The Grand Sweep - Large Print. J. Ellsworth Kalas

      List instances in Deuteronomy 24 and 25 where the Law seeks to protect the helpless or disadvantaged.

      Prayer Time

      Let us pray daily for our nation, for all nations, for our churches, for all our appointed spiritual leaders, and for ourselves that we will be sensitive to the contribution we might make to spiritual renewal.

      How the Drama Develops DEUTERONOMY 6–26

      We are constantly tempted to compartmentalize our faith. This is business, we say (or politics, or “life”), and this is religion, and we watch carefully lest the two should meet. Not so with Israel—and not so with true biblical religion. These chapters in Deuteronomy mix the sacred and secular as if they were intended to be one—as, indeed, I’m confident God intends—not that our sacred should become secularized but that we should redeem the secular and infuse all of life with the quality of the sacred.

      For instance, Deuteronomy 16 begins with regulations regarding the Passover, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths, then—without any real transition—a paragraph on the appointment and conduct of judges and public officials. And then again, just as abruptly, a rule defining forbidden forms of worship. A scholar might suggest some later compiler brought these materials together carelessly. I doubt it. The Hebrew regard for its sacred Scriptures didn’t countenance casual handling. I think, rather, that the mixture of events had its own sacred logic. Our logic seems often to be that the sacred belongs here, and the secular there; Deuteronomy’s logic is that they belong together—indiscriminately, in fact. Living this way brings blessing to life: “Observe them [these rules] diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you” (Deuteronomy 6:3).

      The logic, of course, is this—that all of life is lived under the hand of God. Some meats are forbidden. Why? Because the Lord has declared them unclean (14:3-21). We may reason that it is because these animals were greater health hazards, and perhaps they were. But the Law had its own bottom line: God said so. Is someone in financial need? “Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted”; don’t even “entertain a mean thought”—and in the end, “the LORD your God will bless you” (15:7-11). The rule is very pragmatic and very humane: Life is lived under the hand of the Lord God.

      In truth, these laws wouldn’t work unless people saw them as from the Lord. Come to think of it, it’s hard to think of any way to make laws effective except as we hold before us a concept of a God who is holy and who desires holiness of us. And people need a good memory too. The Jews are told to be just to aliens and orphans because “remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there” (24:17-18). And when first fruits were brought to God’s house, it was to be with a humbling song of gratitude: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor” (26:5). Unless we have a good memory (good in a moral sense as well as an intellectual sense), we will not have a proper impetus to godly living.

      No wonder, then, that these laws were to be taught to the children, repeated at home and while traveling, and worn on hands and foreheads and on the doorposts of houses (6:6-9). Obeyed, they convey order and beauty to life; ignored, life falls apart. The word religion comes from a word that means “to bind or tie back,” probably in the sense of tying us back to God. But good religion also binds all of life together so it is whole and effective. That’s what these laws, ultimately, are all about.

      Seeing Life Through Scripture

      I’m surely not a naysayer, but I worry about what is happening to our public culture. How is it that life has become so cheap in so many parts of a country that is so wondrously blessed? And how come those who have the most seem so ignorant of the needs of those who have the least? And how is it that we have become, in less than a generation, a nation of gamblers, where the nightly television news zeroes in on lotteries? And why are the most intimate human relationships portrayed so freely on television and movie screens—and so often in degrading and amoral ways? And how sad that the name of God is most often heard in the public forum not as a blessing or a prayer but as a curse.

      We need some sort of spiritual renewal in our land. Obviously such renewal ought to begin with the religious community. But are enough of us serious enough about God that we might be leaven in our lumpy society? Indeed, are we serious enough that we are willing to reform our own ways, so that a secular culture might have an example to attract and a pattern to imitate? What is our obligation to the time in which we live? And come to think of it, how much difference, if any, can we make? Is it possible, in a society like ours, to see a revival of faith that would cause a mass change in conduct, such as has happened at other times? Or is that no longer a possibility?

      The Sum of It All

      “You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:18-20).

      When we’re about to enter unexplored land, whether a new school, a new job, or a marriage, we need a ritual of entrance. Some are simple and unstructured; but usually the more significant the event, the more solemn the ritual. As Israel prepared to enter their new homeland, they stood on the slopes of Gerizim and Ebal while the Levites stood in the valley between, pronouncing first a blessing toward Gerizim and then a doom toward Ebal. A Jewish commentator calls it the most imposing, solemn, and impressive event conceived for such an occasion. With each blessing and curse, the people were to say Amen to indicate their agreement with the contract. Only the curses are listed here; rabbis say that the blessings were negations of the dooms.

      The same theme is carried forward in Chapter 28, but this time by a listing of blessings and curses without a list of the commands. The message of doom is longer than the promise of blessings. Perhaps this is because we human beings seem to be moved more by threats than by promises of favor. At the least, the Israelites had to confess that they were properly and vigorously warned!

      But in spite of the sometimes threatening language, the call is to the good life. If the Israelites miss, it will be “because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and with gladness of heart” (28:47). In Egypt they had been slaves; here they were to be co-workers with God.

      PRAYER: Father, make me wise enough to know that blessings and curses are built into life, and that the choice is mine; in Christ.