AP

Deuteronomy 23:24   If you enter your neighbour’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket.  If you enter your neighbuor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain.

This is an interesting direction, among many others, given to God’s Chosen People as they prepared to enter and settle in his Promised Land.  It obviously has behind it the requirement of his people to be openly generous in their dealings with one another, and for the importance of their being concerned and compassionate towards one another, especially to the poor and destitute.
These things come out as wel in many other instructions in Scripture.  When the Apostle Paul encourages God’s people in Corinth to be motivated along these lines he points out God’s generosity and ‘indescribable’ compassion to US in his gift of Christ (2 Corinthians 9:12-15).  How could we not have this same attitude?
But, while I’m on this verse there are two other things on which I would like to comment.  Firstly, we need to be careful not to take unfair advantage of one another’s generosity and so abuse this provision.
Secondly, it readily brings to mind Augustine’s well-known sin reported in his Confessions (where he and his teenage mates stole pears from a neighbour’s tree).  Does this provision mean he wasn’t guilty?  Probably they did use a basket, and so disobeyed Moses’ instruction.  But when Augustine felt convicted of his sin it was not so much their stealing of the fruit, but the attitude of a deep-rooted, innate sinful heart he was aware of.  He admitted  they did not do it because they were hungry – they fed the pears to pigs anyway – they actually stole the pears as a rebellion against authority and because it was the wrong thing to do.
Do we not see so much of this around, and within us, today?  It is the exact same attitude expressed in Psalm 2:2 – “The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.’”  Man wanting to be his own ‘king’ of his life, and not wanting someone else dictating what he can do and can’t do, whom he can and can’t marry, what defenceless hunan life he can and can’t dispose of to suit his own selfish purposes, etc, according to the dictates of an old,  ‘irrelevant’, ‘outdated’ book.  It seems to me that the honesty of Augustine about his sinful heart in his Confessions is fairly close to the mark, which is not surprising because it is how the wholr problem started in the Garden of Eden.
And sadly, our culture has now nurtured a whole generation that feels ‘entitled’ to do everything their own way, without any concern for considering ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.  Perhaps Augustine is challenging me to look carefully at my motives behind ethical and moral decisions I make each day!  This is especially so when Psalm 2 goes on to say, “Kiss [‘submit to, pay homage to, recognise the rightful authority of’ – the same word that was used in connection with Joseph’s authority in Genesis 41:49] his Son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment.  Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12).
– Bruce Christian