Title: Case Law
Reference: Exodus 21:1-11
Speaker: Ben Beasley, BenB@cckc.church

– The ever-changing nature of culture

…a woman's identity in Israel—and her link to its economy and civil structures—was always tracked through the men in her life. She was first her father's daughter, then her husband's wife and then her son's mother. The resources and protection of the clan came to her through the male members of her family. This is why it was critical for a woman to marry and to bear children… And a woman without father, husband or son was destitute; without the charity of strangers, she would starve. ~ Sandra Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament

Even if Christianity did not overthrow slavery immediately … Paul’s injunction to treat slaves rightly and fairly would soon be understood as a command to abolish the institution of slavery entirely. ~ Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

– Yahweh’s unchanging character.

Wendell Berry has taught me that even the most complex situations, socially, economically, politically, are like marriage, and I’m sure that he is right. Most moments in our marriage reflect the deeper, harder truth that we each are implicated in the problem, and that we each have something important to say about its resolution.The only way forward is to make peace with proximate justice. It is a choice to make peace with something, something that is honest and true, something that is more just and more merciful, even if it is not everything. All-or-nothing never works–in marriages, in friendships, in the workplace, in the church. And it never works in politics. ~ Steve Garber, Proximate Justice, Again and Again

– Timeless wisdom for our lives.

Three applications:
1. Listen carefully and seek to understand a culture different from our own.
2. Look for points of contact and see how we can move towards God’s ideal.
3. Live in trust to Jesus.

Christianity has had no small part in the dream fulfillment…The idea is that beyond this present order, with its frustrations, sin, and broken harmony, there is another order in which God will do without hindrance what human sin and frailty made it difficult to achieve in any grand scale in the present world…what men experience as private or collective disaster need not be regarded with helplessness by the Christian. ~ Howard Thurman, The Search for Common Ground