The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

Mosaic Law

Animal Sacrifice in the Bible

Let’s talk about animal sacrifice in the Bible and why we don’t do animal sacrifices today. When we mention animal sacrifice, the first thing people often think about is the Mosaic Law, but the Mosaic economy is not the only one that featured sacrifices. Sacrifices also occurred immediately after the fall (Gen 3:21), in the first generation after the fall in the dispensation of conscience (Gen 4:4), after the flood in the dispensation of human government (Gen 8:20), and in the dispensation of patriarchs (Job 1:5). So, before Christ, were people saved by offering animal sacrifices? The short answer is “No.” The long answer is “Noooooooooooooo!”

Here’s an excerpt from a paper I’m working on that has been modified for your viewing pleasure:[Read More]

Think before you ink

​When I was in the Army, I thought it would be cool to get a tattoo that said, “I run with scissors!” with a skull and cross-scissors above it. I was telling my brilliant idea to my father, who told me, “Son, most people I know who are my age and have tattoos are folks that got the tattoos when they were your age and now they regret it.”
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Three reasons why you do not want Jeremiah 29:11 to be about you

​Have you ever seen a conversation like this take place between two believers?

​Believer 1: How is life going, Believer 2?
Believer 2: Oh, life is terrible! My dog left me and I stepped on a LEGO. Things will never get better. Blah blah blah.
Believer 1: Oh no. Be encouraged! The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Believer 2: Oh, wow! You’re right! Everything is just swell. I think I’ll ride off into the sunset now.

​Believer 1 has just quoted Jer 29:11. If we look at the context of this passage, I think we’ll find that he has actually misused this particular verse (though, I’m sure his intentions were good).

​Now, Jer 29:11 is a source of encouragement for many believers and I don’t want to rob anyone of encouragement. So, I have compiled a list of three reasons why we should rejoice that this passage is not about us. If Jer 29:11 was indeed about us, then:
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Knowing is half the battle

Videos of Jews who have converted to Christianity have been emerging on the internet. There seems to be a common thread among many of them: they were taught at an early age that the New Testament was an evil book and they should stay away from it. I don’t even blame them for thinking Christianity is evil; just look at the atrocities committed against the Jews in the name of replacement theology. But, I don’t think that Jews, nor Christians for that matter, should avoid reading something on the account of it being heresy. As a minimum, we need to be prepared to give an answer to objectors and we need to hear the objection before we can respond.
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MosaicLawopoly

​Everyone who loves Monopoly has his own set of house rules (Greek οἰκονομία …hehehe). I’m not going to talk about American politics today, but I saw the picture above on facebook that’s a jab at Bernie Sanders, and I wanted to turn it into something Bible-related. ​Whoever made the Bernopoly post must have been anti-Bernie, but someone from a pro-Bernie point of view made a similar post:

Picture

​Well, I’m not going to ramble on about which Monopoly board I like better, but I would like to jump on the bandwagon and use Monopoly to explain economics. More specifically, I want to try to explain how economics worked in Israel during the Mosaic Law using an overly simplified Monopoly illustration… and will probably fail miserably.

Here it goes:

Rules of MosaicLawopoly

The game starts with all of the properties distributed evenly among all players except for one, who’s not allowed to have property. Players can buy and sell properties from each other, but after 50 laps around the board, the properties get redistributed as they were at the beginning of the game.
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Does God condone raping and buying virgins? Part two.

Part Two

In part one of this post, we saw that the Law was set up to protect Israel, and we saw that Deut 22:13-30 contains laws to protect her from sexual debauchery. We looked at Deut 22:13-22, and are driving through vs 23-30 in this post. If you haven’t read part one, please do so.
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