Circumcision
The original korean text: http://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025356830
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(donga.com's netizen forum, Dec. 6, 2004)
The God appeared to Abram and gave him his new name Abraham and contracted a covenant with Abraham. The contents of the covenant are a) Abraham shall acknowledge Jehovah as his God, b) the God shall be the God of Abraham and his descendents, c) the God shall give them the land of Canaan. As the sign, or the voucher, of the covenant, God demands that Abraham and all his descendents should be circumcised. Therefore, anyone that, although being a descendent of Abraham, refuses to be circumcised is considered as one who doesn't want to be a member of God's people, and is excluded from the congregation of Israel. On the contrary, a stranger, when circumcised, could be admitted to Israel, God's people, after a while.
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Why did God order circumcision as the prerequisite for being his people? Then, aren't women, who can't be circumcised, the people of God? Isn't this another sexual discrimination? If we know the true meaning of circumcision, we can give a good answer to these questions.
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As a general rule, the token of a covenant is as precious as the covenant itself. Wear your wedding ring always, and you can live without suspicion of marital infidelity from your spouse (even if you do not commit adultery). If you treat your wedding ring carelessly, your wife will react immediately, thinking that your love has cooled down. The Israelites must do circumcision, and must not use the circumcised sexual organ to commit sexual sins. If you use the circumcised organ to violate your neighbor's wife, it is the sign that you disregard the contract with God now. So those who want to continue to be the people of Israel have to use the circumcised organ for the original purposes (namely to beget children and to make love only with the wife, not with any other woman), and must not sin with it.
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The reason why God decreed that Abraham and his descendants should be circumcised was that God’s people must be holy as God himself is holy. If there is a man who, thinking himself to be a children of God, commits adultery, God will not recognize him as one of his children, which is the will of God. At that time, there were numerous dirty men who had sexual intercourse with animals, daughters-in-law, neighbors' wives, and even did homosex in the land of Canaan. Later, they were annihilated by the Israelites who were circumcised. God ordered the Israelites to kill all Canaanites, men and women, young and old!
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The meaning of circumcision is that one should keep himself holy as a member of God’s people. There is no distinction between men and women in this respect. Today also, the spirit of the circumcision remains valid. The New Testament also requires of believers far more rigorous holiness than that of the people outside the church.