Deuteronomy 14 - Clean and Unclean Foods | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church
The Bible by David Alley · David Alley
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Show Notes
In this video listen to Deuteronomy 14 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.
In Deuteronomy 14 the speech of Moses continues, now relating specific things they should and should not do much of which has already been discussed in earlier books, such as in Leviticus 11. We then discuss practical matters relating to travel and sacrifices.
If the distance from where a worshiper lived ws too far to go to the temple, to conveniently take the sacrifices, they could instead buy the sacrifice on location. This is exactly what happened at the temple, with an industry booming supplying lambs for sacrifices at the temple. It is almost certain that the shepherds in the fields at Bethlehem, just ten miles or so from Jerusalem, who saw the glorious Christmas angels, were raising sheep that would be used in temple sacrifices, and ultimately as food for worshippers and priests.
We are familiar with the story of Jesus cleansing the temple and from that we get the idea that buying and selling in a house of worship is wrong, but it isn’t, because it is advocated right here. So what was Jesus doing? He was greatly bothered by price-gouging.
What was happening at festival times was the prices were rising when people had no other choice but to pay the price on offer. People who had travelled a long way with money, had to buy at highly inflated rates or risk wasting their trip to the temple.
This bothered Christ a lot, because it was turning the purpose of the feasts into a commercial opportunity. So we have the story in John 2 of Jesus cleansing the temple with a whip. There is nothing wrong with commercial opportunities in their own right, and there is nothing wrong with buying and selling as part of spiritual life as needed, but to deliberately turn something spiritual into something commercial is to change its purpose, the motivation for having it and more.
So it is ok to have a Christian bookshop in your church, which sells resources to God’s people? Certainly because its purpose is to resource people and help them spiritually.