you had a strong families.

And what happened was, is back in the Carter years, you had the government coming in with, basically to fund their black ops.

They ended up getting into the drug business. They brought drugs into America and they purposely brought it into the black communities.

They brought it to the black communities knowing that it would destroy the family structure.

And in doing so, they ended up getting generational votes. And just think about how seditious that is, that they would purposely desire to destroy black cultures, the strong family value, because they knew if they could destroy the family, they could get votes.

They could get people that will support whatever they do. And that's what you've seen. And so the family is a key thing.

Whether black or white in the inner cities, it's not about the color of your skin that gives you a less privilege.

It's whether or not you have a strong family. People that grow up in the inner cities with strong family values do far better than people in wealthy areas, where their parents are divorced and they don't have a father in the home.

Yeah, the focus should be on the strong family then. So sometimes when

I, and that's a huge topic about that, but I think sometimes when I've spoken to a lot of strong black families and they would say, we don't wanna be,

I don't want nobody to feel sorry for us. We can fend for ourselves. We can get good jobs. We can go to school.

I don't need to be deemed as a minority.

I can do just, and it's the mindset of why, they don't wanna be deemed inferior because they're not.

That's right. Well, and that's a big part of when you think about it, what does it say when you have people that say, to a black person, well, you can't get ahead without the

Democrat party. You need the white liberals to, you can't get ahead without them. What is that?

Talk about racist. The reality is now you have people saying, well, black people are, they don't know how to get

ID here in America. This is being debated. Blacks are just too dumb to figure out how to get

ID. And now that people are starting to realize, well, blacks have ID, now they're going, married women don't know how to get

ID. It's required to have it. But what does it say when you say to people, you can't get ahead without help from them.

Right? And a lot of strong black families don't wanna be labeled like that, nor should they.

That's right. And I think that's the problem is, and I sometimes,

I wanna be careful, I wanna be equal here. Sometimes the white elites would do that because they're trying to keep people off their own back.

So I think that, so sometimes they take these agendas because it's the old thing.

I don't want you to look at me, I want you to look at something else. So I think that the

Bible says we're all created equal in the image of God. So that's a huge topic,

Andrew. And I think that, and I think it comes under the rubric of what we're saying here. But like I says, if you speak to leading communities, black family communities, we can fend for ourselves.

We don't need government help. And we are a, and you have some brilliant, as you know,

Andrew, we have some brilliant pastors, brilliant businessmen and government officials who are black.

And they didn't, they wanted to grow up like everybody else and achieve like everybody else.

So that's a huge topic I think is, that I think should be discussed rightly.

And it's such an important thing that God says disrespecting a father and mother is a death sentence.

This is how high of a value God has for the family structure.

And this is why he created the family structure for the family to be able to function.

It's a huge issue that we need to address in our country. But with that,

I think next episode, let's pick up in verse 17. This is going to get into, we're going to get into issues in the next episode of abortion.

We're going to get into issues, looking at more of this death, the death penalty.

We're going to look at some more issues with slavery. The real interesting thing in the next couple passages in Exodus 21, dealing with slavery.

But with that, let me wrap up really quickly, Pastor Dom, and just for my audience,

I want to thank those in Portugal. Pastor Dom's going, why

Portugal? I don't know what's going on in Portugal, but this podcast,

The Wrap Report, went up to number one in the religion section in the charts in Portugal.

I don't know, and the way that has to happen is that people are sharing it. And so I just want to give a thanks to those in Portugal that must've been sharing it so much that it got all the way up to number one in the religion category.

So I want to thank each of you that shared not only my podcast, but also

Pastor Dom's podcast, Street Talk Theology. The more you share these things, the more others find out about it.

And we really appreciate that. I think Pastor Dom and I talk because we like to hear each other talk.

But, because he's got a lot more wisdom than me. But it really is encouraging to see when folks are sharing it.

And it, so much so that the podcast becomes number one in a country.

I do want to say for those, just real quick, March 6th through the 9th,

I will be out in, for those that want to hear where I might be speaking,

I'm going to be at a Bible conference in Cedarvale, Kansas. That will be on the 7th,

March 7th. And then I'm preaching at the church there on the 9th.

So if you want to get any details about that, just go to CalebGordon .com

or .org, I think it is. But he will have the details out there.

So that is just some things we have. Pastor Dom, anything you want to say to wrap up this episode?

Yeah, no, the only thing I'm saying is this is a good study. I know it's taken a little time, but it's an honor to come back.

I guess you think guaranteed we can wrap it up in the next two sessions. Well, I thought we'd get further than we did today.

Yeah, well, praise the Lord. It'll be an honor to come back. But with that, that's a wrap.