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.

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

There are several interesting things in this passage.  Once again we have the laws regarding kosher foods.  As I pointed out earlier in the year when we read the kosher rules in Leviticus, while not every animal in the forbidden categories is a disease risk when eaten, the animals in the clean categories are all essentially safe to eat.  Another point of interest, the tithe was to be consumed as part of a feast by those who made the offering, except every third year, when it was to be given to the Levites for the benefit of the Levites and to aid orphans and widows.

Which brings us to God’s commands regarding debt and dealing with the poor.  I want to focus on what Moses tells them, and us, regarding the poor.  He tells them that there will not need to be any poor among them, if they only fully and faithfully follow God’s commands.  However, Moses essentially acknowledges that they will fail to do so such that there will be poor among them.  Those who are well-to-do and/or wealthy should freely lend to the poor whatever it is that the poor need, and not attempt to profit at the expense of the poor.  My father said on several occasions something which I think sum up how we should apply this today.  “There is nothing wrong with a Christian being a millionaire, and there is nothing wrong with a Christian being on welfare.  But there is something seriously wrong if one congregation has someone who is a millionaire and someone who is on welfare.”  He meant by that that those of us who are wealthy should aid those who would otherwise depend on the government so that they do not need to depend on the government.  I want to note that here, and everywhere else in the Bible where it is discussed, the wealthy have an obligation to God to aid the poor, but the poor do not have a right to that aid.  The Bible does not give the poor the right, or even the standing, to demand that the wealthy help them out.  I also want to point out that this passage makes no provision for the King (the government) to aid the poor (except insomuch as he is one of the wealthy).

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.

Once again Moses emphasizes loving and serving God with our entire being.  He also reiterates the idea of thinking and talking about God’s commands morning, noon, and night, at home and on the road.  At the same time we should talk about the things God has done for us, both the wonderful blessings He has given us and the discipline He has inflicted on us when we sinned.  We should do these things because otherwise we may be enticed to worship and follow other gods.

Moses goes from talking about not allowing ourselves to be enticed to worship other gods to instructing the Israelites to only conduct their sacrifices at the one place chosen by God from within the land.  They were not to conduct sacrifices and offerings upon any random hill or mountain, but only at the one place chosen for the entire nation to come together.  To me, this resonates with the passage in Hebrews which tells us not to forsake gathering together.  By gathering together people can see how little things which seem innocent are tempting us away from God.  We see that the gathering to worship was for this purpose because Moses goes from talking about gathering to instructions about rejecting those who attempt to entice us to worship other gods.

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.

This passage reminds us of the importance of remembering what God has done in the past, both the glorious blessings He has given us and the punishments He has visited upon us for our sins.  Further, it reminds us that when we profit from other’s suffering it is not because of our righteousness, but because of their wickedness.  This last is one with which I struggle, not the part about it not being because of our righteousness, but because of others’ wickedness. This passage says that the Children of Israel would conquer the Promised Land because of the wickedness of those who lived there when they arrived.  Applying this elsewhere would suggest that the success of the Europeans when they first arrived in the Americas was because of the wickedness of the indigenous peoples.  While that conclusion seems to be consistent with the Bible, one can easily make a very fundamental error when discussing it.  The important point is NOT that the indigenous people were wicked, but that the Europeans success was not because of their righteousness.  Even more important for us is the message Moses communicated by saying this: if we allow ourselves to fall into wickedness the same thing which happened to them will happen to us.
Editing to add a link which provides supporting information
I did not intend to spend so much time on what is in the previous paragraph.  I really wanted to talk about chapter 10 verses 12 and 13.

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’s commands have been given to us for our own good.  They are not arbitrary, nor are they intended to restrict our fun.  God has given us these commands because He knows what is best for us.  For example, God does not tell us to restrict our sexual activities to a single partner of the opposite sex because He wants to limit our fun.  He does so because He knows that we will have a happier, more fulfilling life if we do so.  In a way, the rest of this provides a roadmap.  IF we fear God, we will walk in obedience to Him.  As we walk in obedience to Him, we will begin to love Him as we see how His commands are in our best interest. As we come to love Him, we will desire to serve Him with all of our being.  Which brings us back to observing, following, His commands because they are for our own good.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 5-7.

The translators footnote on verse 3 of chapter 5 says that it could be translated as “It was not only with our parents that the Lord made this covenant.”  I suspect that to the original readers of that verse it conveyed both that and the way in which the NIV translators chose to translate it.  Each and every one of us must choose to accept God’s covenant for themselves, whether or not our parents did so.  However, I want to focus on chapter 6 verses 4 to 7.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

I really find this to be inspirational.  First, it contains what Jesus tells us is the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  I could spend my whole blog today on that, but I want to focus on what comes next.  God’s commands should be in our hearts at all times.  We should talk about them when we are at home, and when we travel.  We should talk about them as we go to bed, and when we get up in the morning.  We should spend all day every day thinking about what God wants us to do, and then doing it.  Of course, that follows from loving God with all of our heart, soul, and strength, but sometimes we need to spell that out.

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