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

This passage contains a number of commands about not taking advantage of the poor or of those who are social outcasts.  Other commands require leaving opportunities for them to care for their needs by putting out effort.  The commands included some which prohibited following up your initial harvest pas to make sure you got every grain, or every fruit when you harvested your crops.  God commanded that we leave hard to gather portions of our “crops” for those struggling to provide for themselves to gather.  Another command forbade taking a person’s means of livelihood as security for a loan.  We should remember that if not for the grace of God we might find ourselves among the unfortunate and leave them opportunities to care for themselves.  Further, God commanded that they set aside a tenth of our productivity to celebrate our worship of God.  Most of that should be used for our own celebration, but a third should be set aside to be shared among those who minister to our spiritual needs and those who do not have enough to fund celebrations of their own.  We should leave openings and opportunities for the less fortunate to provide for their needs, but we should also help them directly.  God has made us His people, so let us obey His commands and care for those around us as He has cared for us.  I want to point out that all of these commands are directed to the people of Israel, not to its government.

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