As I study about God’s blessing, I have been reading through the book of Deuteronomy which is full of commands that God’s people were to follow to be blessed. In Deuteronomy 14, there are commands related to shaving the front of heads, marking skin, and eating. As Christians, we don’t worry about these commands anymore today. Why don’t we follow them today? Is it still possible to be blessed by God if we don’t follow these commands?
According to what I have read, it seems that God gave these prohibitions for possibly two reasons. The first reason that most people support is the Israelites were to set themselves apart from the other nations around them. The nations surrounding the Israelites followed other gods and did some of these practices that are prohibited to worship their foreign gods. For example, cutting oneself was a way of letting the blood flow to express grief within the cult of the dead. Shaving one’s front of the head to make a bald spot was also way of mourning the dead and their foreign god. “You shall not lacerate yourselves and you shall not make a bald spot on your head for the dead—the two practices prohibited here were associated with mourning customs of foreign religions and may have been associated with a cult of the dead.” (Craigie, P. C. (1976). The Book of Deuteronomy (p. 229). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). The prohibition to eating certain animals that were deemed unclean was because some of the neighboring nations treated some of these unclean animals as sacred. Since the Israelites were forbidden from worshipping any other gods other than the One True God, they were prohibited from frontal shaving, cutting themselves, and eating unclean animals to set themselves apart. This setting apart was to protect them from falling into worshipping other gods.
The second reason for the prohibition of not eating unclean animals was for hygiene or health reasons. “An American doctor conducted a series of experiments to determine the levels of toxicity in the meats of the animals, aquatic creatures, and birds mentioned in Deuteronomy. 14; he discovered that the various types of prohibited meats contained a higher percentage of toxic substances than those which were permitted.” (Craigie, P. C. (1976). The Book of Deuteronomy (p. 230). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) It looks like God was giving these prohibitions to eating unclean animals was to protect the health of the Israelites.
Many of the commandments that God has given throughout scripture appear to be what I will call transcendent commands, meaning they are meant for all times and for all people. Examples of transcendent commands would be the ten commandments. Other commands that God has given appear to be for a specific time and a specific people that no longer apply to people today, I call these specific commands. I am thinking right now, to receive God’s blessing we should follow the transcendent commands and can set aside the specific commands if we wish.
I am going to continue reading though Deuteronomy to look for commands that are transcendent as compared to those that are specific. I am enjoying this quest to discover whether God still blesses people or groups of people today like he did in the Bible. And I am looking forward to seeing how many different commands there are that we are called to follow. I hope you are blessed by this journey also and I look forward to receiving some of your thoughts and input.
I do find the purposes of specific commands to be interesting. A big difference between old testament times and new testament times, is God spoke through various people, for example, Moses, who He gave the people the 10 commandments. Versus, new testament times the Holy Spirit now speaks to every believer. I believe commands from God that are specific commands are now more personal and relatable than communal. God can be very specific with each one of us with our calling to holines.