The Verses That Changed My Life - Leviticus 27

So I said that I would Be making some videos about some verses that you know really changed my outlook some verses that really had an impact on me over the years since I've become a

Christian and So I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna start that today These are in no particular order and and one of the things

I will say upfront is that this is a moving target, right? Like, you know when you ask somebody what their top 10, you know favorite verses are

It really depends on the season of life and what you know, what's going on in the context and things changes all the time so but these are the things that come to mind, you know sort of immediately when

I think of the verses that have kind of changed my Perspective on things and one thing you'll notice and I think you'll see this today. This is not gonna be a standard

These are my top 10 favorite verses. They're not really my favorite verses. They're not like my life verses or inspiring really

I mean, maybe some of them will be but But that's not really what I mean I mean, these are the things that when

I read them and I understood them it really changed my outlook I think you'll see what I mean in a second Also, I'll try to connect everything to social justice because that's what

I do Alright, the first verse or section of verses that changed my perspective on things is

Leviticus chapter 27 starting in verse 1 and Probably 8 verses, right?

You'll read them Leviticus chapter 27 starting in verse 1 These are the words of God it says the

Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the people of Israel and say to them if Anyone makes a special vow to the

Lord involving the valuation of persons then the valuation of a male from 20 years old up to 60 years old shall be 50 shekels of Silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary if the person is female the valuation shall be 30 shekels

If the person is from 5 years old up to 20 years old the valuation Shall be for male 20 shekels and for a female 10 shekels if the person is from a month old up to 5 years

Valuation shall be for male 5 shekels of silver and for a female the valuation shall be 3 shekels of silver and if the person is 60 years old or over the valuation for a male shall be 15 shekels and for a female 10 shekels and if someone is too poor to pay the

Valuation then he shall be made to stand before the priest and the priest shall value him and the priest shall value him according to What the vower can afford?

Okay, so that's the that's the that's the section of verses Leviticus chapter 27

And the context of me reading this verse I remember it very clearly now when

I became a Christian the first thing I did was I started to read the Bible and I read the whole Bible in a very short amount of time

And so I read this but I never really considered it because you know I mean if you've had this experience like I have like you start reading the

Bible and Genesis is great And you know you're getting through it You're zipping through it like a novel or something like that And then you get to Exodus and it's also good and then you start to get into the law and you just your mind starts

To go to sleep and this is this is this is how kind of it happened to me, too I was trying to stay I mean not stay awake, but I was trying to pay attention

But some of it is so detailed that it's hard to do that. I mean, I'm just being honest

I'm not trying to be blasphemous or anything like that. It's just hard These laws are very out of context with my everyday life

And so it's hard to do so I had read this but I never really considered it too much but when

I considered it and this this section of verses changed my life is When I heard some atheists make some arguments based on this section of verses now

I don't remember where I heard this first It was probably I mean it was just a typical village atheist type someone who thinks they're very smart

But they're really not that smart And I used to I used to fear arguing with people like this by the way.

This is this is true I used to fear the arguments of Richard Dawkins All those guys like it was just really

I used to fear. I don't anymore obviously But anyway from one of those types of village atheist type not a very thoughtful kind of atheist

And I'm gonna read it from the Anna the skeptics annotated Bible. Okay. This is what this is the basic argument

This is what they say This is their annotation about this for this section of verses it says God defines the value of human life in Dollars and cents of course to God females are worth considerably less than males between 50 and 60 percent less but neither are worth very much and it's referring to this section of verses where it says that these this is the valuation of persons and Every single time no matter if it's an old person a middle -aged person a child

Whatever the person is the woman is valued about 50 to 60 percent less than the male

Okay, so I read that I was like yeah, that's interesting You know kind of certainly seems to be about that and so I read this and I Thought about it long and hard and I did a little bit of digging

You know, it's it's helpful to look at commentaries about what this is all about because again, we're pretty divorced from this context

This idea of vowing to the Lord and things like that. It's just something that we're not really familiar with We don't do this this too much anymore, but but but it struck me instantly

I mean, I wasn't a scholar but it struck me instantly that this is about a special case Vow making a vow to the

Lord and I didn't understand what that was And so I knew that the interpretation of this was dependent on what that's all about Okay, because so the atheist thinks about this deeply about it and says we'll see

God thinks women are worthless You know, like I mean idiotic very very very very surface level very

Superficial reading but I knew as soon as I read this that whatever this means it has to do with the vow

What is the vow and and you know without getting too deep into it? And there's a little bit of debate about this, of course

There's just like there's a debate about everything But but what's going on here is not obviously not what the skeptics annotated

Bible thinks is going on here You know, you really have to work at misunderstanding this or just be illiterate or just have an agenda

Which is what the skeptics annotated Bible does. So here's what's going on here. So if you make a vow to the Lord You have to keep it.

You know what I mean? Like you just have to keep it. That's how it was back there And if you don't keep the lap bow to the Lord, then you've got problems, you know

It's not it's not like when when when people today say to God Well, I'll do this, you know if you do this and then then they don't do it and nothing happens to them

It's not like that. This was a serious matter. Your word was it was a serious thing and so if you didn't do it, then you have a problem now and this valuation here is the redemption price of that vow

The redemption price and so how did what what happens when you break your vow to the

Lord? What happens if you would want to be released from the vow or whatever it is? How do we adjudicate that?

What's what's the consequence there? Because there is a consequence. This is biblical justice and so the valuation is

More for a male than for a woman. It's not about the value of the person It's about how much they owe if they don't keep their vow.

It's the redemption cost So the fact that women's have women have a less a lower redemption cost the atheist

You know idiot who doesn't understand anything says we'll see that means a woman is worth less No, that means the penalty is less for a woman.

Why do you think the penalty might be less for a woman? I mean you might not like it

But in their culture back then the male had a lot more earning potential than a female

The male was capable of earning more than the female So are you really arguing?

that it would have been a good idea to have the redemption cost of the vow of the make the making of a special vow to The Lord be the same for males and females in a culture where a female had less earning potential

Would that not have actually been a punishment to the female? You see here's the thing This is why this is this verse impacted me.

Once I realized what was going on here I I realized how superficial most people's understanding of the

Bible is very superficial very stupid surface level And if you don't look into it You just kind of take the atheist's word for it or the person who's who's presenting this ridiculous arguments word for it

You might come away thinking God's law is ridiculous God's law doesn't make any sense When it's the exact opposite this person is saying that this law says something that is basically the opposite of what it says

It's not about valuing people. It's about being fair to each person

Based on what their earning potential was based on what their characteristics are If you notice the evaluation of old people is less does the

Bible really hold old people in lower esteem than young people? No, but their earning potential is less.

It's a reality when you get older you have less earning potential in general Evaluation of a child is the argument really that the

Bible doesn't value children No, but the but the but the but the child can't make money on their own

So obviously they shouldn't have to pay the same you see you see what I'm saying. So this first changed my life because it

It made me realize that the that the depth that a lot of people understand the

Bible is like a millimeter And so all you got to do is a little bit of digging and a lot of these problems that's the so -called problems that atheists have and unbelievers have is

They go away and so this is related to social justice because a lot of people are talking about justice right now

But they have no clue what it is. They can say the word they can say love they can say justice They can say love your neighbor

But when it comes down to their their their their theology of what these words actually mean what this looks like in practice

It's very very shallow So Leviticus 27, this is one of the verses that changed my life.