LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?
THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Today's readings are from the blessings and curses in Moses' third speech (Deuteronomy 28), as well as a couple of features unique to Deuteronomy that are not found in other ancient treaty documents: a description of how the covenant can be renewed (Deuteronomy 29), an offer for forgiveness ahead of time should the covenant be broken again (Deuteronomy 30:1-10), and -a very Jewish feature- a heartfelt plea to choose the way of life instead of the way of death (Deuteronomy 30:11-20). Finally we see a transfer of leadership (Deuteronomy 31:1-8) and the document clause (Deuteronomy 31:9-29). To see the outline for Deuteronomy again, you can see the write-up for that in Day 62, here. For a free and easily accessible, modern, online commentary from a trustworthy and reputable resource, The Gospel Coalition Commentaries are once again a good resource--specifically this commentary written by J. Gary Millar.
(A) God's desire is to bless. I love the phrasing of Deuteronomy 28:2: "all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you"--like a picture of being overrun with blessings from the hand of God. We serve a generous God who does not withhold things from his children except out of love. True, we encounter a number of difficulties and struggles in this life. But in the worst case scenario, just on the other side of the very end of this life, awaits a new life in the Kingdom of God where all of God's blessings will overflow towards us for all eternity. That place is not some vague, dream-like space. That's our eternal home; where we are now is temporary. That place rests on a firm foundation; this space is fleeting. When we open our eyes there for the first time, it will feel like having woken up from a dream--and what you and I experience now will seem like a dream compared to the reality of life in the Kingdom of God. There, God's blessings shall come upon us and overtake us, if today we heed the voice of the Lord.
(B) The worst of the curses of Israel. For my part, I'm going to name "the itch, for which there is no cure" (Deuteronomy 28:27) as particularly worrying. Just imagine...!
(C) Secret and revealed things. This verse in Deuteronomy 29:29, which says "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law," has come up in conversation and personal thinking many times over the last decade and a half. The Bible doesn't actually reveal everything to us. We have precious little about how things work in the spiritual realm, about what else God has done outside of human history, or about God's own ultimate aim in the story of humanity. There are many questions that we might have -and which we should pursue an answer to!- which might, in the end, come down to having to accept that some things have simply not been revealed. And yet there are also many revealed things. The Bible is absolutely full of incredible insight for us regarding wisdom for this life, hope for the next, the nature and character of God (so far as language can convey it), knowledge about what our purpose as people is, along with many specific stories about God's work in human history which we can verify independently through archaeology, so that we can know these things are true.
(D) The king of grace and mercy. Deuteronomy 30:1-10 is an incredible part of the book. Ancient treaty documents did not offer forgiveness in case the subject party decided to rebel. They did not, ahead of time, commit to be merciful and gracious and to restore the fortunes of rebels. That just wasn't done. But here is God, the Lord of lords and King of kings, letting Israel know ahead of time--if you fail, and if you are judged, you may still return to God, because he loves you and wants to show you his kindness and grace. Exactly how God is able to remain both a righteous judge who punishes sin, and a merciful king who forgives the rebels, is a puzzle that would only go on to eventually be resolved in the cross of Jesus Christ.
RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?
How can we respond in our worship, attitude, and actions? Today we'll focus on worship. In terms of worship, I think that (A) gives me a sense of God's incredible generosity; but also of his majesty: he can be generous because everything is his. He has no need of anything, and therefore no reason to hold back. However, (B) also reminds me that God is also a judge of sin, and that he is not just like a kindly old man who gives out candies; this King may be incredibly generous, but he is still the King. The sword that he holds, which comes from his mouth, is not for decoration. I also look at (C) and this makes me think of the mysterious, unknowable, hidden aspects of God's nature. As much as God reveals, as Job reminds us, "behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?" (Job 26:14). The Eastern Church has a tradition called the way of negation (via negativa) which refers to a way of speaking about God and his attributes. Because God is far beyond our capacity as human beings to comprehend, anything we can say of him is necessarily limited by our finite human understanding, and his reality far surpasses our power of expression. Therefore the most true things we can say about him are by way of negation--by saying what he is not rather than what he is. We therefore can come to know God better through meditating on how much greater he is than anything we can conceive. Finally, (D) reminds us that God, in all of his surpassing greatness and majesty and power and unknowability, is caring and generious towards you and me. We are his children. And he loves us--so we may freely come to him, no matter what we've done.
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