World Class

(Proverbs 23:27 KJV)  For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

The “whore” (harlot NASB) (2181) is both literal and figurative.  In looking at the definitions in my Hebrew study tools I noticed that one usage of this word is “temple prostitute.”  The religion of the Bible is one of the few religions of its day, maybe the only one, that did not allow for religious sex.  The Greeks and Romans had prostitutes affiliated with their religions somewhere.  It was common to take and combine the sacred and the profane.

We like that.  God forbids it.  We like to take parts of life that God has established and twist them just enough to make them sin.  Sometimes it doesn’t take much.  Here it talks about sex.  What about our giving?  It is expected for God’s people to tithe and give offerings.  There is some debate about the tithe for Christians but most of that falls into this category of not wanting to follow something that is pretty simple to understand but hard to do.  There are others who take the idea of stewardship and twist it into ways of milking the faithful and foolish.  I remember a man in a parking lot telling me if I would just put some money in an envelope, write “seed faith” on it and mail it to his favorite televangelist, I would get rich. 

That is a deep pit indeed.

So?  Look for the heart of God and the principles He is trying to teach.  Our secular training will tell us things like “God would not expect that” and “Don’t be a legalist”.  God will say, “Do it”.