Tuesday, April 2, 2019
“When you make an agreement with your
neighbor to buy or sell property, you must not take advantage of each other. When
you buy land from your neighbor, the price you pay must be based on the number
of years since the last jubilee. The
seller must set the price by taking into account the number of years remaining
until the next Year of Jubilee. The more years until the next
jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price. After all, the person selling the land is
actually selling you a certain number of harvests. Show your
fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am the Lord your God. “If you want to live securely in the
land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations. Then the land
will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it. Leviticus 25:14-19
You can
legislate against evil intent, but how can you stop or change intent without a
grip on the heart? Especially when no
heart exists, as in the case of sociopaths?
Among the characteristics of sociopathic behavior is a lack of
shame.
If the person is a true sociopath, then he or she will feel no remorse
about hurting others, lying, manipulating people, or just generally acting in
an unacceptable way.[2]
God’s
instructions to Israel about the way they were to treat each other is just the
opposite – there is to be genuine care for each other, particularly in business
dealings. It was explicit in the
Levitical mandates, written as the law of Jubilee, where fair prices
were to be central in transferring property.
As such, there could be no lying, no truthful hyperbole
to promote one Hebrew over another. But
some people will find a loophole in any law.
That is why “the law” is something God designed for the heart, as
opposed to the courts.
Someone
who breaks the law of compassion, withholding fairness and restraint of
personal gain, is being sociopathic, taking every advantage over his neighbor,
rather than loving his neighbor, and thus, not loving, (let alone fearing) God.
That being
said, sociopaths need to be loved also.
In fact, a key diagnostic in recognizing a sociopath identifies lack
of love as a factor of abusive parents in the early stages of a sociopath’s
early years.[iii]
This law
of love is something tied to the quality of life we lead, whether
you consider an individual or the entirety of humanity. In Leviticus God describes the impact that
integrity and fairness will have on a culture in terms of whether we will have
enough to eat. Loving your neighbor
means everyone has enough; taking advantage of anyone is what a snake in the
grass does, and it makes sure some will go hungry.
For You Today
In every
aspect of living there are opportunities to exert power over others; Godly
people do not slither!
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