Navigating Biblical Topics: Gene Editing, Paternity Leave, and Marriage Laws

In this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, recorded on Wednesday, March 19th, the hosts discuss various interesting topics. These include gene editing, the ethical concerns around reviving woolly mammoths, and the complex implications of gene modifications in humans. They also delve into cultural and ethical reflections on paternity (or pet) leave, contrasting it with the theological perspective on the Imago Dei. The episode covers passages from Deuteronomy 24-27, highlighting God's serious stance on marriage, Leverett marriage laws, first-fruits offerings, and the curses for disobedience to be pronounced on Mount Ebal. They end the podcast with a light-hearted interaction, comments on practical biblical applications, and a prayer.

00:00 Introduction and Spring Break Updates

01:01 Listener Email: Woolly Mammoth Resurrection

01:37 Ethical Implications of Gene Editing

07:46 Paternity Leave for Pets?

09:48 Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 24-27

18:32 Closing Prayer and Final Thoughts

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

Hey, everybody.

2

Welcome back to another edition

of the daily Bible podcast

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is Wednesday, March 19th.

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And we are in the midst of, at least

in my family, spring break is going on.

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We've got a lot of being at home

and different things going on.

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Josh has got some baseball games.

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We're just hanging out at his family.

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I like spring break spring breaks a good.

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It's a good pause.

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It's a good break as it were

from everything else going on.

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It's appropriate naming.

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Then it is totally inappropriate naming.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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We're not doing it.

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I'm not doing a lot.

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I'm here.

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We're here.

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But yeah, we like it.

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The one thing that I think about

every time this rolls around

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is that, man, we have about a.

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All right.

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How do you do?

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How have you guys been?

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So it's, yeah, I've been we're,

I've been central to that.

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You're helping out a lot.

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We're going to have a a great

conversation about mobile phones too.

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So how do you deal with that?

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That's also a question, like,

how do you deal with that?

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I'm the kind of person who.

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I'm, I've never.

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I'm Yeah.

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I'm with you on that.

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Yeah.

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Hey, we got an email in and

this email came in over almost

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yeah, two weeks ago now.

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Yeah.

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All week and a half ago.

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And so we apologize for not getting

this to this earlier Lillian, but you

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send an email that you and the kids

were watching something about the, not

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resurrection, but the re animation of the

woolly mammoths that they're looking at

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trying to bring back the woolly mammoth.

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That's Yeah.

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Doing edits on a particular elephant.

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So these would be genetic elephant edits,

that most resembles the woolly mammoth

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and trying to bring them back again.

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What are your thoughts on that?

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PR?

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So I think it's dangerous

to mix genetic strains.

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Obviously it's feels like Jurassic park.

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Isn't this what they did?

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They were re reanimating dinosaurs

and they brought it back to,

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anyway, I know it's a movie.

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Okay.

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So there's.

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Part of me thinks this

is me taking dominion.

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This is us taking dominion over creation.

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Clearly God intended for us to

discover these things because we did.

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And the fact that you can splice genes

and make them do things that they weren't

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originally designed to do, I think

could be a very compelling prospect for

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creating greater health in the future.

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Now, of course, as I say this,

I recognize there's a lot of

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things that could go wrong here.

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People could mistake

this for something else.

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We talk about gene editing often when

we talk about babies, and designer

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babies and paying for this versus that.

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Obviously lots of ways that

there can be bombshells here.

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But I also think about the

prospect of healing diseases

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and ridding ourselves of cancer.

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I think that would be

a really noble pursuit.

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And if gene editing helps us with

that, then I think, Hey, bring it

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on even though it can be hazardous.

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And I think that's true for a lot of

things that we enjoy the privileges of.

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We also see as Christians, there

are two sides to every story.

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So I think cautiously, I think

it would be good for humanity to

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take steps forward in this area.

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Now, when it comes to simply doing things

for the sake of it, just because you

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can, and I didn't read the article, so I

don't know if that's what they're doing.

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But I do think there's inherent

dangers that we need to be very

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careful about for obvious reasons

when we're protecting the Imago Dei.

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But for that same reason, I would

say if we can utilize our technology

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to further the health of man,

then great, we should do that.

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You made a comment and

I don't want to overly.

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Parse out every word that you say,

but it stuck with me in that response.

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You said obviously God meant for

us to discover this because we did.

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Yep.

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I meant that.

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I think I agree with that.

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I stand behind it.

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1000%.

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I think I agree with that from the

perspective of God's sovereignty.

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And I believe that he

ordains all of these things.

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Absolutely.

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We're not discovering anything that God's

what, how did you guys figure that out?

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I didn't mean for you to figure that

does that inherently or necessarily

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mean though that every discovery

should be thought of in, at least

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in some sense with a positive.

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Yeah, of course not.

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Of course not.

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There are other things that are

inherently sinful and no one would,

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no one to disagree with that.

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Whatever scripture says is clearly wrong.

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We should say that's wrong.

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So even if there's inventive ways

to do sin, we shouldn't say, Oh man,

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what a novel way to approach that sin.

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Let's continue to do

that because it's good.

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We don't look for the silver lining

on every discovery that's out there.

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And again, I'm going to say,

if it's inherently sin, then

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no, we do not inherently sin.

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And I think that's where here, when

we talk about gene editing, we're not

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talking about something inherently sinful.

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In fact, what I think we can say

is that God was already doing a

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little bit of gene editing and I'm

using air quotes here early on.

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We just do it through natural

human means called procreation.

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But if one tribe intermingles with

another tribe, that's what you're doing.

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You're editing a new genetic.

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code, taking the X and Y chromosomes

and you're putting two things

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together that now make a new thing.

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So I think you want, I know

Mueller says this all the time.

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Whenever you take steps away from

the natural order of things, you

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put yourself in increasingly more

hazardous territory and I would

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not deny that even a little bit.

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But again, I do think for the sake of

what we can do with it, there should

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be some people who are thinking as

they take technological steps forward

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as possible and where possible.

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And I think this is perfectly suited.

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So I think the reason why so many

people are reticent, maybe if you're

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listening to this, you're going,

okay, what are the dangers here?

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So often the dangers are, some of

this comes from aborted fetal tissue.

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Some of this comes from dealing

with things that we are going

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to, Create a custom baby.

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When we, those are some of the

dangers that this whole concept can

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produce is where are you getting

the stem cells from that you're

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doing some of this research on?

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Where are you doing, is it right for a

couple to get together and say, we want

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this baby genetically to be geared this

way and this way, where does that line?

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Exist and where do we cross that line?

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And I think across the board, we

would have to say if this is using

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aborted fetal tissue then we would

throw a flag on the plane and say,

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this is out of bound, this is wrong.

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We shouldn't do this.

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And then when it gets to the customization

of genetics, that's where it just

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gets so difficult and so tricky.

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You mentioned tribes marrying

one with another one.

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I think the difference there and

wherein I'm more comfortable with this

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is, that's still God doing the, all

of the grunt work, all of the work on.

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Sure.

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Creating that life that's going

to come out of that and we're not

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interfering with that process at all.

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And I think there, we talk about shared

and unshared attributes in partners

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as we go through and talk about the

character of God and everything else.

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And certainly one of the shared attribute

with God is that active attribute

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of creativity that he is a creator

and we share that in the sense that

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he's given us the ability to create.

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But I think the question is,

where is, where's the line?

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Where do we have to say, okay,

that's too far in our creative

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pursuits on our end of things.

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And this certainly.

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Yeah.

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And I guess that's where I would

say for the average Christian,

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it takes a lot of mental sweat,

equity to say, where is that line?

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And to what degree can I

participate in human society?

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In fact, there's lots of

Christians that will argue.

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Even some of the current vaccines

that we enjoy that no one

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thinks twice about there's a.

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There's a history that you alluded to,

and some people know about, and they're

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going to stumble over that very thing

because they're going to say then I

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shouldn't even take this thing because

this has connections to that thing.

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And this is where it's the real world is

a challenging, difficult, sin laden world.

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And our job is not to throw our hands

in the air and say let's just give up

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because we can't do anything about this.

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But to think carefully about what

we're doing and to think again,

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this is going to come back.

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This is why we do this podcast.

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We need to know our Bible so well.

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That we begin to have biblical instincts

that allow us to look at problems

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that are complicated and sticky and

have a lot of holes and say, how do

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we put this piece together the most

faithfully that we can honoring the God

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of our Bible and saying, what would our

Lord have us to do with these things?

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They're not always easy solutions

and to simplify or rather

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oversimplify these things does

ourselves and others a disservice.

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I would agree.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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The secondary question there, we

can answer this one a lot faster.

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I think, what do y'all

think about paternity leave?

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P A W, paternity leave.

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Oh, I see.

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What they did.

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Yeah.

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Paternity for animals.

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They're starting in Emeryville,

California in New York City.

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It's been on the table for a while and

that's adorable not mandated yet, but

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companies heading in that direction.

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So you have a new puppy.

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Let's just put the best

bit on this new puppy.

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She needs lots of time and attention.

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You named her maverick or him hat.

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You named a maverick.

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It needs a lot of attention.

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They need time off to take

care of their animals.

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Calculate that before you have a puppy.

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I'll give you one more

short answer to this.

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No, because next, because it's not it's

goes back to the Amagra day to argue

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that people need time away to care

for their fur babies is not the same

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thing as a mom who has an actual real.

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Live, actual baby that depends upon her.

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Yeah, that needs to care for it.

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That's the image of God.

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Your dog, your cat was not

created in the image of God.

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It was created as something that you

were to exercise dominion over, and you

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can use a crate and create train that

puppy while you go to work and then you

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can come home and let it out and play

with it and everything else like that.

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And I'm seeing that as

somebody who has a dog at home.

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So if you think I'm just a full

blown animal hater, I'm not,

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I just think this is absurd.

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And so the answer is no, we

should not have paternity leave.

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If it wasn't for the fact that people

are confusing their animals for humans,

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I could see a company offering this as a

benefit, not a mandated thing that they

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have to do, but saying it's a benefit.

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If you're part of this company,

we, if you want to have an animal.

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This is to take a week off.

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Hey, we provide benefits for that.

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You could do a whole

week or whatever it is.

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I could get behind that.

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And so yeah, a company is free to

do that as something they choose

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to do as a benefit for their

employees, part of their package.

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Great.

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but because there's so much confusion

today about, and you use the term

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fur babies, that's what people call

them, I think it does confuse a lot

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of people in terms of saying this is

just as significant as having a baby.

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And we would say that's not the case.

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So I'm not opposed to it.

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In and of itself, but I am opposed to the

confusion that it often creates, right?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I think I'm just opposed to it.

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Period.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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No one's looking at you saying

that you're going to have a

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company and you're going to offer.

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Paternity leave.

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Yeah.

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So anyways, let's jump

into our Bible reading.

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Do not make 24, 25, 26 and 27.

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We got four chapters to

cover, so let's get after it.

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We've had quite a bit of Googly,

but we thank you Lillian for the

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question and kiddos that were

contributing to that as well.

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Yeah, sorry.

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We got to that later.

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We were moving and it just got, it just

kept on getting scooted and Hey, it got,

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where did this thing go get scooted to?

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We looked down to the

carpet, boom, there it was.

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So we brought it back to it was

we did not allow it to go extinct

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like the woolly mammoth, but we

found it and we brought it in.

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That's right.

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Hey, Deuteronomy 24 here in this

chapter, Moses gives instructions

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regarding marriage and divorce

and civil issues about not abusing

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the weak or the vulnerable.

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And I think the thing That really

jumped out to me in 24 is just

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how seriously God takes marriage.

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And he talks about it here and just

the idea that you can't just casually

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take a spouse and leave a spouse.

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And I think that's become our

cultural view of marriage.

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We're going to get married and

if it doesn't work out, okay,

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whatever, no fault divorce.

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You, we referenced Mueller a minute ago.

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Mueller talks a lot about the fact

that's been the downfall of marriage

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in our society and our culture is the

introduction of no fault divorce that

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people can just agree to part ways quote

unquote, amicably and be fine with that.

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But I think here we see

that God cares about that.

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He says, Hey if a man divorces his

wife and she goes and she gets married

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to another person, and then that.

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And then divorce that, that original

guy, he can't decide, Oh, you know what?

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Actually, I miss you.

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Let's, why don't we make this work

again and try to get back together again

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because of the physical act associated

with marriage that does represent

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the unity of a husband and a wife.

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That's been there from the very

beginning with Adam and Eve.

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That is so significant that God says when

that takes place outside of the context of

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marriage, it's as though that that, that.

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And that's where Jesus picks up on that

and Paul picks up on that and talks

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about that in the new Testament in

the context of divorce and remarriage.

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And so it just, we see here, I think a

lot of times we read the old Testament

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and we point the finger and go look at all

the polygamy that was taking place there.

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Did God not care about all those things?

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I think what we see here is God did indeed

very much care about marriage and his

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design for marriage all the way back in

the beginning in Genesis carried through.

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And he was he was cognizant of

it as he's given the law here.

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Yeah, that reminds me of Hebrews 13 let

marriage be held in honor among all and

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let the marriage bed be undefiled for

God will judge a sexually immoral and

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adulterous idea that encapsulates some

of the, what you're talking about is

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let marriage be held in honor among all.

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There's a, there's certainly a low

view of marriage and we would do

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well as a church to really esteem it.

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And I think that looks really

practically in loving your spouse

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showcasing that love, wearing

your wedding ring all the time.

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Not that I think anyone's

not wearing it, but just.

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Demonstrating a high view of marriage

that shows your kids, shows your

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community, shows your people around

you, that this is an important

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feature of what it means to be human.

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Not that every human is going to be

married, but those of us who are married

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and even those of us who aren't, we

esteem it because of what it represents.

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Yeah.

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And if you're listening to this

and you're married and you have a

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divorce in your background, even as.

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A divorce as a believer in your

background, I don't want to sit

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here and make you a punching bag.

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In fact, Paul would say, stay married

to the one that you're married to

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currently and be in that relationship.

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Be in that marriage and be faithful

in that marriage and do what

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Pastor Rod was just saying there.

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Honor your spouse in that marriage.

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And so this is something that wherever

you're at and whatever state you're

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at, and Paul talks about that and

in first Corinthians chapter seven

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as well, it'd be in that state.

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And be faithful to the Lord in that

state and recognize for those of

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you that are single, maybe that

stays not for the rest of your life.

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For those of you who are married, that the

idea is that the goal is that the target

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is the plan that you are in that state

for the rest of your life until the Lord

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calls your spouse home to be with him or

calls you home to be with him either way.

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So chapter 25, then we get into more

laws about marriage, but this time

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about Leverett marriage and other

various laws for the people and Leverett

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marriage has to do a lot with what

we read about in the book of Ruth.

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And so here you've got somebody who

dies in the next of kin was called

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to marry that person, take them as

a spouse and to produce offspring

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by them so that they could carry on

the name, the family line of the.

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the deceased individual there.

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And so we see this in Ruth when

Ruth meets Boaz and we'll get

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there in our daily Bible reading.

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Boaz finds out there's

another person in line.

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This is part of the lever marriage laws.

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And that person decides that

they don't want to take on Ruth.

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And so they go back to this

passage in Deuteronomy 24

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and they take off the sandal.

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They go through the whole thing to

demonstrate, Hey, I'm forfeiting my right

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as the next in line on marriage principles

to Ruth and I'm giving her to Boaz.

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And so we see this Actually acted

out in the book of Ruth for us.

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But Deuteronomy chapter 25

is where that comes from.

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Yeah.

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I love that sandal ceremony.

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Can we reinstate that?

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Maybe for the upcoming marriages,

we do a sandal exchange.

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There we go.

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Yeah.

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We'll do that.

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That's really cool.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So chapter 25, verse four, you

shall not muzzle an ox when

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it is treading out the grain.

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This is something that Paul

is going to quote later on.

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And he's going to use it and say is

it the animals that God cares about?

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And he says, how much more.

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He cares about human laborers.

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And so what you have here is Paul showing

us how to utilize the old Testament.

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Now, on the other hand, I would say

that what Paul is saying is not that

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God does not care about the animals.

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I think that we've demonstrated

throughout the text that actually God

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does seem to care about the animals.

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But his point is that this is there to

say, if God cares about the animal, how

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much more does he care about the human?

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And later on, Jesus is going to come

after people for this very thing.

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Because the Pharisees, the Sadducees

had this legalistic approach.

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On the Sabbath in particular where

they're willing to pull their animal out

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of a pit, but not a human out of their

misery so notice that when scripture

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talks about animals and it does in a

positive ways We should be people who

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care about animals, but the animals

are never as important as the human.

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Let's just be clear on that Animals

are not as important as humans.

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And even though a company, again, may

offer a paternity leave, it doesn't

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mean that you should necessarily esteem

an animal as important as a human.

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I know that's a confusing thing today.

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And it's even funny that I'm having to

say that, but I think there are people

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who would struggle between their favorite

animal and their least favorite neighbor.

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Yeah.

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No, I agree.

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And that's why we would

say no to paternity leave.

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I don't think Moses would

have allowed paternity leave

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back in the camp of Israel.

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Again, if it's a benefit and the player

wants to offer, I'm okay with that.

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Fair.

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All right.

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Chapter 26, then we get into more

of the laws and offerings or laws

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and the rules and regulations.

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Now, as they enter into the promised

land, they're instructed to give

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the first fruits offering to

the Lord upon entering the land.

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So they weren't supposed to

get in the land and just start.

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Living in the land and enjoying all the

produce for themselves and taking it all

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for themselves and stockpiling things.

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They needed to first give the first of

the produce of the land back to the Lord

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as an offering of thanksgiving and also

as a demonstration of trust that he was

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going to continue to provide for them.

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And so this is chapter 26

when they got in the land.

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Hey, Give your offerings, give your tithes

to the Lord first, and then you can live

396

on what he provides for you afterwards.

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And I think the modern day principle

that we would take from that is, is

398

what we talk about, is giving from

the top and not from the bottom.

399

That we would say, Hey you don't give

over what's left over at the end and

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go, okay, Lord, this is what I have

left over at the end of the month.

401

Here you can have this, but you say, no,

I'm gonna trust the Lord and I'm gonna

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recognize that this is a gift from him.

403

So I'm gonna get from the top, I'm gonna

get from what I earn at the outset.

404

And then I'm gonna understand that

I'm gonna budget in light of what I.

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I earned from the outset, I'm

going to enjoy the rest of it.

406

Okay.

407

Real quick though.

408

Can you talk about why the girl has

to get her hand cut off when she

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sees as a guy by the private parts?

410

This is chapter 25 verses

11 through 11 and 12.

411

Your eyes shall show no pity.

412

This is the only time where physical

mutilation is ever prescribed.

413

So can I just briefly

talk about why that is?

414

Thanks man.

415

I appreciate you just

throwing that out there.

416

It's there.

417

I was thinking some, they're going

to, they're going to notice that.

418

That's one of those that are going

to stick out in your reading.

419

You're saying, wow.

420

Why?

421

Other than the sense that it was just it's

forbidden and it's out of bounds and this

422

is a sign of going Hey, this is not okay

for you to do I don't know that there's

423

anything that's ever jumped out at me is

going there's any spiritual significance

424

there but so but physical this is the

only place that we do this that physical

425

mutilation cut her hand off aside from

stoning people to death right for other

426

physical mutilation, not physical judge

I think this is God just saying this

427

is not a death penalty punishment.

428

This is a But this is a punishment.

429

Like we're going to, we're going to

make sure that people are aware that

430

this is what has taken place here.

431

So real quick I think this is Lex

Talionis I for I tooth for tooth

432

equal punishment for equal the, yeah,

the punishment fitting the crime.

433

And the reason why is because

if you were to do this, the

434

assumption is that she's trying to,

in some way cut off his progeny.

435

Cut off his ability to do

something with his family.

436

Let's just be clear on that part.

437

So when God does this, he's saying,

look, I for an eye, tooth for a tooth,

438

this is what you're going to do.

439

If she's trying to do this and you get

what you were going to do to yourself.

440

That's the short answer that I

think makes the most sense of the

441

passage because she's trying to, yes.

442

Okay.

443

I was everyone clear.

444

What I'm trying to say

without saying it all.

445

That's why I think the cutting

off is such a big deal.

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It's a Lex talionis thing.

447

I for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

448

Gotcha.

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Anymore on chapter 26 though,

the giving of the first fruits.

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Nope.

451

Okay.

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chapter 27.

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No, no controversies there.

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Chapter 27, the Israelites here

we have our to build an altar

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to the Lord on Mount Ebal.

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And we're going to find out why in

really the next chapter, except that

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here it's told you're going to go and

you're going to pronounce curses for

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disobedience there from Mount Ebal.

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And so we're going to see that

in tomorrow's reading chapter 28

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and chapter 29 of Deuteronomy.

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Let's pray.

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And then we'll be done

with another episode.

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God, thanks for your word and that the

passages that we get to read today, help

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us to read thoughtfully and carefully

and slowly and not just to rush through

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these things, not just to let our eyes

glaze over the words on the text and

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move on to what's next, but to really

soak them in and ask the good questions

467

and the right questions and dive in

deep and give us the wisdom to know.

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And we thank you for the resources that

you've given us to be able to consult, to

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ask our questions and get them answered.

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And we pray that we would

just be a good and faithful.

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Recipient of your word that we would

steward it well and not just treat

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it as something to check off and move

on And so we pray for a great rest

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of our day today in christ's name.

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Amen, keep reading your bibles

tune in again tomorrow for another

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edition of the daily bible podcast.

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Y'all come back now you hear bye

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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This is a ministry of Compass

Bible Church in north Texas.

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You can find out more information

about ourChurch@compassntx.org.

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We would love for you to leave a

review to rate to share this podcast

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on whatever platform you happen to

be listening on, and we will catch

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you against tomorrow for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.