Deuteronomy 24-27

You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

Deuteronomy 25:4

I hope we all know that we are not now bound by the letter of all these laws. First of all, I am guessing that most of us are not descendants of Israel, and so are not really part of the “covenant community” to which these laws are given as part of that covenant. Second, even if we were descendants of Israel, we have a New Covenant in Christ, which supersedes this Old Covenant. (We’ll eventually get to that much later in our readings.) And we should all be exceedingly thankful for that New Covenant because otherwise we’d be subject to the curse of Dt. 27:26: Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.

Even though we may be free from needing to strictly observe all these laws, we still need to pay attention to them, because they give us principles that express God’s heart. They show us what is right, what is just, what is fair, what is proper. And so it is with this law regarding oxen. On the surface it just says that an ox should be allowed to eat as it works. On the surface the law applies only to oxen. So, strictly speaking, muzzling a cow being used for the same task would be OK, but I think we all recognize that the LORD would frown on such an interpretation. We should instead look for the LORD’s heart and extrapolate a bit. We should recognize that the LORD expects us to act with compassion, even justice, with oxen — and much more generally than with just oxen.

Saint Paul quotes this verse twice, in I Corinthians 9:9 and in I Timothy 5:18, to argue that ministers of the Gospel deserve to be paid for their preaching and teaching. And he is right, of course. We should not expect our pastors and other church staff to live as paupers or to have to work a second job just to put food on the table. We should, in fact, recognize the tremendous value of their ministry and generously give to provide for their needs.

As we approach the end of Deuteronomy and we look back over the Torah and the 613 commandments that the rabbis tell us it contains, let’s not just consider the letter of the law and all its detail. Let’s find the spirit of the law, what God is really and truly looking for. Let’s recognize that it is all summed up in those two greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbor.

Deuteronomy 21-23

So you shall purge the evil from your midst…

Deuteronomy 21:21b

This is an oft-repeated refrain in Deuteronomy. (See Dt. 13:5; 17:7,12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7; as well as 1 Corinthians 5:13.) Maybe we should pay attention.

It would be easy for us to get side-tracked here (again!) by our own discomfort over these statements. We think that God should be “nicer” to the guilty parties. Or we perceive some disconnect between the LORD here and the God that Jesus calls “Abba”. But let me again just say that God does not change, and if we feel like He is somehow in the wrong, the problem lies somewhere on our side, not His.

My guess is that for most of us the real problem is that we do not take sin seriously — at least, not nearly as seriously as God does. Nor do we understand what constitutes life. Life is not mere existence. Life is relationship with God. So when we say that sin should be ignored or treated lightly, what we’re really saying is that we think sin is no big deal — and that our life with God is no big deal, either. So let’s be clear: Sin breaks our relationship with God; it destroys our life; so God hates sin.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst…

The lesson for us here is not that we should go on witch hunts, killing anyone guilty of anything. (We would all be dead!) The lesson is that we should be ruthless in our treatment of our own sin. We are not to tolerate sin within ourselves. We are to kill it. But we tend to treat the Cross of Christ as a mere “get out of jail free card”. We see the Crucifixion as merely taking our penalty — which then just enables us to keep on sinning, penalty free. That is not the Gospel. That is ludicrous! As Saint Paul explains in Romans 6, we have been crucified with Christ, and so Paul rhetorically asks, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (See also Romans 8:13 and Colossians 3:5.)

Let’s start treating sin — our own sin — that thing we cozy right up to — as the disgusting, horrendous abomination that it is and let God nail it to the Cross.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst…

Deuteronomy 16:18-20:20

You shall appoint judges and officers …, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Deuteronomy 16:18-20

Justice. Now there is something close to God’s heart. He has indeed woven into all of us an innate sense of justice, and we all have a desire for justice (at least, justice for the other guy…). Time and again we see that the LORD is a God of justice. Time and again the LORD tells us to seek justice.

But what is justice? Simply put, justice is doing what is right, and it is setting right whatever is wrong. It is not just about punishment for bad behavior; it is about restoration of peace and order.

So where might we find justice?

Is justice inherent in democracy? Hardly. The clearest example of democracy — where the will of the majority is done — is a lynch mob. We all know that is not justice.

Is justice meted out in our “criminal justice system”? Perhaps sometimes. Certainly not always. We’ve all witnessed miscarriages of justice within our current system, miscarriages in both directions, where the innocent are wrongly punished and the guilty are wrongly acquitted. In addition, our system generally pays more attention to the criminal than to the victim and rarely pursues restitution; that is, we punish thieves with prison time, for example, but the stolen property might never be restored to its owner.

Is justice found in our civil courts? Again, sometimes, but not always. Millions of dollars for spilling one’s coffee can hardly be called justice, but neither can billions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies ever undo the devastation of the opioid epidemic.

What then? While we all can (and should) work for justice in and through our courts and other governmental systems, seeking justice is generally much closer to home. It is a matter of acting justly ourselves in all our dealings on a daily basis. It is working diligently for one’s employer. It is fairly compensating one’s employees. It is filing an honest tax return. It is properly disciplining one’s children. It is accepting responsibility for one’s failures. It is a word kindly spoken to the grocery check-out clerk. It is stopping to help change a flat tire. It is leaving a fair tip at a restaurant. It is loving your neighbor as yourself.

Deuteronomy 12:29-16:17

Today Moses sets forth a zero-tolerance policy against idolatry:

• Don’t even inquire about how the soon-to-be-dispossessed nations serve their gods (Dt. 12:29-31)
• Execute any prophet that advocates going after other gods (Dt. 13:1-5)
• Execute even your closest loved one — friend or family — who entices you toward other gods (Dt. 13:6-11)
• Utterly devote to destruction any city or town that follows after other gods (Dt. 13:12-18)

Why such intolerance? Because the LORD loves His people. He desires to bless them. He desires that they have life. And life is found in relationship with Him. The greatest blessing anyone can have is the LORD Himself. Therefore, anything that gets in the way of a good relationship with God is unhealthy, destructive, deadly. So God moves to protect His people from that destruction.

Of course, any sin interferes with a good relationship with God. Any sin is unhealthy. But idolatry is especially so. It is the most egregious of sins — the most “in your face”. It is inherently a direct rejection of God and a turning toward something else in preference to Him. So the LORD — out of love for His people and to preserve their life — must deal most severely with anything that would draw His people away into idolatry.

Why then, are we so tolerant of idols in our own lives? No, I don’t imagine that many of us actively bow down to statues or sing songs of worship to Canaanite gods. That form of idolatry is long out of fashion. But I am quite certain that we each have our idols, things that keep us from wholehearted devotion to the LORD. Most such idols go unrecognized and unacknowledged, mainly because they are so dear to us that we do not even want to consider life without them and because we’ve been indoctrinated by our culture that our idols are either innocuous or even good. I won’t try to tell you what your idols might be. That’s for you to figure out in conversation with God. But here are a few of mine that I continually need to work to keep off their pedestals:

• Family
• Success
• Reputation
• Possessions
• Entertainment (or my “right” to a little R&R)

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, especially family. I should indeed love and care for my family. I should indeed try to succeed (otherwise I will most certainly succeed in failing). But sometimes such things — even family — can be too dear, too important, and so interfere with my devotion to God. And that must not be so.

Deuteronomy 9-12:28

Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, “It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,” … Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land… Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

Deuteronomy 9:4a,5a,6

Do you get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the blessing of the Promised Land is not because of Israel’s righteousness? If it were not obvious to the Israelites before now, by repeating the point three times, Moses makes it abundantly clear that the Promised Land is not a reward earned by Israel’s good behavior. Israel is not outstandingly righteous; instead, they are a stubborn people. Moses goes on to drive the point home, reminding them of their rebellious ways. So don’t think too highly of yourselves, Israel.

Does that mean, then, that Israel’s behavior does not matter? Clearly not. The LORD is very much interested in shaping Israel into a nation that reflects His righteousness through relationship with Him:

And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?

Deuteronomy 10:12-13

The entire book of Deuteronomy can be seen as one gigantic exhortation for Israel to walk in righteousness, to walk with the LORD, not against Him — to cooperate with Him, not oppose Him. All of it is for Israel’s good. And all of it is the LORD’s initiative.

The same, of course, is true for us. We do not earn our salvation by works of righteousness. Instead, our salvation enables and produces righteousness, all for God’s glory. God loves us. God calls us. God justifies us. God works righteousness in us and through us. We must cooperate, but it is all God’s initiative.

As we go through this season of Lent, let’s remember that we are not “all that”. We are dust and to dust we shall return. But we are dust into which the LORD God Almighty breathes Life, His Life that we are to display to the world.

Deuteronomy 5-8

With four chapters in today’s reading, there is quite a lot that we could talk about. But I would be remiss not to focus on the Greatest Commandment, upon which everything else depends:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 6:5

Yet what can I say about that? What can I say that has not been said? What can I say that would not fall short? I cannot embellish those words, nor can I fathom them. The best I can do is to point to them and urge us all to sit with them in stillness, to let the LORD convict our hearts and draw us to Himself.

Deuteronomy 3-4

Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Deuteronomy 4:39

There are any number of things we can learn as we read through the Scriptures. We can be fascinated by ancient history and cultures. We can pick up on nuances of human character. We can gain insights on how to relate to one another. We can learn the difference between right and wrong. We can debate the finer points of dietary laws or animal sacrifice. But in all of it, we better not miss this one: the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Deuteronomy 1-2

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness…
In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them…
Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying…

Deuteronomy 1:1a, 3, 5

We now enter the Book of Deuteronomy, the last of the five “Books of Moses”, otherwise known as the “Pentateuch”. The name “Deuteronomy” means “second law” or “repetition of the law”, which is a fairly reasonable description. The vast majority of this book consists of a series of speeches by Moses to the people of Israel at the end of his ministry, just before they enter the Promised Land. In these “farewell addresses” Moses recounts some of the history we have just walked through in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers; reiterates much of the law, including the Ten Commandments; and strongly urges the people to remain faithful to the LORD.

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In today’s reading I find three verses to be particularly interesting:

• Dt. 2:5 — Do not contend with [the people of Esau], for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
• Dt. 2:9 — Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.
• Dt. 2:19 — And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.

We know that the LORD has a special relationship with Israel, and our narrative is naturally given from Israel’s perspective, so it is sometimes easy to think that God cares only for Israel. But these verses remind us that the LORD is Lord of all, and He has His plans and purposes for other peoples as well. Unlike the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, the LORD explicitly declares each of these three nations off-limits for Israel.

By way of reminder, the nation of Esau (aka Edom) descends from the brother of Jacob (aka Israel), and Moab and Ammon are the descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew. (See Gen. 19:30-38. Also, if you wonder where Ammon resides, think “Amman, Jordan”.) One might imagine that the family ties (though centuries old at this point) might mean friendly relationships, but that is not how it turns out, as we have already seen. Nevertheless, the LORD says, “Hands off.” Aside from saying that He has given those lands to those peoples as their possessions, the LORD does not explain Himself. He does not present us with all the whys and wherefores. He does not reveal His plans and purposes for them here. He does not need to.

That should be a lesson to us. Sometimes we act as though we need to know all the details of God’s plans for everyone everywhere. And for any detail that we do not know, we either act as though we do know His plan, or we tell God what His plan should be. We are all too often control freaks and busybodies. That’s our nature. But the reality is that I have a hard enough time figuring out what God would like me to do for the rest of today, let alone what you should be doing next week. I need to let God be God. I need to listen to what He is saying to me. And I need to be content to let Him do what He pleases with you.

Numbers 34-36

As we have seen before, unlike the other twelve tribes, the tribe of Levi is not to receive a large regional plot of land. The Levites have to live somewhere, though, so the LORD declares that they are to have 48 cities (or perhaps what we would now call towns) scattered throughout Israel’s territory. Of these 48, six are to be cities of refuge. Anyone who accidentally kills another could find protection from the avenger of blood (i.e., the victim’s next of kin, seeking vengeance, if not justice) by fleeing to one of the cities of refuge. Outside a city of refuge one guilty of accidentally killing another would likely pay for his mistake with his life, but within, he is protected.

Note that there is a clear distinction here between accidental killing and murder — though the resultant death is the same. Accidents are unintentional. Murder is on purpose. The cities of refuge provide no sanctuary for murderers: they get the death penalty. Involuntary manslayers do not. But note also that there are still consequences for the one who kills accidentally: he is effectively imprisoned in the city of refuge for the lifetime of the high priest — which could be days, or it could be decades.

All of that speaks of the premium value the LORD places on human life. Taking the life of another — even accidentally — is serious business not to be ignored. Murder is a capital offence. Some might argue that the death penalty is somewhat self-contradictory, that if human life is sacred, then the murderer’s life should be protected, too. But it can also be argued that anything less than the death penalty cheapens the life of the original victim. (See Num. 35:33.) I am not going to attempt to settle that debate here, but it is well worth serious consideration.

We, of course, do not find ourselves operating under the same system as the Israelites. We do not have cities of refuge. (Although one might find some slight parallels, we should not confuse these cities of refuge with our current “sanctuary cities” that shield illegal immigrants.) Though our current criminal justice system is different, it still makes the same clear distinction between accidents and murder, and I think we all instinctively know that the distinction is a proper one: willful murder is a far cry from a total accident (and manslaughter through gross negligence is somewhere in between). I am glad to see that we still retain such principles, but I think we each need to ask ourselves whether we value human life as the LORD does.

Numbers 32-33

The tribes of Gad and Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh (Num. 32:33) look around at the land that the Israelites already occupy east of the Jordan River, the land of Gilead formerly ruled by Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, whom Israel previously defeated (as recounted in Numbers 21:21-35). These two and a half tribes think Gilead suits them just fine. They see no need to wait for an inheritance within the Promised Land. They’ll just stay where they are. Needless to say, Moses is not happy about this, envisioning the people again deserting the task of conquering the Promised Land. But Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh pledge to do their duty, enter the battle, and fight alongside the rest of Israel as brothers in arms in the Conquest before returning to this land of Gilead and permanently settling down. Moses agrees to this arrangement, but sternly warns them to keep their promise, else “be sure your sin will find you out.” (Num. 32:23)

Now, imagine two different preachers, each taking Numbers 32 as their text. The first stands up and praises Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh for being content, for not coveting what others possess, and for properly taking advantage of God’s provision right here, right now. He says that we likewise should be content with what we have, not looking for “greener grass on the other side of the fence”. The second preacher castigates Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh for choosing second-best, going for instant gratification rather than holding out for the Promised Land. He says that we, likewise, should not be content with this world but should always have our eye on heaven, our true home.

Both sermons, though sounding somewhat contradictory, might have valid points, but neither reflects what the text actually says — or what it is about. The main purpose of this story is not to be a lesson on contentment but to state history, to simply tell us how two and a half tribes happened to settle on the east side of the Jordan while still remaining faithful and obedient. If there are lessons here, they are about obedience; they’re about duty to the larger body; they’re about commitment and follow through; they’re about keeping promises.

And yes, we need to learn those lessons. As a member of the Body of Christ, I need to recognize that wider Body beyond myself. Life in Christ is not just a matter of “me and Jesus”. It’s even more than “me and you and Jesus”. It’s more like “me and you and him and her and them and us and Jesus”. I cannot simply do my own thing and ignore the needs of others. Nor am I independent of others. I need you to walk with me, just as you need me to walk with you. And we all need the Lord.