7.4 Regulate divorce

 Divorce is permitted under certain conditions of indecency.

You shall not steal

The Commandment

God is sovereign in the disposition of blessings, and He calls each of us to exercise proper stewardship over what He has entrusted to us, and to respect and preserve the stewardship of others. We must not, by stealing in any way, violate the divine economy and the stewardship rights and duties of others.

Deuteronomy 22.23, 24

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

Leviticus 19.29

“Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity.”

Leviticus 18.23

“And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.”

Leviticus 20.20

“If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.”

7.3 Do not commit other unlawful relations

Do not allow those practices that cheapen sexuality and threaten the integrity and lawful purposes of sexual activity.

Leviticus 20.17

“If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace,

7.2 Do not commit unlawful relations between men and women

 Adultery in all its forms is condemned.

“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die,

What does it mean to have "new life in Christ"? According to Paul (Rom. 6.4) it is to be caught up in and to express the glory of God the Father. For many of us, I suspect, the notion of "the glory of God" is a fairly intellectual idea, one we readily affirm and wholeheartedly embrace. But the point is not merely to affirm and embrace this idea, but to live it. The glory of God His weighty, fearful, yet warm and welcoming presence, bending toward us and drawing us into Him as we recline in prayer and meditation before His eternal throne. The glory of God is something to engage through faithful discipline; from there, by the power of God's Spirit, the glory of God is something to express in even the most mundane aspects of our lives (1 Cor. 10.31).

Is there a weight of glory in our conversations? Our everyday demeanor? The way we look at others or come to their aid? When "new life in Christ" becomes more than merely a subjective spiritual sigh, the glory of God will begin to be a real presence in every aspect of our walk with Him.