Day 386: Cleaning up our lives – Deuteronomy 23 vs 9 – 14

9 “When you go to war against your enemies, be sure to stay away from anything that is impure. 10-11 Any man who becomes ceremonially defiled because of a nocturnal emission must leave the camp and stay away all day.  Toward evening he must bathe himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp. 12-13 You must have a designated area outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself.  Each of you must have a spade as part of your equipment. Whenever you relieve yourself, dig a hole with the spade and cover the excrement.  14 The camp must be holy, for the Lord your God moves around in your camp to protect you and to defeat your enemies. He must not see any shameful thing among you, or he will turn away from you.” Deuteronomy 23:9-14 New Living Translation paraphrase (English Standard Version link)

One of my memories of primary school was a teacher who used to say that 'cleanliness is next to Godliness'. I've since read that some think the saying dates back to John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism. It's not a quotation from the Bible, but it does capture something of the unusual verses of today's reading. But what was their purpose?

People who believe in good hygiene will find it difficult to go into an untidy 'hippie pad' that stinks of unwashed clothes, bodies and bed linen. So in this section God gave some basic rules to the Israelites which would have told them that He is holy and completely pure. And one way for them to respect God's purity was to make the outward condition of their camp reflect the inward condition of their hearts. Most of us do a quick clean and tidy up of the house if guests are coming. How much more clean and tidy would we make it if the guest were someone very special.

But does this mean that bodily emissions make us unclean and unholy?

The answer is not in themselves – but God used them as symbols of impurity. Many years later the Jewish leaders strongly criticized Jesus for allowing His disciples to 'defile' themselves by eating food without first ceremonially washing their hands. But Jesus told His disciples: “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. But the words you speak come from the heart - that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.” (Matthew 15:17-20)

So what would you say was the main principle of these things according to verse 14?

It was surely that they needed to realize that God was living in their camp. F B Meyer, a faithful preacher of old, remarked that the tent tabernacle in which the Ark of the Covenant was kept meant that God had pitched His tent alongside their tents. They also needed to remember that they would only win the battles which lay ahead of them if God was on their side – and He would only do that if they kept in mind that He is holy and pure.

That principle is still true for believers today. We will only win spiritual battles with God on our side. The apostle Paul wrote to Christians in the Greek city of Corinth – a city well known for promiscuity – to challenge them about the question of sexual behaviour. He said: “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You don't belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

Just as God 'lived' in the Israelite camp in the days of Moses, so He now lives by the Holy Spirit in the believer's body. And just as the Israelites were commanded to have nothing shameful in the camp, so we should not have anything shameful in our bodies. We are to put away those things which Jesus said would defile us. Being converted should lead to a cleaning up of our lives, so that we honour God even with our body.