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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 1-2.

Deuteronomy begins with Moses giving a recap of the travels which the Israelites had taken after leaving Mount Sinai until they were about to enter the land of Canaan after spending forty years in the desert.  None of those present, except for a couple of special cases, had been adults when the Israelites left Mount Sinai.  The accounts of these events from Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were from the perspective of “as it happens”.  The difference between the perspectives from which the stories of what happened were told explains the differences between the details.  The accounts in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were more detailed descriptions of what happened.  The account here in Deuteronomy is a summary of events.  Today’s passage also provides context for the Law of God which Moses was about to lay out for the Israelites.  The laws laid out here were not new.  God had given them to Moses to give to the Israelites as they issues arose while they traveled.  Now Moses is about to lay them out for the people all together.  The context is important because it reminds the people that God gave these laws as He was doing miraculous things for them and in the face of their repeated rebellion against Him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 32-34.

In order to understand the beginning of today’s passage we need to go back and read the last two verses of chapter 31:

“For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall on you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord and arouse his anger by what your hands have made. And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:”

With this introduction, we see that Moses is warning about what happens when people turn away from God.  While Moses’ song here applies mostly to the Jewish people and makes sense of their history, it has application to all people who have come to know Him.  We learn here that God has not allowed, and will not allow, the Jewish people to be wiped out because He will not allow His enemies to believe that they have done it.  The continued existence of the Jewish people is a reminder to the world that the troubles they face result  from God’s punishment upon them.  However, for those who think that statement justifies antisemitism, Moses warns us that God will avenge His people against those who persecute them.

Perhaps that is the most important thing for us to take out of this passage.  Vengeance belongs to God.  It is His prerogative to avenge those who have been wronged.  He will repay.  When we have been wronged, or think we have been wronged, let us not seek vengeance ourselves.  Let us leave that to God.  There are two reasons we should do so.  First, God claims vengeance as His alone.  We do not have the right to seek our own vengeance.  Second, God’s justice always fits the crime in full. We cannot hope to obtain revenge as fitting as that which God will inflict.

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

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

Moses told the Israelites that the command he was giving them in his final address to them was not too difficult for them, and the commands which God has given us are not too difficult for us.  We do not need to commission someone to go to some far away place which requires special skills to get there.  God has placed His word in our hearts and in our minds. I was going to go a different direction with this, but as I typed that I was reminded of two stories I read many years ago.  The first was about a man in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.  He was placed in a “re-education camp” by his government and tortured in many ways because he was more educated than they wished him to be.  He was constantly bombarded with ideas promoting how wonderful the government which was torturing him was.  He desperately desired  reading material, but it was denied to him.  He cried out to God for something (although as I recall the story he did not know God) to read.  One of his tortures was to be required to clean out the latrines by hand.  While cleaning the latrines, he found pages which his captors had torn from a book and used as toilet paper.  He carefully cleaned those pages and read them, hiding them in his cell.  Those pages had been torn from a Bible and provided him hope and inspiration.  If I remember the story correctly, it was in this way that he became a Christian.

The other story was about a group of anthropologists who went to the most remote part of the world they could imagine to record a society “uncorrupted” by Western Civilization.  They went to a remote spot in the jungles of Burma, which  had no recorded contact with civilization. The people there spoke a language which the anthropologists did not understand.  While there they recorded the songs sung by these people.  Upon their return, they spoke of their experiences among these people and played their recordings.  Imagine their surprise when the listening audience called in and said they knew the songs being sung.  They were old hymns they remembered from their childhood.  It turns out that in 1949-50 a group of missionaries in China had fled across the border into Burma.  Those missionaries died there in remote Burma, but not before planting the Gospel among this remote tribe.

The point of both of these stories is that God is not remote from us, those who seek Him will find Him., even those who do not know Who it is that they seek.  We do not need to go to some remote part of the world to find God’s will for us, but if we do go there, we will find God is already there waiting 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 27-28.

This passage contains blessings and curses for the people of Israel: blessings if they obey the Laws God gave them through Moses, curses if they do not.  While I believe the specific blessings and curses contained in this passage specifically apply to the Israelites, I believe the general principle of them applies to all people.  If we follow God’s commands and desires, we will be blessed.  If we violate God’s commands and desires, we will be cursed.  Moses instructed the people to divide into two parts, one half of the people to stand on Mt Gerizim to pronounce the blessings, one half to stand on Mt Ebal to pronounce the curses.  The purpose of this exercise was to reinforce the laws to the people and to give them a feeling of unity.  If you have ever been part of a large group which has done such a responsive reading you will understand how powerful such a thing is.

I really get two things out of this passage.  First, the closer a society keeps God’s commands, the more powerful and wealthy they will be.  To me this means that the majority holds to values which reflect God’s will (even when many of those people may not actually worship God) and that those who rebel against God’s will are ostracized to one degree or another, such that they hide their rebellion from general knowledge.  On the other hand, a society which openly embraces rebelling against God will become progressively weaker and poorer and will experience ever increasing suffering.  To the greatest extent I believe this results from natural forces.  I also believe that if we as individuals follow God’s will, we will be blessed, although not necessarily in ways which the world at large will recognize.

Every time I write about a passage like this, I come away feeling like I have failed to adequately communicate what it says to me.  Today is no different.

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.

There are a lot of miscellaneous laws given in today’s passage which are not exactly connected.  However, many of them do contain a common theme: do not take advantage of the poor, needy, foreigner, orphan. or widow.  Some of these laws go further than that by instructing us to have business practices which leave room for the above to provide for themselves.  Things like, do not take someone’s tools as a pledge against a loan (if you do, how are they going to make the money to pay you back?).  Things like, do not enter your poor neighbor’s house to collect his pledge against a loan, wait for him to bring it out to you.  Things like, if you miss some of the crops in your first pass of harvesting, don’t go back to get them, leave them for those less fortunate than yourself.

From the different commands contained in this passage, I think we can extend the principles involved.  If you own a business, don’t milk it for every penny you can make.  Leave “money on the table”.  The principles of God’s Laws says that if you follow them, society will be better off, and you will be better off.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 21-23.

The first portion of this passage makes an assumption which we easily overlook.  It assumes that only a murder committed in the countryside would remain unsolved.  It also indicates that the elders of a town would seek to solve any murders within their area of authority.  It makes me wonder if the first sign of the downfall of a society comes when they start having large numbers of unsolved, unpunished murders.  As I read through the laws which Moses gave to the people of Israel I see respect for human life emphasized.  When a society becomes complacent about identifying and punishing those who have murdered another human being that society is losing the respect for human life which God demands.  Most, if not all, sins result from failing to respect the lives of those around us, of beginning to consider other people as mere objects whose purpose is to give us pleasure.

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 people of Israel that they must not imitate the detestable practices of the people in the land they were entering.   He then lists some of the detestable practices they must not imitate.  The very first one he mentions is that they must not sacrifice any of their children.  It was because of these detestable practices that God drove those nations out of the land.  Related to that Moses warns the people against relying on those who practice sorcery or divination to plan.  Instead we should listen to the prophets whom God will raise up among us.  Further Moses tells us how to distinguish a prophet raised up by God from an imposter.  Those things which a true prophet predicts will happen or come true.  If the prophet’s predictions do not meet that criteria, they are a fraud.  We should apply this lesson to the many experts who today tell us how we should live our lives.

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