How to Avoid Confusion - Numbers 15:16

One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.

(Numbers 15:16)

The word “sojourneth” means to dwell or live with temporarily. God told His people, Israel, that they were not to mix with the people of other lands. The Lord said the reason for this was because they will lead you away from the one true God into worshipping false gods. On rare occasions, a stranger or alien was permitted to enter the congregation.

In Joshua chapter 2, a woman named Rahab had heard about the God of Israel, His mighty power to deliver His people from Egypt and to keep them in the wilderness, and believed that He had the power and authority to give Israel all the land of the Canaanites! Because of her faith in what she knew about God, she and her family escaped the destruction of Jericho and were brought into the congregation of Israel.

They did not come into the congregation of Israel demanding that they should change the way they did their services, the sacrifices, the offerings, the way they moved the tabernacle through the wilderness, or any other thing. They entered in by forsaking all they had been taught and thought they knew, in order to learn how to honor and please God in worship, in spiritual growth, and how to live their lives.

If Moses had gone against what God had told him and compromised with the strangers of foreign lands, it would not have been long until false worship would have been popular, and godliness would have been lost.

The church of the living God today needs to know what the Lord has said concerning what

the church is, and how He expects it to operate. Those who want to be a part of God’s church should humble themselves to how the Lord established it and submit to His ways.

It shouldn’t be confusing: “One law and one manner for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.”