"A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD" (Deut. 23:2 KJV)
I've been systematically reviewing Rick Warren's book The Purpose-Driven Life on my website. I've done chapters 12-28, and I'm going back and picking up chapters 1-11, on which I previously wrote a brief review. In Chapter 2, page 23, Warren writes, “While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.” I find this a very helpful distinction! I remember the animus and disgust that seemed to emanate from an older preacher who referred to his granddaughter’s child conceived out of wed-lock as illegitimate. Besides being an ungodly attitude, it was grossly wrong to saddle a child with the onus of his/her parent’s sin. Yet that is the way sin is. Sin never affects only the perpetrator. It always affects others. However, as I was writing the above I remembered Deut. 23:2 "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." So I looked up the term mamze