Deuteronomy 22:12

Deuteronomy 22:12 says, Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself.  Moses said that the people of Israel were to put fringes on the four sides of their clothes that covered them.  This would distinguish them from other people by sight.  We as followers of Christ have nothing like this to distinguish us from other people, but our words and actions should.  Verse thirteen states, If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,  These next few verses deal with a man who marries a woman and then decides he hates her.  This happens too often today in the world, but it shouldn't happen in the marriage of Christians, though it still does.  If it does, we have taken God out of the center of the marriage or He was never there to start with. Verse fourteen adds, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid:  Moses said that if the man then said that the woman wasn't a virgin when they got married, which would bring dishonor to her, there were certain rules that would apply.  We should never disparage the name of a spouse unjustly just because we no longer want to be married to them.  Verse fifteen continues, Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:  Moses said that in this situation, the father and mother were to bring tokens of the girls virginity to the elders at the gate.  What this evidence was, we don't know, and there is no such evidence today, but evidently there was then, and it was to be presented at the gate, or where public hearings were held.  Verse sixteen says, And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;  The father was to tell the elders that he gave the girl to the man to be his wife, and then the man hated her.  Fathers should still be willing to stand up for their daughters, even if they are married.  Verse seventeen adds, And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.  Moses said that the father was to tell the elders that the man had spread lies about his daughter not being a virgin when they married, and was then to lay the tokens of her virginity before the elders.  As stated before,  I don't know what these tokens were, nor did Matthew Henry or other Biblical scholars before him.  Verse eighteen continues, And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;  The elders were to take the man and chastise him if the father proved the girl was a virgin when she married him.  I am not sure if life would be simpler or more complicated if we could do the same today.  Verse nineteen concludes, And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.  They were then to fine the man and give the money to her father, because the husband would have brought dishonor to a damsel of Israel.  Also, the man would be prohibited from ever divorcing the woman.  We should never bring dishonor to any Christian by lying about them.  Verse twenty states, But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:  Verse twenty-one adds, Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you. Then, there was the proscribed penalty if the father could not produce proof of her virginity at the time of her marriage, and that was that she was to be stoned to death by the men of the city, because she wouldchave brought dishonor to Israel.  Moses said this was to be done to put evil away from among the people of Israel.  We should do all that we can to put evil away from the church today, but we also need to realize that if we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord that we are forgiven of all our sins, and we are to forgive others as He forgives us.  Verse twenty-two says, If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.  Moses said if a man was guilty of committing adultery with a married woman, or causing her to commit adultery at least, that they were both to be put to death.  God takes marriage very seriously, and so should we.