Context, Context, Context

I am tired.  Every day, I am inundated with people telling me how evil or, shall I say it, deplorable someone is who supports one candidate or the other due to something taken completely out of context. 

For example, Elon Musk, who in my assessment is a charismatic entrepreneur, had aligned himself with our president ostensibly to eliminate waste and inappropriate spending by the government.  I would hope that everyone would agree that this is a laudable and necessary goal.  In fact, just to put some context to this, the last administration that really put effort and had some success at this was under former President Clinton.

Mr. Musk, at an event, raised his hand to solicit support. A picture was taken. The spin was that he was giving a nazi salute. This became the focus of the opposing side news. The supporting side showed picture after picture of Democrats making the exact same raising of the hand to solicit support. The majority of us who do not live every single moment of our lives supporting one party and working against the other party, were wore down with all this minutiae.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a recent strategy. 

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

US Constitution Article 1

I remember when individuals tried to argue that slavery was embedded in our constitution due to the above wording of the first article of the constitution.  Upon just a little research, you’ll find that this was a compromise between the slave states (who wanted to count everybody for representation but not give slaves any rights) and free states (who didn’t want to count the slaves for representation).  While not an ideal answer, it was a compromise that was made to get the states to ratify the constitution and replace the failed articles of confederation.

The reason I thought of this was that my daily reading was in Leviticus…

“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 twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten 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; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.” - Leviticus 27:1-8 ESV

Was God condoning slavery and misogyny?  Absolutely not.  God was creating rules for a new society of Israelites who had recently separated themselves from their Egyptian rulers.  Prior to this part, God gave the specification for the tabernacle and the tribes contributed to its building and organization.  Like the rules around divorce, God wasn’t condoning, much less recommending divorce, but rather establishing the structure for society to operate.  Since we live in a sin filled world, practices that most of us would consider distasteful, at best, happen and often are better than their alternative (I’m thinking of a divorce alternative that Robert Blake may have considered - ok, look it up, it’s been a while).

You might wonder why people take these snippets and use them to try to convince you to support their position?  They want you to be their fool.  The more passion they can illicit in you, the less likely you will be to research the situation.

I’m talking about using discernment.  The best yard stick to measure anything against is your Bible and God.