PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

God is pretty serious about that whole first and second commandment thing.  There is only one God, first commandment, no idols, second commandment.  In fact, in this chapter he says if anyone among you, whether they be prophets, or neighbors, or sons or daughters, or spouse, or father or mother, or anyone at all who might be telling people that there is a god other than the Almighty God, there is only one solution.  Put them to death.  We are even given a sequence of events on how to put them to death.  You own hand shall kill them first, and then the town should stone them.

The priority that God places on us worshiping Him and Him alone cannot be overstated.  Our God is an awesome God, He reigns and doesn’t take prisoners.  I am also very, very grateful for our God as seen in Jesus Christ who ministers to the Samaritan woman (who worshiped other gods by the way) and treated her with tenderness and respect and as a result she and the entire village came to a saving knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah.   You can find that story in John 4.  

I prefer that approach to those who do not believe in God.  Not a scorched earth approach, but rather a relational approach where you give them a chance to see the love of God.

This entire chapter is devoted to the right sacrifice that the Lord requires.  We have to transition to a couple other places in Scripture where we read that the most important offerings, the most important sacrifices are not those that are given by our hands.  Look at: Micah 6:1-8, Hosea 6:6 as well.  God wants our devotion to justice and equity more than just some left-over time and false intentions. 

We read the abomination that it was to the Israelites to sacrifice their children like so many of their neighbors did.  This is not just in Hollywood.  There was a time when the sacrifice of people, even children, was common place and was thought to appease the gods.  Israel never allowed that and always saw it as an abomination.

As a result of these abhorrent things that took  place in these sacrificial spaces Moses commands that they all be torn down.  All the places where the gods were worshiped with sacrifices were to be torn down.  You can see from vs.2 and following the command to tear down all of the idols.  The command is that you will not worship the Lord your God in the way that other people do.  Smash all of their altars so that you have no temptation to follow along with what the people around you are doing.

The cliche’ question would be what altars do we have which need to be torn down?  But maybe we need to eschew the traditional and move toward the question of what distinguishes us from those around us?  Maybe nothing…, that would be a sad testament to our faith and our following our Savior.  If nothing is different about us then how are we not at  the foot of the idols which culture has created and those idols dictate our purpose and the direction that we move. That is a scary, but very real possibility.

The promises of the Lord are laid out before the people of Israel in a very obvious, almost self-incriminating fashion.  Moses reminds the people of Israel of all that God has done for them in liberating them from Egypt including, but not limited to, what God did on the Red Sea as he vanquished the armies of Pharaoh by closing the waters over them and destroying them.  This then allowed them to enter into the land which was flowing with milk and honey.  

Moses encourages, no he actually beseeches, them to obey all of the commandments which the Lord has laid before them.  Look at vs. 13 and you will find that he says if you would only obey the Lord then, and only then, he will bless you with rain, the kind of rain that allows crops to grow.  Yes, this is a conditional arrangement where God promises something if, and only if, we respond to that which He has provided by following His commandments.  Remember, we have said all along that God pursues us with an unconditional covenant.   God has already done the work whether we choose to receive it or not.  In Jesus Christ we have a new covenant which is very different from the covenant that we have laid before us here.

Also, a very well known portion of Scripture begins at vs.18 where you find the commandment to teach these laws to your children so that they will also be aware of them and they not be foreign to you nor to your children.  Another promise is not only that rain would come but that the enemies of the people of Israel would be scattered from them and they would be able to conquer all those regions that the Lord has put before them.  The assumption, however, is that if you don’t follow the commandments then the Lord will not give the people over to you.

We find Moses and the 10 Commandments part 2 and God’s command  to make an ark in order to store them.  That is all done and God relents and does not destroy the Israelites.  Then we have the story of the death of Aaron and the special place that the Levites hold in the history of the people of God as those who were tasked with carrying the 10 Commandments.  It is interesting that in the Hebrew instead of commandments the word is actually word.  So it would be the 10 words which the Lord gave to Moses, and here we see that the Lord is actually the one who writes them on the tablets.

If you look at vs.12 you hear a pretty familiar verse which states: What does the Lord require of you?  We see that same questions posed in Micah 6:8 which is called the Micah mandate, but the answer given there is a bit different from the one given here, but not entirely.  Micah tells us what the Lord requires us to: do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.  In Deuteronomy we hear: fear the Lord your God, 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 of the Lord your God.

I also love the part that reminds us in vs.19 that we are to “love the stranger”.   What a message for us today.  Love the stranger, do justice, love kindness, walk humbly, fear the Lord.  If we could only do that…

A verse in this chapter that we would do well to remember is verse 24 where we read the Lord saying to the people: “You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has known you.”  This chapter is an accounting of the times that the people of Israel had been rebellious against the Lord.  We find the locations listed in this chapter: Horeb where Moses was presented with the stone tablets but told to hurry off the mountain because the people were making a golden calf, Taberah, Massah, Kibroth-hattaavah, and finally Kadesh barnea where the people were told to take the land and they balked.

In this chapter we read about the locations where the people of Israel had hesitated because they did not see how they could do that which was impossible, even if the Lord encouraged them and told them to do it.

There is also the constant reminder, which really sets everything up here, that God was giving the people of Israel the promised land not because they were in any way faithful or righteous.  No, in fact, it seems like all of this was happening in spite of the unfaithfulness of the people of God simply to underscore the faithfulness of the Lord.  We also see Moses as lifting himself up as the Savior of the people, which I guess in some ways he was.   But also in some ways he is doing a bit what the Lord told them not to do, which was take any credit at all from what has happened.  All of this is the doing of the Lord, not of us.

I hope the words from vs.3 sound familiar.  Turn to Matthew 4 and you will find Jesus tempted in the wilderness, keep in mind Jesus is in the wilderness.  Who else is in the wilderness right about now?  The people of Israel.  Satan tempts Jesus with putting an idea into his mind about changing stones to bread.   Jesus quotes these verses in Deuteronomy to Satan in order to show the ordeal that the people of Israel had been through, and he wasn’t about to throw that away.  

We also find the reason why God put the people of Israel in the wilderness to wander.  Look at vs.2: “In order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.”  We know that it is not this generation walks into the promised land, their children do.  But God has provided for the people of Israel and had thought of every detail.  Even the minute detail of swollen feet was considered as we read that the feet of the people of Israel did not swell after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.  God pays attention to the details.  

But ultimately we read one of the common threads and themes that runs through Scripture.  We cannot cease giving God the glory.  We cannot take the glory of God’s actions upon ourselves.  If you look at vs.17 there is a warning to thinking that we are the ones who brought this wealth upon ourselves.  “Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power and wealth.”  If you forget this and start to worship other idols, including the idol of yourself, we read that we will surely perish.  

God wants to make sure that we do not worship other gods and that we are not beholden to idols that other people worship.  So we have here an indication as to why God chose the people of God, as the people of God.  Look at vs.8 where we read that the people of  God were chosen because: “the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors.”  So there are two reasons why God has chosen us: 1) God loves us, and 2) God keeps His promises.

As a result of these two things he commands that we be faithful to him as He is to us.  But look at vs.12 which really places this all into perspective.  “If you heed these ordinances…the Lord your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to you ancestors.”  The verses go on and state that God will love us, bless us, multiply us.  So the primary two reasons why God chose us is that God loves us and keeps  his promises.  If we keep  God’s commandments then we will reap the benefits of God’s love, God’s blessing, and the promise of fruitfulness in all things.

It seems to me that we have a pretty good deal with God.  

This might be one of the most recited Old Testament passages.  It is called the Shema which means in Hebrew: to hear, or to listen.  It is taken from the first words of vs.4 in this chapter which starts: Hear, O Israel.  This command is given by God to the people of Israel that they are to teach these commandments to their children so that they would know the history of who they are in relationship to being the children of God.  The history of the people of Israel is so crucial to being a child of God and to understanding why they were promised this land flowing with milk and honey (vs.3).  

What do you know about your family history?  What do you know about the history of your parents and your ancestors that has shaped you and formed you?  I’ll never forget being told that my middle name was a prestigious Scottish name, Kelton.  We got to Edinburgh and went to the castle there where there are books with all of the most prestigious names in Scottish history.  Kelton was not there.  The reply from my parents was: Yeah, we aren’t really sure where that name came from.  So I have that going for me.

But if you look at vs.20 and you see that so much of this chapter is geared to teaching your children well, it ought to remind us of the importance of ensuring that the faith that we have is passed on to the generations to come.  This is a song that might go along with this thought.

Here we find ourselves reading the ten commandments.  We saw them first in Exodus 20 and they are pretty much the same.  It is interesting how in some denominations the 10 commandments are numbered differently.  Often we like to read into intent when we see this, but I just think historically they have been interpreted differently.

I have always been interested in seeing how we observe the Sabbath.  In Israel it is very, very obvious when it is the Sabbath.  You can see the deserted streets, you can ride on the elevators that stop on every floor, you can notice that people are taking that day as an opportunity to live out their covenant with their Lord.  What about us?  Most of us would take this day, our Sunday, to go to church.  But how do we really observe the Sabbath?  I say not well.   Probably the reason why we don’t follow it as we should is simply because it isn’t convenient.  But what if murdering all of a sudden became convenient?  I know, I know, that is so extreme, but we do have to think why we don’t follow one of the ten commandments and we have discarded it for no real understandable reason.

When we continue along in this chapter post commandments we read how the people of Israel asked if Moses would be the one who would approach the Lord for they were afraid of Him.  But then they ask him to repeat everything and then we read this line in vs.27: “And we will listen and do it.”  That really didn’t happen much, but Moses does command the people to teach these commandments to their children.  We are getting close to the Shema.  More on that later…

There is a lot in this chapter so let’s try to break it down.  You still need to look at the map that I included in the last blog.  Moses speaks about the 10 commandments and how God gave them to Moses, but especially how the people were witnesses to the presence of God.  Moses asks the following questions in verses 32 and following: have you ever seen a god who takes personal  interest in His people like our God?  Moses describes how God is actively and tangibly a part of the life of the people of Israel and revealed Himself to them throughout history.  Who  has a God like that?  Only the God of Israel is like what is described in history.

Moses goes from the handing down of the ten commandments to describing how and why he will not be able to enter the promised land because the people of Israel made God mad.  Moses tells the people of Israel that they better keep the commandments of the Lord or else the Lord will let the people live their lives on their own.

Then we take a left turn as we describe sanctuary cities.   And you thought sanctuary cities were a 21st century invention!  Nope, they have been around for a while and Moses was the one who instituted them.  I wonder if that makes things look a little differently than what we had thought in the past.