A Civil Society Part 1 – Deut. Chpt. 21

As we turn the page to chapter 21, we reach that portion of Deuteronomy dealing with the rules of a civil society. These rules – and there are a lot of them – were meant to maintain order. They were and are necessary because people are naturally evil. We need rules and accountability to live in an orderly way. Otherwise, we would end up with a society in which it was 'every man for himself' and only the strong would survive.

God knows the nature of the human heart. So he gave a set of criminal and civil laws via the Mosaic covenant. We will cover most of them in chapters 21-26. As we move through the text over the next few weeks, there are some thing s to keep in the back of your mind:

• Some of these things will be foreign to us because the mindset was different back then.
• Some of the rules will defy explanation using modern standards and values.
• Some of these things we will struggle to understand; we just have to believe and accept.