BLOG POST
THE PREACHER’S VOICE
THE POWER BEHIND THE NUMBER SEVEN: THE BEST WAY TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY.
As we wed ourselves or walk upstairs, hand in hand, with our loved one at wedding time, may this power be at work from the commencement, in Jesus’ name. Amen
- Exodus 20:14
- Matt. 5:27-32
The Setting
Many years ago, my family and I were still living in Congo–our homeland, when one of my best friends— leaving for a long trip mission with his family—came to me and said: “I have a dog that is about to give birth to baby dogs, and I have looked around me, but I did not see anyone else besides you to care about our dog. So, he left the dog with us–my wife, our first daughter who was three years old, and I. Two weeks later, the dog gave birth to seven baby dogs.
As they grew up, I used to call the first one the cute, and the seventh the ugliest–both were male baby dogs. Every time I fed them on a large plate, the ugliest was always the last to come to the feast. But, upon reaching the plate he would challenge everyone, and send all of them away. So, I decided to feed him separately. Unfortunately, I have not solved the challenging issue because, as I have expected, when other baby dogs wandered toward the ugliest dog’s plate, he challenge them again. Every time I tried to take away his plate, he challenged me too.
I named the seventh the ugliest, not because of the challenging issue, but the way his face looked, a face that sent the message of fear, power, and authority. He was quite different from the others in shape, color, and power. He was a stand-alone when others looked like the mother, and as time passed by, he became taller than the others. In addition, he was very protective of his plate. As they grew up, both the cute and the ugliest became a challenge to me.
I have decided to keep one of the baby dogs for the family. But, which one? Choosing between the cute and the ugliest became a challenge. The cute was the symbol of beauty, and the other was mighty and protective. Indeed, I have struggled a lot of day and night with the choice. Time was coming I have to let them go because my friend has authorized me to sell them. The struggle was inside me that morning when feeding them, someone knocked at the gate. As the gate opened, a tall man found his way toward the haven I was with the dogs.
As the tall man entered the front yard, I heard him singing. I did not know who he was because I have never seen him before. Everything in him symbolized happiness: the way he walked, sung, looked, smiled, and talked. As he approached me, without even saying hello, or wanting a handshake, he sounded like this: “I heard that you have gotten seven baby dogs here, I came to buy the number seven, only the number seven.” I did not know what to say at first because the door to any compromise was already closed. As we stared at each other motionless–him waiting for an answer, and me trying to unlock his mindset by searching him with my eyes from head to toes–I asked to myself, who is this guy, coming to my place, and without even saying hello, is asking to take the best of my baby dogs? How dare are you?
How dare are you? Yes! That was the inner man’s response to the request. He has at the same time decided to solve the inner struggle issue, the choice issue, by keeping both the cute and I ugliest, and says to myself, “my wife wants her cute, she is going to have it, and I want my ugliest one too.” So, I opened my mouth and rebuked the happy man. I sounded like this: “Oh, I am sorry, the number seventh is already taken.” As the man looked at me speechless and motionless, I noticed the sadness in his eyes. All happiness was gone. Then he turned his back and left the facility.
As the man disappeared from my view, I stood alone speechless and motionless. I was shocked and hurt because I have hurt someone’s feelings and happiness, and hurt myself. I was reckless, and because of that, I have hurt someone, and hurt myself. Believe me, I will regret my selfish answer my entire life. I have the opportunity to run after the man to apologize and ask him to come back and take what he wanted, but I did not. I did the opposite. I ran into my house, picked the bible, not looking for forgiveness, but an answer. Why number seven?
Why the number seven? What is the power behind the number seven? The bible is the first place I wanted to start. Something inside me has lighted those questions and prompted me to start with the Bible. Truly, the number seven started bothering me. What is the magic, or the mystery, behind this number, I started asking this question to myself? God was the first place, if not the only one, I wanted to start to understand this mystery.
The Exodus mandate
Why the Bible? Because from the Bible I wanted first to know, to what law of the Ten Commandments God has assigned the number seven? What is the mystery, or the power attached to this law? And how this law may be impacting people’s lives? Later, opening my Bible I found out that, from the Ten Commandments, besides two bible versions, God has assigned the number seven to the do not commit adultery law: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14 NRSV). Dennis Prager calls this law, “The best way to protect the family.”[1]
Why, as human beings, do we not have to commit adultery? Unfortunately, the law itself, the seventh Commandment does not give us the reason. According to Prager, there is a joke regarding this law that states that “Moses comes down from Mount Sinai announces to the Hebrews that ‘I have good and bad news. The good news is that I got him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery stays.”[2] Obeying to God’s command is always challenging. Imagine if there were more than ten laws. So, quarreling with God to bring them down to ten would be a good news. However, highlighting the stay of the seven law—the do not commit adultery—points out to the difficulty for a married person to abide to this law.
Indeed, Prager suggests that “The prohibition on a married person having sexual relations with anyone except his or her spouse may be, for many people, the most difficult of the Ten Commandments to observe,”[3] for diverse reasons, such as: (1) The power of the sex drive that makes very hard for many people to keep in check the entire life of one’s marriage, (2) the presence of attractive outsiders out there that make themselves available, (3) the desire to love and to be loved because, human beings, “there is no more powerful emotion than love. And it takes great effort for one who falls in love with a married person not to commit adultery. And things became more complicated when one lives in the unfortunate circumstances of a loveless marriage.”[4]
Why do we not have to commit adultery? From the election of Abraham and the Hebrew as God’s people to their deliverance, God has promised to bless all the families on earth through them. So after delivering the Hebrew with his mighty hand from the Pharaoh of Egypt, God brought them to Mount Sinai to give them the perfect law. The showdown at Mount Sinai is a visible manifestation of God to humankind, therefore, for the Israelites, there is nothing more fundamental than God’s commands. God’s purpose in giving these ten commandments is to shape and order the world according to his radical vision as the God of Exodus, and build and maintain a higher civilization.
According to Prager, “the building block of that civilization is the family—a married father and mother and their children.”[5] Therefore, everything that threatens the stability of the building bloc that is at the center of God’s intended high civilization is forbidden. Adultery threatens the stability of that building block, as well as not honoring one’s father and mother, and the incest. They are a threat, not only to the nuclear family, but also to the higher and radical civilization God seeks to build through the Ten Commandments.
Why the family—the building bloc—is so important to God that he has to establish a moral code? Social stability is at stake. Through families, society’s values are passed from generation to generation. As both spouses became one flesh, commit to each other, and meet their deepest emotional and material needs, they are more responsible and mature to give their children a suitable, secure, and stable childhood. Adultery, that may be difficult to define today due to ongoing issue of same sex marriage, and that is the sexual intercourse between a married man or woman with any woman—in the case of a married man, or any man—in the case of a married woman, rather than his or her spouse, or the violation of the wife of another man, which is not only a sin, but also a crime punishable of a death penalty (Lev. 20:10), threatens the family, the building bloc of the high civilization.
For the patrilineal nature of Israel’s society of the time, the gravity of this sin and punishable crime is rooted in: (1) The great fear of a mistaken paternity as an undetected adultery may produce offspring, and the result may be the granting of the family inheritance to an illegitimate heir, (2) adultery with mistaken pregnancy, the series of descendants are broken. In this case, the family—even though the living spouse is unaware—became extinct. There is no divine happiness in this case because the dread of the extinction of the family line is evident in the priestly Code, as it has to be passed from generation to generation in the family line.
Also, the height of the treachery and the pain it caused because both the man and the woman were to be slaughtered add another burden to the society. Jeremiah lament about the slaughtering of the daughters of his people: “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people”(Jer. 9:1). Malachi reports that God, the refiner, and purifier, hates adultery. As he announces the sending of his messenger, God as a critical question: “who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the son of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring in righteousness to the Lord. Then I will draw near to you for judgement; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers . . .” (Malachi 3: 2-5).
Malachi reports, that adulterers are among sorcerers, and among those who swear falsely, oppress the widow, fatherless, hired worker, thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear the Lord (v. 6). Indeed, God despises adultery as scriptures point out: “You make friends with the thief when you see one, and you keep company with the adulterers” (Ps. 50:18). God counts adulterers among the sorcerers, thieves, and murderers because as “ The murderers rises at dusk to kill the poor and needy, like a thief, the eye of the adulterer also wait for the twilight, saying, ‘no eye will see me, and he disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light. For deep darkness is morning to all of them; for they are terrors of deep darkness” (Job 24:14-17). Adulterers are among those who rebel against the light and its ways.
Adultery is an assault upon the sanctity of the nuclear family, which is divinely ordained because the man shall “leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24); they must cling together the remaining of their lives until death. Unfortunately, many marriages end up prematurely due to adultery as both spouses leaves their union, and destroy the nuclear family, the suitable childhood setting to their children, and making them to live an unbalanced life. In adultery, both partners of the illicit union, not only are ritually defiled or rendered impure, but also defile the land, causing it to spew out its inhabitants (Lev. 18:20-25). Adultery is an abomination, and a great sin against God (Gen.20:6, 9). Adultery can lead to pregnancy then to the birth of a child that will be raised without a family to call his or her own—Father and mother married and living together.
Finally, adultery, even though it doesn’t destroy the family, causes harm to marriage with the betrayal and the loss of trust. As Prager points out, “When a husband or a wife is having sex with someone other than their spouse, their thoughts are constantly about that other person and about how to deceive their spouse. The life of deception that an adulterous affair necessarily entails inevitably damages a marriage even if the betrayal spouse is unaware of the affair.”[6] The blessed union between a man and a woman, as they become one flesh and thrive to fill the earth, is the mystery of the human existence. God did not intend this life to be deceptive and fraudulent.
Though, the “Do not commit adultery” law deals with humankind, not only in a fleshy way, but also spiritually. Truly, Jesus deals more intensely with this mystery of human existence to preserve the sanctity of the family as he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). Jesus wants us to deal with this sin at its bottom, as it is rooted in our minds and hearts, and the way men look at women. He challenges even those who follow strict standards of the law to let them know that more measures are needed, and to be more radical to deal with this punishable crime as it causes pain and sufferings, and threatens the family, the building block of civilization.
Today, around the world, many single mothers, or single parents, are struggling alone to raise their children because of the missing of the other parents due to adultery. Some are living with other men or women to compensate the failed deepest emotional and material needs as they thrive to raise their children. These new settings come with new standards, pain, sufferings, and failures, which add more burdens and unstable childhoods. We may be ourselves content with a legal divorce, but here also Jesus challenges us as he says that “anyone who divorce his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorce woman commits adultery” (v.32). The only reason a man can divorce his wife is adultery. But, God says do not do it. Therefore, in Christian’s life, there is no prescription to divorce.
Brothers and sisters, as we go through life, living our Christian life, raising our Children and grandchildren, counseling others along the way, and seeing sufferings all around the world, let us be mindful of God’s vision and expectation for a higher civilization with the nuclear family as the centrality of the building block of that civilization. So, let us claim that vision for ourselves as individuals, but also for our families, communities, lands, nations, and the world. Because adultery shakes up and threatens that foundation, and causes pain and suffering in and within us, and around us, let us protect our nuclear family—God’s building block for higher civilization—by not engaging ourselves in this deceptive sin.
The word of God For the people of God.
Amen.
[1] Dennis Prager, The Ten Commandments: Still The Best Moral Code (REGNERY PUBLISHING, A Division of Salem Group, 2015), 53-59.
[2] Ibid, 54
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid, 55.
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid, 57-58.