“No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” (23:1)

I love coming across passages like this which very explicitly changed with Christ.

In Acts 8, the LORD leads Philip to an Ethiopian eunuch who worked in the courts of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, and had gone to Jerusalem to worship. Philip explains to this man how Jesus had fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures and this eunuch asks a very important question: “What prevents me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36)

Why would he ask this? Because as a eunuch, he would have been made very aware during his visit to Jerusalem, what prevented him from joining that assembly.

‭These chapters scream the inconvenient-for-humans truth that to be close to the LORD, you must be perfect in every way. Nothing remotely unclean may be near. No sickness, brokenness or bodily fluids.

This one is especially bonkers to me:

“No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” (23:2)

TEN GENERATIONS?!?!

Did you know…

You have:

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great grandparents

16 great x2 grandparents

32 great x3 grandparents

64 great x4 grandparents

128 great x5 grandparents

256 great x6 grandparents

512 great x7 grandparents

…And if any of them were born out of wedlock, you would be unqualified for the assembly, in the miraculous case you are otherwise qualified?! This is insane!

This makes every single interaction of Jesus touching people to make them clean all the more powerfully significant. He includes by purification. We need it! We have no chance without Him!

Who else can you think of that was disqualified by these laws, but Jesus invites them in?

-Bethany