applications of God's laws

a.  Exodus 21-23 provides some specific, case-by-case applications of God's laws.  The punishments listed are the maximum penalty and are not absolutely automatic.  Some people have mistakenly concluded that the statements in these chapters are in opposition to the loving nature of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Demonstrate how these case studies represent God's mercy as well as His justice by selecting five of the following examples and writing a short paragraph on each.  Your paragraphs should explain how the underlying purpose of the laws given to Moses was to prepare the children of Israel to receive God's higher laws and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• Exodus 21:22-25
  
  If a man rapes a woman and makes it so that she can't bear children anymore but doesn't hurt her other than that, the husband can punish him according to what he and the judges of Israel determine is just.  If the man does hurt her more, then punishment is an eye for an eye; the husband can take equal punishment against the man.
  
  
• Exodus 21:26-27
  
  If a master severely injures his/her servant, the servant is no longer obligated to be that person's servant.  The servant is now free.
  
  
• Exodus 21:28-32
  
  If a man's ox kills someone with its horns, the ox should be stoned and then owner is considered innocent.  If the ox has a tendency to ram people/things with its horns, people have told the owner, and then the ox kills someone because the owner doesn't keep it locked up, the ox should be stoned and the owner should be killed also.  The owner of the ox should also give a ransom of money to help the family of the person the ox rammed, the amount depending on the person who died.
  
  
• Exodus 21:33-34
  
  If someone digs a pit and some one's animal falls in because the pit wasn't covered, the digger of the pit should give the owner of the animal money, and then the animal belongs to the digger of the pit.
  
  
• Exodus 22:7-13
  
  If you steal, you should pay it back double.  If someone leaves some money or some of their stuff at their neighbor's house, it's stolen from the neighbor's house, and the thief isn't found, then the neighbor will be taken before the judges to see if they were the one who stole it.  For any claim of ownership of something, both parties will come before a judge.  Whoever the judge declares to be the rightful owner will be paid double the amount of the money/property.
  
  
• Exodus 22:22-24
  
  If anyone afflicts someone who is husband or fatherless, they will be destroyed.
  
  
• Exodus 23:4-7
  
  Help others with their burdens, help them get their property back, and don't judge them.  If you do the opposite, the same thing you did to them will happen to you.
  
  

The Lord punishes us, not to be mean or anything, but to teach us.  He has our best interest at heart.  It's like when our parent(s) punished us for breaking the rules when we were younger.  They wanted us to grow up to become good people, knowing that certain behaviors weren't going to help us get there.  While not all punishments are immediate, I think that the sooner a bad behavior is nipped in the butt, so to speak, the less likely we are to turn that behavior into a bad habit.  Once something is a habit, it's harder to break.

I think the Lord gave the children of Israel the law He expected them to follow and outlined the punishments early on so that they would be in a place to develop better habits.  Once you master smaller things, you can start working on bigger things, i.e. first you learn to crawl, then you walk, and then you can run.  The Lord doesn't expect us to start off running.  I think the underlying purpose of the law of Moses was to teach the people of Israel to walk.  Once they had a good handle on walking, or in this case obeying the law of Moses, the Lord could teach them to run with the higher laws and gospel of Christ.

b.  Write one or two sentences describing how JST, Galatians 3:24 applies to these chapters of Exodus.

Galatians 3:24 says, "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."  I think this relates to Exodus 21-23 because those chapters were setting up laws and punishments.  When we obey the law and especially the law of God, we are able to learn about and become closer to Him.  We are blessed for keeping the law as incentive for continuing to keep it.  The law is there to teach us.  Obeying the law brings us closer to Christ because that is what He did.