Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 29-31.

As the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, and Moses prepared for his death, they renewed the covenant which they had made with God at Mount Sinai.  A key part of that covenant was a warning that anyone who thought that they could gain the benefits of this covenant while continuing (or beginning) to worship other gods would suffer grievously.   This warning applies today to those who wish to gain the benefits of following Christ without giving up the idolatrous sinfulness they followed before coming to know Him.  Later in the passage, Moses tells the Israelites that he, and God, knows that they will break the covenant.  However, Moses had also told them that if they turned back to God after their rebellion He would hear them and bring them back to Himself.  The lesson here is that it is never too late, but that works both ways.  It is never too late for us to turn back to God, and we can never “rest on our laurels” and say, “Well, I obeyed God yesterday, so I don’t have to now.”  Today we have the choice of either life and prosperity, or death and destruction, the choice between obedience or disobedience.  There is one final piece to the message of this passage which I want to write about.   Moses told the Israelites that knowing God’s will was not difficult; God had written His Laws on their hearts, and on our hearts.  If we wish to do God’s will, we only need to examine our hearts to know what it is.  But we must truly desire to do His will and not pretend that our desires are His desires.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 27-28.

Today’s passage describes the first of several altars which Moses instructed the Israelites to set up in the land to remind them of what God had done in giving them the land.  They were to build an altar on Mount Ebal and write the words of the Law on it.  After they had built the altar half of the Israelite were to stand on Mount Gerizim and half on Mount Ebal.  Those on Mount Gerizim were to speak the blessings which come from following God’s Law while those on Mount Ebal were to speak the curses which would come upon those who disobeyed God’s Law.  Reading the blessings and curses described here I get the same sense that I got when I read Deuteronomy 11-13: the blessings and curses are built into the way in which God created the world to work.  Those who obey God’s commands will be blessed because that is how He created the world to work.  Those who disobey God’s commands will be cursed because they have done things which result in those bad things happening to them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 24-26.

This passage contains multiple miscellaneous laws.  However, many of them have a similarity: do not mistreat the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.  Those three have one thing in common, they would have had little to no power to defend themselves.  Which gives us a theme running through most of these laws, do not take advantage of those weaker than yourself.

• Do not take advantage of hired workers who are poor and needy, pay them promptly
• Do not deny the foreigner or the fatherless of justice
• When harvesting, leave the hard to gather crops for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow
• When making a loan to a neighbor, if they are poor return their pledge to them before you go to sleep that night.
• When making a loan to a neighbor, do not enter their house to retrieve their pledge.  Wait for them to bring it out to you.
• When making a loan, do not take as security the tools the person uses to earn an income.

At several points the passage tells the Israelites to remember that they were slaves in Egypt.  We too should remember when we, or our ancestors, suffered hard times.  We should remember that, but for the grace of God, we too might be dealing with being weak and having trouble providing for ourselves.  Let us treat those weaker than ourselves as we would wish to be treated if we were in their circumstances.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 18-20.

Moses warned the Israelites against imitating the “detestable ways” of the people already living there.  To make sure we would know what he meant describes those “detestable ways”.  First, he calls sacrificing their children detestable.  Then he lists a bunch of methods for either determining or controlling the future: divination, sorcery, interpreting omens, witchcraft, casting spells, consulting the dead.  We have long considered sacrificing children to be something horrific (although I would argue that many today no longer do so as long as the sacrifice takes place before birth), but dismissed the others as relatively minor misdeeds by the uneducated.  However, this is not the only place in the Bible where we are told such acts are serious sins, comparable to sacrificing a child.  We must place our faith in God.  When He desires for us to know more about the future than what He has revealed in the Bible He will raise up a prophet to give us His message.  We will know that such prophets are from God because the message they give us will be consistent with what He has already revealed and the predictions which they make will come to pass.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 14-17.

Moses laid out God’s rules for canceling debts every seven years.  First, he specifies that all debts should be canceled in the seventh year.  Then he talks about being openhanded and generous towards the poor.  Jesus was referring to this passage when He said that we would always have the poor among us, but this passage also tells us to act so as to aid the poor.  Throughout this passage we are told to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.  Earlier the passage speaks about taking a tenth of our harvest and consuming it as a celebration before God, but a third of that tithe should be given to those who do not have sufficient to feast themselves.   It speaks of freeing those who sold themselves into servanthood because they could not care for themselves.  However, it is not enough that they be freed, those who own them are instructed to send them away with the supplies which they need to make a new start for themselves.

Moses also lays down instructions for judges and rulers.  He instructed judges to judge fairly and to not pervert justice.  The passage describes two ways in which justice might be perverted: showing partiality and accepting bribes.  But the passage makes clear that any other perversion of justice should be avoided as well.  The passage goes on to lay out rules for kings, but I think these rules provide good guidelines for anyone in authority.  In particular, the passage instructs kings to make their own copy of the Book of the Law by copying an existing copy with their own hand.  Then, once they have written out their own copy, they  were to keep that copy with them and read from it regularly.  From this study, the king, or any other ruler, should strive to follow God’s commands and not consider himself better than others.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 11-13.

This passage starts the hits coming by telling us that those of us who have experienced God’s power first hand have an obligation to communicate that to the next generation, to teach the next generation to love and obey God.  If we take those experiences to heart and obey God’s commands, the land God has given us will provide for our needs.  I love the way in which Moses sums up God’s commands here–love and serve God with all of our heart and with all of our soul.  Another important point which I see referred to from time to time is that obeying God means that we do not destroy the environment around us.  However, what I have never seen anyone comment on is that those who disobey God will destroy the environment around them.  What makes this promise especially interesting is that few of the Laws laid down by Moses directly address our interaction with the environment around us.  I like the remedy which Moses offers to avoid being enticed to worship other gods, and therefore destroy our environment.  He tells us to fix the words of God’s Law in our hearts and minds by tying symbols on our hands and binding them to our foreheads if necessary.  We should talk about God’s commands when we sit at home and when we travel. when we lie down and when we get up.  Basically, we should be talking about God’s commands all of the time, no matter where we are or what we are doing.  A little later while discussing his instructions to worship in a central location, Moses says something which I believe goes along with what I have written above and will help us to talk about God’s commands, and to keep them.  Moses told the Israelites that they should rejoice before the Lord in everything to which they put their hand.  So, let us rejoice before the Lord in everything we do.  Doing so will help us keep and talk about His will for us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 8-10.

Moses tells the Israelites several things in this passage which we would do well to keep in mind ourselves. I want to start my blog today from something he says towards the end of today’s passage: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,  and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”  God asks these things of us for our own good.  God’s commands are not arbitrary.  He lays down a set of rules for us to follow that are for our own good. If we follow God’s commands we will be healthier and happier than if we do not.  This was truly brought home to me when I observed two different fathers raise their children.  One of them enforced the rules when it was convenient for himself, or when the behavior bothered him.  The other enforced the rules all of the time.  The children of the first man quickly learned that their father’s rules served their father’s interests and only served the interest of his children as a happy accident.  The children of the second man learned that their father’s rules were those he believed were in their best interests, and that when they thought his rules were not in their interests, they were usually wrong.  Well, I have learned that God has laid down His rules for me because they serve my best interests, and when I think I know a better way, I am always wrong.

Earlier in the passage Moses told the Israelites that God did not give the land of Canaan to them because of their righteousness.  Rather He gave them that land because those living there were so wicked.  The lesson here being that if we allow ourselves to become as wicked as those God displaced to make room for the Israelites, He will do the same thing to us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.