Have You Not Read - S1:E27

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

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Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

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Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, David Kazin, and Andrew Hudson.

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Well we're gonna start today out with what are we thankful for? What are you thankful for Michael? I am thankful that the

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Supreme Court of the United States has overturned Roe v.

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Wade. Can we all say amen to that? Amen. All right and we have a little bit of content that has come out recently that David's captured for us that we can go through and see if we can punch holes through it because it's a response to a biblical understanding of how we should or a biblical understanding of how we should understand

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Roe v. Wade. Sure, so throughout social media they have referenced

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Exodus chapter 21 as a as a as a

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I guess well what's what's the right right way to express this? Justification? Yeah.

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Proof text? Proof text. Justification for abortion especially for people who are religious leaders.

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And what I what I wanted to present was reading the text in its actually as we have it and then

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I wanted to cite what somebody else had you know put put online and we can discuss you know proper you know proper translation and then you know biblical authority.

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So what we have here is Exodus 21 and I'll start in verse 20.

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And we have another translation of this this passage that is you can you can see the you know see the see the differences.

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We have two people fighting. One accidentally pushes someone who is pregnant causing a miscarriage. The text outlines the consequences.

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If a miscarriage happens the harm doer is obligated to pay financial damages. If however the pregnant person dies the case is treated as manslaughter.

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The meaning is clear. The fetus is regarded as potential life rather than actual life. Who's that coming from?

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That is coming from Rabbi Samantha Frank. She is a rabbinic fellow

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Temple Micah in Washington D .C. and she was citing the analysis from Rabbi Dania Rutberg.

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It was published in the Atlantic who is also the National Council of Jewish Women. Could we hear um

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Andrew do you have the translation that this rabbi was working with? Yeah the

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Jewish Publications Society produces a probably I would call a fairly authoritative version for the

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Hebrew English Tanakh. So starting in verse 20 when a slave owning party strikes a slave male or female with a rod who dies there and then this must be avenged.

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But if the victim survives a day or two this is not to be avenged since the one is the other's property.

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When two or more parties fight and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results but no other damage ensues the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact the payment to be based on reckoning.

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But if other damage ensues the penalty shall be life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burn for burn wound for wound bruise for bruise.

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Okay I'm gonna go ahead and read my translation to King James the pertinent verse and I'm we're doing this because we want our hearers to detect the differences in the translation.

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In verse 22 it says if men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely yet no harm follows he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him and he shall pay as the judges determine.

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But if any harm follows then you shall give life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burn for burn wound for wound stripe for stripe.

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So I think that we are hearing that there is a different translation given the pertinent verse it's not about it's not about necessarily the outcome as far as life for life eye for eye that's all the same.

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But in verse 22 the question is what happens when there's a fight and a woman suffers violence and then she gives birth.

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New King James says give birth prematurely the JPS says miscarriage.

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Now those are two very different things and so then the question is what's actually there in the original language and then is there any warrant to read that given the context and the flow of argument that Moses has here to read that as miscarriage versus birth before the the appointed time.

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The choice of words here is incredibly important. When you see if you if you put it in you know that if you

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I just read the you know the ESV you know this so that the child comes out comes out prematurely New King James comes out prematurely versus miscarriage you know that's like well what's what's really the difference why would anybody be citing this passage to say that hey this is this this is what this is why we have justification for abortion like why does this passage and it is only here why is this one cited well it's it's there they're drawing a distinction between the unborn child and the life of the mother saying that the life of the mother is valuable and that the life of the unborn child is just property or part of the woman's body so when we look at this passage or this passage is quoted you know quoted to you read it in this context read it in its entirety but I think what we're what we're seeing here is is one it's a little bit of you know sleight of hand with name with some of the words but in this ancient context when someone someone's when someone's child is lost in which happens all the time you know it happened all the time the infant mortality rate was very high how do we as Christians reading this text respond to someone who says see just property just part of a woman's you know woman's body it is that this is not this is not a unique you know human life that deserves protection how it been using this passage keeping it in context for the rest of Exodus how would

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Christians should Christians respond to someone who throws this in their face and says you can have an abortion because it is just property and that's our tradition yeah

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I'd like to maybe work at this you know from two different angles okay one one would just be by being very surprised

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I think we should be very surprised that that would be the right both translation and interpretation of this verse given everything else we read in the

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Bible like that would be amazingly contradict contradicting to everything else that we read in the

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Bible so if we if we read the passage according to the translation of the

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JPS and we look at that and we say okay so a miscarriage is not this forced miscarriage because of this violence whether they intended it to or not there's no there's no life for life but I think it actually says that in the text but there's a confusing translation going on here given everything else we read in the

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Bible this doesn't make sense about the way that God values life I mean this isn't really fit and then when you actually go and read the

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Hebrew words for yourself and my goodness you can you can go look at these terms for yourself with any number of free study tools you discover that it's a noun and a verb the noun is child and the verb is come out now when children come out of the womb this doesn't mean miscarriage now there could be indeed a very sad thing where a child comes out of the womb and dies and we would call that a stillbirth or we would call it a miscarriage if the if the baby died inside the womb however a child coming out of a mother's womb if you give if you give that noun and that verb the translation miscarriage

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I would say the only miscarriage here is your translation work you have totally failed in giving the proper sense of these terms you are in you are importing something into the text even even which is okay strangling the text not allowing the text to speak for itself would you say this is one of the dangers of a dynamic instead of a formal equivalence interpretation into the

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English yes I do because and in this case is a bad translation not only because of the impact that it has that is being the attempt to use this for some sort of justification for abortion which is also nonsensical but the gift when you read the whole text it says now if you just take it as it as it is and so that the violence happens and so that the child comes out of the woman's womb and it says but no other harm occurs there's harm because the woman was injured there's harm because she gave birth before she was supposed to but if no other harm occurs that's when the fine comes into play however the tip the very next verse says but if there was harm given that the child came out because of the violence and there was harm life for life so that baby does die the one who caused the violence the woman he dies that's what the text says in the most plainest reading of the original languages without any stress or straining in the reading so I think that that's you know when you when you when you read this bad translation in the

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GPS and you reflect upon everything else we know about how God values life in the Bible you say yeah that's a really weird translation and then you go look at the original languages and even if you haven't taken any

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Hebrew or whatever all you got to do is just use the use the tools and go look at the most commonly common way that these words are translated and then you say okay now now this is making better sense and what does it ever make better sense not only in the immediate context but in the biblical context don't we have an earlier indicator that this is not a good translation no other than just that I mean they use the terms party or slave owning party when the correct term is man right like so we already have before we ever can get to the the real juxtapose like the real meat of the argument we already have a reason to not take these people seriously and it if if I'm if I'm like a to the to the to the question of how do we respond to this it's not to be taken seriously because they're not using a serious translation and they're not serious people it's a far cry from the some of the scribes who knew how many words were in each book of the

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Bible and how many letters were on every line and had everything memorized were so very very careful and precise with God's Word and had a true reverence to look at this monstrosity of a translation it's a boy it's a far cry so put this passage then in the greater context the greater chapter where are we in the in the story and we've said before and I've said before that you know you have the

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Ten Commandments which was you know just given and that is the Mosaic Covenant that is the the tablets of the

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Covenant and that is that's the Covenant that God makes with the nation and then codifies them into a nation -state and then all of the succeeding you know the the passages that come after really a commentary on those ten words so we're talking about how you're going to do

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Israel this is how you're going to be a society this is how you're going to be able to live together this is you know as are they how are we gonna you know we said do not commit murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not bear false all those these these these commands this is this is you this is the covenant between you and me and this is how we're going to start working it out and he starts off with laws about alters laws about slaves and you know restitution social you know social justice that Sabbaths and festivals so this is how we're gonna be working all this stuff out so how does this passage and we end as why

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I wanted us to read you a couple chapter because you know a couple of sentences before talk about well sometimes a slave dies and there's there's different restitution if it's immediate or if it's in a couple of days and then we talked about you know this this statement on miscarriage versus premature birth and then you start going into you know oxen goring people you know this is this is how these people who come out of slavery in Egypt now they're being forced together as a community and they're gonna be traveling around before they go into the

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Promised Land when they go into the Promised Land this is how they're gonna live with each other so why is this passage so important so that people can live with each other well it's they have to live they can't live together with any degree of success if they don't fear

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God right so if they don't fear God I am the Lord this is what how you live right if they don't fear the

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Lord then they're not going to last very long as a society especially given the harsh realities that they have to endure in the wilderness wanderings and then into the conquering of the

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Promised Land and so on and so we have a lot of detail being given but it's about setting out several clear examples of what what what

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God's justice looks like and how to live in the light of who he is because of who God is this is how you live with one another and now when we read these passages today some of them sound very very foreign to us to our to our experiences and that can and that can throw people as they read it and then they begin to treat these passages in non -standard ways rather than taking them for what they are and then that can sometimes release somebody to like you know have a fanciful interpretation of a text for example even if we were to accept the translation of the

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JPS even if we were to accept that translation and we have two people fighting and somehow there's a pregnant woman nearby and she gets injured in this fight and let's say that the

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JPS is you know we'll just take it as it is and she miscarries okay and then the translation that they have indicates that okay there's going to be some sort of fine or whatever how is that how is that a justification for abortion yeah there's nothing even in their reading there's no real room for intentional miscarriage right in in this in the story it wasn't some kind of fight between a a woman and a man over the fact that she was pregnant that they had some sort of knockdown drag out fight and their life is a mess and a wreck and so then they go hire someone to do violence to her and the unborn child in the end they're not paying a fine as the text talks about they're paying a fee it's a service yeah they're hiring someone to destroy life right kind of flips this on its head it's a very intentional act this is talking about something that is accidental right and as bad as the translation is it still doesn't support abortion yeah it's still a category error it's two separate categories altogether yeah and so in this case anybody who would read that and come away and say well if you if you take away my right to abortion you're denying my religious tradition and point to that the whole thing the whole thing is nonsensical it's absurd yeah it's not like people have infallible interpretations there is a correct interpretation it's

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God's Word it's his interpretation it's not like well Rabbi Samantha she's got a good point this is what her interpretation is and you just have your interpretation because so they kind of stand side by side then don't they no that's not how it works the text speaks for itself because it's

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God's Word and and just because somebody has some sort of religious religious zeal or religious tradition in which and they believe that they have a right to pursue certain ends doesn't mean that that is justifiable I mean there was a whole bunch of there was a whole bunch of zealous and religious

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Germans who who pursued the extinction of the

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Jews in a different kind of Holocaust you know less than a hundred years ago and just because it was part of their religious zeal and fervor to do so doesn't mean that we have to step back and say well who are we to deny them that right so we is we as Christians we don't live under the law so I want to make sure that anybody listening to this you know there's there's different covenantal versus dispensational views even within our own church but we are appealing to this exodus passage because it it shows

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God's holiness exodus shows God's holiness justice standards so that's what that's what

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Exodus Leviticus and and numbers was really all about it was working out those ten commandments that this is who you are in light of who

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I am and this is how you approach me as a sinful people this is how you live together as mutually sinful people so yes we are

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Christians and we are living in the light of Christ but Christ is one that interprets the

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Old Testament for us so as Christians when we're reading these

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Old Testament passages what things do we need to keep in mind because you know this this is a quote from a rabbi and the person that actually sent this to me is is really not all that all that religious although she knew she did ever children baptized into the end of the

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Catholic Church is a different that's a different argument all together so I'm not really sure where she stands but as a mother she's actually quoting this as a this this passage as a religious person said this is why

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I should be allowed to do what what it is I want to do with my own body with my own pregnancy so as Christians when we look at Exodus 21 in the light of Christ how do we use passages like this keeping it in context talking about God's God's justice talking about God's law because we're under grace we're not in law how would you respond to that so that we're making sure that we're responding as Christians in the light of Christ and it's a question

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I think first of all you know we don't we don't treat it rabbinically right because what's going on even on social media is an example of the failure of rabbinicalism wherein you know somebody has a bad translation of a passage because of rabbinical tradition and then somebody kind of half quotes the passage and then somebody like half quotes that person you know and then all of a sudden you know this is your authority instead you know you should go back and read the text for yourself and more than one translation and if you see a discrepancy you have to ask why and you and you are fully capable of getting into the text and saying it for yourself so Jesus encountered several incidents where the

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Scribes and Pharisees the rabbis of his own day were doing this with Old Testament texts right they were taking up things from the

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Old Testament and they had mauled it and mangled it and he would have to say actually what was said was and he would go right back to the text and say this is actually what was said okay so that's a

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Christian thing to do just to straight up go read it for ourselves and that's where it begins and then when we recognize oh yeah this is an exodus this is you know this is part of the

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Old Testament and here's an Old Testament case law okay so what relevance does this have for us today why should

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Christians today be against abortion and actually this is a passage that proves you know proves that the killing of a of a baby demands the death penalty

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I mean that's what that's what this passage actually says life for life so in that case you know yes but that's the

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Old Testament that's the Old Testament case law so why are you appealing to that well first of all as we've already indicated everything in the law is the expression of God's character you know

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I am the Lord I am the Lord I am the Lord and then he then he says this is thus this is how you live oh you made in my image right if you're gonna be in a right relationship with me

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I mean you're gonna you're gonna have to be a cohering to my character and so he gives all of these instructions and laws and so forth so what do we what do we see here we're learning about the character of God how does how does

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God value life how does see justice in this particular passage we see you know some things we learn things about husbands and wives we learn things about civil magistrates we learn about the value of of lives of infants

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I mean we learn about all kinds of things in this passage you know and these these are categories that exist in all of life whether in the

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Old Testament or the New Testament because they're bound up in the character of God and the the mind of God so that's that's that's one side of it okay on the on the question particularly you know you know you can't just point to something in the

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Old Testament say now obey right that get that'll get really confusing really fast the whole whole thing about fibers you know and mixing mixing fibers you can't have a rayon blend yeah there we go exactly so early so when we go when we read the

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New Testament we find that Jesus says he did not come to abolish the law that every jot and tittle of the law is important but that he came to fulfill it and we learned that he is the end of the law for unto righteousness for everyone who believes and in in Romans chapter 10 and we discover that everything that God commanded

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Christ fulfills and that being bound up in him by faith and we're following him that he's gonna lead us into obedience to everything that the law means and he's the definer of what it means so this is why we have some we have some commandments like do not murder which in the

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New Covenant is do not murder and we have some we have some commandments in the

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Old Testament of you know you know don't eat catfish in the

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New Covenant said you know eat catfish the glory of God you know what why are some things different and some things the same it can only be answered as we follow

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Christ and look at how how is it that he takes up the entirety of the Old Covenant and puts it upon himself as a mantle and then we follow him as our new

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Adam so new Moses so on and so forth so I think that that's that's not a very quick answer but why is this still valid why you know why should we not murder well as we follow

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Christ we you know we know that murder is against him yeah we have the words of Christ himself in in Mark chapter 7 verse 8 in his his scathing rebuke of the rabbinic scholars of his of his day where he said you have exchanged the truth of God the

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Word of God for the traditions of men right they've supplanted it and I think that's exactly what this this writer had done and then built upon different traditions you know appealing to Babylonian Talmud and then really their own traditions that they have you know today within her circles but this standard that you just quoted

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I for I life for life murder is wrong yeah and where does murder begin right it begins in the heart and we you know in Jesus you have heard it said

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I shall not murder but I say do you you know do not you know you talk about not hating in your heart hating someone so you actually you have to really hate you have to hate a life to take it and in the in the way that abortion you know in this passage you know people are fighting and then the woman accidentally gets injured okay that wasn't the intention of the fight but an abortion there's an intentionality there there's hatred there that proceeds proceeds the act and this needs to be acknowledged and of course and there's there's more than one way to express that hatred but there's has to be hatred there behind it this is why the whole the even the those involved in the abortion mills and locations the abortion mills and so there's why there's such a demonic a level demonic activity and presence you know involved in these things it's because of just this massive amount of hatred in this and the sacrifice of human life when we see that Jesus talks about love when he talks about what it means to you what does real life look like in the following him and abiding in him and and you know bang his commandments well he talked about loving one another he talks about you know that in the in the way that the pagans do it they lowered their authority over others right my body my choice

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I'll do what I want with the life that's in me right and that's a pagan way of looking at authority

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Jesus says that the greatest among you should be the servant of all now anybody who has had kids knows what kind of a servant you have to become with infants like the mother especially for all the time that she's pregnant is a servant to that infant she is doing everything for that infant she is under such toil and turmoil and difficulty giving birth is a traumatic event and then when you have this little one to take care of once again you have to serve this infant so long but you know what

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Jesus says you know Jesus says this is the way this is the way forward that we are to serve you know we think we're so much more powerful and greater and shall we say viable and strong and we know we can breathe and we can think and this this infant inside the womb can't do nearly as much as me

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I am powerful and that that little that little life is not what does Jesus say and the greatest among you should be the servant of all son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many ultimately as Christians what are we supposed to be doing spilling our blood for our children rather than spilling their blood for us straight on well said

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I'd like to kind of since we were busy being thankful about rovers as a way being overturned

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I'd like to kind of explore where you guys think this is going for the church nationally internationally and even locally or in different statehoods because I think that it's gonna get complicated needless to say it's gonna get very complicated but what what could it mean at national state and local levels for the regular churchgoer on a day -to -day basis that's interesting yeah well you know biblically every time there's a judgment there's a sifting that occurs and this was a judgment and in terms of hey

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Oh rovers his ways is overturned it's just natural that when a judgment is made there's a sifting that occurs and I I think this is going to I think this is going to accelerate the split in evangelicalism yeah so I was talking about this the other day with a couple of our resident scholars here at Sunnyside Kyle and Darrell and we were kind of falling in the same place especially in the

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SPC not that we're in the SPC but that we have connections ties friends that are involved there and just with the last convention that they've had there was a very broad range of understanding of how they should deal with the issue of abortion from the especially from the top organizations within the

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SPC and laymen and pastors who have either been a part of the incrementalist movement or the abolitionist movement and it seems it being kicked back to the states this could pit state conventions against national conventions it could pit local churches against both the state convention and the national convention so does this look like a decentralization event for the largest denomination in the u .s.

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or are we is there a chance that it stays somewhat unified

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I don't I don't see it staying unified I you we have it we have a we have an issue now that is irreconcilable when you have the central planners of the

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SPC so thoroughly entrenched and they're not going to be dislodged this time like they were last time and the former conservative resurgence the backbone is is not there this time and when you have for example the

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ERLC approaching abortion by saying things like you know and I you know what can we do to you know make abortion no longer necessary it never was yeah it's like what are you talking about yeah that's that's clearly like that's really me that's your approach or don't you think you're gonna engage with this issue by saying well what could we do to make abortion no longer necessary the proper social programs of human flourishing is is there is there is their idol is their main focus and that's what they're in orbit around is human flourishing human flourishing human flourishing one is it the human flourishing or is it the appeal to who they're appealing to for the human flourishing because they're gonna be they're not gonna be appealing to the church are they they're gonna be appealing to the culture they're gonna be appealing to the state and I like I understand like that's the focus is the human flourishing but they're gonna be asking for money from Uncle Sam before they're ever gonna ask local churches to take this

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I don't talk about you know a kind of the unified full -court press that we're going to make abortion unnecessary which is which is not it's kind of like saying well what can we do to make prostitution unnecessary right you know prostitution is a sin right abortion is a sentence it's murder sexual morality is is what can we do to make divorce unnecessary right you put whatever sin you want in there and it's ridiculous approach it's a it's a it's a wrangling of words it's unbiblical so you have that on you know at the convention and the previous convention you have a well -played hand by Bill Askell wherein you have for the first time and fit over 50 years a resolution presented and passed from the floor that doesn't go through the resolution committee and that is an abolitionist resolution and the the the power behind that resolution and the solidarity of the people involved versus the central planners and how are you not going to have a split over this yeah and again

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Dylan you point out you know from state to state it's going to be different and that certainly is something where the overturning of Roe v.

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Wade is not necessarily going to change anything in New York or California or Virginia or Oregon you know it it's not going to change anything in Oklahoma we still have our work to do here right we still have our work to end all abortions in Oklahoma what we do what advantage do we get we don't get we don't have that excuse anymore of well we can't pass anti -abortion legislation because then you're called in the federal court by the

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Supreme of the Supreme Court and we'll have to have all these legal fees and so on like no we don't have that excuse anymore there's nowhere to hide there's nowhere to hide that's right so are we saying we're thankful for a fight coming then because that's what we've really gotten right like if now it's it's the responsibility is back on whose responsibility it's supposed to be for this yeah and if we if we don't if we aren't thankful for that fight we're just gonna be that same apathetic yeah arm that we've been for so long it's kind of it's kind of like the situation where you have all these people who really upset with each other in the bar you know they're all kind of like yelling to each other and his tensions rising rising rising and all of a sudden someone throws a punch yet Roe v.

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Wade just got overturned yeah now what's gonna happen next I mean this was a punch to the face and now what's gonna happen well we'll see national alliances if you will are going to be tested now that there's not some ostensible covering like well you know it is the law of the land so there's not really much we can do about that let's just focus on what we can control and now that that excuse has ripped away you're really gonna see what people's true colors are and that's within the church and it's everywhere it's gonna it's gonna be but you know what the nature of the split okay the nature of the split

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I think is still going to be more along the lines of a city and rule okay it's going to be more of a city rule split than it is state by state the states that are having more of a rural control are the red states right the states that have more city control or the blue states that's just how it works and so but it's still it's still city versus rule where the great divide is and just like in the

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Southern Baptist Convention it's not going to be you know a state convention versus state convention I mean there's going to be people in all of these conventions that look at this you know differently there are some people that are upset that Roe v.

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Wade was overturned because they feel like this is a step back from a social justice you know and then there are others who are rejoicing right well

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I think that about wraps it up for us today we're gonna go ahead and ask what we're thankful for again because why not have two things we're thankful for in an episode

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Michael you want to start us off yeah I'm thankful thankful for my seat fifth born

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Samuel Tobias we had a good time this afternoon swimming in the pool and I just had a blast together it was like it was the first time

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I think that he and I have been on our own without other people around I don't know how long so we got to play together so it's fun that's great we love

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Toby yeah he's a lot of fun yeah Toby's a lot of fun I am thankful for surrogate grandparents my wife and I were married in it's been a while in 2004 and then one of the places we were stationed when we were newly married was

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Tucson but we had no grandparent support that's actually where my daughter was born in Tucson and we had this older couple in our church

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Bill and Ruth Bill was a former a -10 pilot and commander out at Davis Moth and I was still active duty at the time and he became something of a mentor to me and Ruth was very active in the crisis pregnancy center there in Tucson and they just sort of adopted us and then we sort of adopted them as surrogate grandparents to Elizabeth they were there at her first birthday and they've just been a part of her life for the last 15 years and we're incredibly thankful for them

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Bill is turning 80 here very soon and we are just oh well

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I know there's gonna be a party and stuff and a forum I wish I could be there unfortunately work is not allowing me to but my wife and daughter are out there celebrating with Bill and Ruth our surrogate grandparents who love us and that we we dearly love them amen along with the grandparents thing

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I'm thankful to God for my wife's mother came out here recently and we hosted her for about five days just very glad to have

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Joyce and what she added to my family whenever she was here with us amen to that well

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Heather and I are both thankful for God's mercy that she is still tired and nauseous and sometimes forgetful because that means the