I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Deuteronomy 14-17.
Today’s passage contains a restatement of many of the laws which had been given out earlier. I can understand why this makes some people believe that this book was written later than some of the others (I know there are other reasons in the literary structure of this book as well). However, there is a somewhat different emphasis in how each of these rules are presented here. Here there is a greater emphasis on providing those whose full-time job is caring for the community’s spiritual needs and caring for those who have suffered misfortune (the poor, the widow and the orphan, and refugees*).
I am going to focus on the instructions concerning tithes and debt forgiveness. The first aspect of the tithes goes to their purpose. Tithes were to be used to hold a celebration honoring God and to support the Levites (whose full-time job was looking after the community’s spiritual needs). Every third year the tithe was to be used purely for supporting the Levites and aiding those suffering misfortune.
However, it is in discussing how to handle loans that we see how this all fits together. After telling the people that they should cancel the debts owed to them every seven years, Moses states that their should be no poor among them. What Moses writes here reminds me of something my Dad said on the topic of Christians and wealth and poverty.
There is nothing wrong with a Christian being welfare if they need it. There is nothing wrong with a Christian being a millionaire. The problem is when there is a millionaire and someone on welfare in the same congregation.
He was very clear that we could not judge what the problem was in that latter situation until we were involved in it. The way he explained it went back to the way things were in the Mennonite Church when he was young. In those days, Mennonites were almost all farmers. If a Mennonite farmer was having trouble supporting his family, the Church would help out. The men of the Church would come in and help him run his farm. They would tell him what to plant, what animals to raise, and how to spend his money. They would also help him with all of the work that came with running his farm, making sure he knew how to do it and providing him the extra labor necessary to turn things around. They would also loan him the money to make it all work. But the key was, he needed to take their advice. If he refused to take their advice (unless he convinced them his ideas were better), the assistance dried up. The point of all of this was that those who were poor are generally poor because they have made bad decisions. The “price” of assistance is being willing to take the advice of those who have been more successful.
Of course, sometimes the problem is that the wealthy are unwilling to provide assistance to those less fortunate than themselves. I am happy to say that in every congregation where there have been millionaires and those struggling, the millionaires always tried to help those who were struggling when they became aware of their struggles. However, I am sure there are congregations where this is not the case.
*It is interesting that at some places the people of Israel are instructed to have nothing to do with foreigners and here they are instructed to provide for the foreigners among them who cannot support themselves. I believe there is an important lesson here about how we as Christians should deal with non-believers. I will write a blog on it someday. In this passage I believe the foreigners being referred to would be refugees, but more importantly I think that these instructions involve our personal responsibility, not instructions for how the government today should work.
