Solving Biblical Riddles: Let the Reader Understand

Exodus 23:19 "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

Deuteronomy 14:21 has it thus "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt not give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest not sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

This might be called the "anti-Kevorkian" culinary precept.

Matters of life in death (respecting humans) are holy, since humans are made in God's image, and thus their lives are sacred, unless and until one profanes it willfully. Such persons are set apart in the Bible for execution by lawful authorities -- according to the Bible (which is always correct) these include murderers, adulterers, sorcerers, sodomites, public blasphemers, those who evangelize for false (counter-Christian) religions and the like.

Groups not included for the death penalty include thieves, fornicators, vandals, slanderers, perjurers, and others guilty of crimes or sins which do not inflict irreparable sorts of damage, but which sins and crimes require restitution, rather than divine vengeance, which specifically remains the provenance of appointed ministers of the state only (i.e. you cannot kill someone guilty of a capital crime just because he or she is guilty). You are simply supposed to either turn him in (or her, or them), or else (in some cases) simply expose the deed committed in order to bring whatever sanction is appropriate to your station and calling in life (ministers can and should excommunicate members guilty of such, if they do not repent, etc).

This specifically dietary prohibition illustrates a few important points. The mother's milk was intended for the nourishment and life of the young calf, not for its destruction and consumption. This amounts to a command then, which highlights a few points to be obeyed as general principles of the Word of God.

First, the saints must only do what is fitting.

Judges must issue only penalties which fit the crime in question. One must do unto others as he would have others do to him. One must evaluate whatever situation is at hand, and do what is fitting for it, not putting to any use that which was and is the opposite of its intended purpose in nature. Bursting out into happy songs during a funeral, or blessing one's neighbor loudly early in the morning, both provide examples for doing what is not fitting to the occasion or situation at hand.


Second, we must not go against the clear prescriptions of the light of nature. Some things are simply unnatural -- the most unfitting sorts of things one might imagine. Some seem somewhat mundane and others more weighty. The Bible identifies cooking a calf in its mother's milk as an illustration of unnatural and unfitting actions. Using medications which are for saving life to take life would be a similar (Kevorkian) example. Men should not wear their hair as long as would make him appear as a woman (Paul said plainly that men with long hair look as shameful as bald women), or dress like a woman intentionally.

Note that the above prohibition does NOT forbid cooking a calf in milk, or even specifically in cows milk, but only in its mother's milk. There is something just creepy about cooking a calf in the milk of its own mother because the animals of the Bible -- and all lower forms of creation -- stand for humans didactically. The deuteronomic passage highlights the fact that holiness requires the saints to eat (i.e. to do) only what is holy, not what is indecent (another word for unfitting) or inappropriate, but only that which is proper to a holy people.

We learn this from numerous passages in the Word, including Deuteronomy 25:4 "do not muzzle the ox, while it is treading out the grain." Paul appropriately applies this to workers in general, and to ministers in particular, saying that a "worker is worthy of his wage" (pay your employees accurately for the work they have done because they earned it). This is fitting because it suits the contract agreed upon, whether verbal or written. Thus, says Paul, those whom a minister serves are to provide for his salary, just as the priests in the older testament ate for their food certain portions of the animals which they sacrificed on behalf of others as God required.


Now "milk" in the Bible represents the basic teachings, or most clear teachings, of the Word of God itself. The more difficult, or teachings requiring a more mature understanding, are called "meat." And the "mother" of all saints is said to be the Church. Thus, ministers and elders must be careful to use the Word of God to promote life and the health of young believers and not to do them harm -- in order to obey this precept of the Word.


For "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." This saying of the Lord requires the same thing. Although the Bible requires all men to rest from their labors on the New Covenant Sabbath -- called "the Lord's Day" (Sunday) - yet this command is not to be used to harm men, and it allows police officers and ambulance drivers to work on that day since people do not stop victimizing others or falling down on the Lord's Day, and the basic needs of people override the principles of the Word with respect to what is perceived to be "obedience." This itself is a principle built into the Bible. You cannot lawfully use the law against people it was intended to help -- the blind, lame, elderly, very young, widow, orphan, alien, injured, mentally retarded, or ill -- and others are special objects of God's care and he expects humans to behave likewise.

God has gone out of his way to say (more than once) "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind nor curse the deaf." This forbids taking advantage of anyone with a perceived weakness either for amusement (as in the case of cursing the deaf man since he cannot hear you do it) or for personal gain.


Likewise the very young in the faith should not have biblical doctrines -- as it were -- rammed down the gullet, but must be taught and led gently, with special attention to their objections and hang-ups, since everyone has their own personal -- and in this case untrained -- predilections, biases, bad experiences (which will likely make him reticent to believe certain things he must, or this or that aspect of the Gospel), and other sorts of baggage.


For although "God commands all men everywhere to repent" and to believe the Gospel -- He clearly has the right to declare it, and requires all men to speak the truth -- thus do we also have a warrant to say what He says at all times and to all people -- whether they like it or not.


Yet, we should try not to add offence to what will -- we already know -- offend those predisposed to hate or resent the truth. This means that Christians have both the right and duty to tell others what God requires of them - regardless of how much this irks them (that will be their problem on Judgment Day, not ours). We are not to fear men, but to fear God only. The Bible repeatedly warns that the fear of man is a snare to turn one from the true faith -- though this is not possible in the case of the elect.

Though they might fall away for a time, yet can they never (by any inducement whatever) be kept from believing and doing according to the demands of the Word to their best of their ability (even the so-called "Good Thief" -- who confessed he was not good, and who was not a thief, but an insurrectionist like Barabbas -- from a cross reproved those bringing shame to name of Christ and confessed him openly as "Lord").

Human life, that which is especially young or less able, is holy (this is why God is represented by the poor in societies) The mother's milk, representing what God intends for parents to use to nourish and strengthen those under their care, we must never put to a use to harm children or disadvantaged persons, or to injure those less able than most to care for themselves. And we must know and do what befits the situation at hand according to the Word of God, at all times. The proverb says, "The lips of the righteous know what is fitting." And Ecclesiastes, "there is a time for everything under the sun."

The most bizarre of unfitting and unnatural deeds was the use of the Law of Christ (which is holy) by the Sanhedrin (which was also holy by way of circumcision and the oath of the priests) to condemn its Author to death (who is most Holy), even upon a cross (via the most vile and grotesque kind of execution ever invented).

The Church of Israel executed the Son of God by the method of the pagans, and that at their pagan worst. How can one possibly describe the bizarrely unnatural character of this deed? Pictures like a calf boiled in its mother's own milk venture an object lesson to picture this cosmic profanity, as a foreshadowing of Jerusalem's worst day. The land grew dark in the brightness of the afternoon sun. This also is unfitting, and shows just what they were doing, attacking the light of all men. Outside Jerusalem, the earth shook, rocks cracked, and the Temple veil was torn in two. Some things are too unfitting for even rocks and curtains to remain silent.

Peter said so well the great unsuitablility of what they had done:

"You killed the Author of Life, but God has raised him from the dead; and we are eyewitnesses of this fact."

It was unfitting that a sinless and glorious man should die this way. For the wages of sin is death, but He who had no sin died also. If God were to keep His own law, and He must, this would then require Him to raise up Christ. For it was impossible that death should keep its hold on Him. It is too unfitting. The sinless Author of Life must be vindicated, lest God be guilty of cooking a calf in it's mother's milk. Tombs are for the dead, and not for the Living God.

This is the meaning of the saying, and its proper interpretation. Let the reader understand. For that is fitting.