November 20, 2000

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December 24 Lesson

Commandments as fresh now as for Moses ___Deuteronomy 6:1-12, 20-25 ___1These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you. ___4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7Impress 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. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ___10When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, 12be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ... ___20In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?" 21tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders--great and terrible--upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. 24The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. 25And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness."

___By Joe Blair
___"We never did it that way before" is an expression often touted as the last seven words of the church. Of course, we cannot live in the past. We must always live out the eternal truth of God where we are in life. This is not to say, however, that the past is not important. We live our story in the present, but to pretend or contend that our story is disconnected from previous stories or other stories in the present is an affirmation of ignorance. So we always should appreciate the past.
___Jesus said he "did not come to destroy the prophets but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Jesus built upon the continuity of revelation. We must teach the past in order to learn in the present, and we must live in the present with the truth that is not bound by time. The commandments of God as fulfilled and taught in Jesus Christ, in whom God brought together the whole tapestry of his revelation, are always contemporary.
___"Now this is the commandment ..."
___Moses in previous chapters laid the foundation of what Israel was to do in order to be faithful to God. Command-ments were given them. Deute-ronomy 5 has a rendition of the Decalogue, or Ten Command-ments (5:6-21). God placed expectation and demand upon the people if they were to be in covenant with him. These are the great commandments of accountability given in order to direct and help Israel to keep its side of the covenant. Remember that a covenant is an agreement or contract into which two parties enter.
___In this case God initiates the covenant. The covenant is about relationship--relationship with God and with each other. God desires and intends to enter into relationship with his people. Of course, we understand in the light of the whole Bible, and especially in the light of Jesus Christ, that God desires and intends to live in relationship with all people.
___Israel was to convey by its living out the covenant before other nations, and by actively sharing the truth, the opportunity and the meaning of relationship with God.
___The book of Jonah is an example of responsibility to others, for God called the reluctant prophet to go and proclaim God's will to Nineveh. If Israel kept the commandments of God delivered to Moses, then they would be a witness to the nations.
___The commandments call the people to right living before God and others. God in Christ calls us to right living as well. Look at the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) again, which epitomizes the Ten Commandments and fills them up as Jesus describes the relationship we are to have with God and with others.
___We need to understand that this right living, before we give witness to God in Christ with words, is itself witness. Indeed, it is primary witness, for a life not lived in the direction of the truth it claims, although we are never perfect, ultimately robs the spoken witness of content, of authenticity.
___"Fear the Lord your God ..."
___I grew up with an unhealthy fear of God, and I do not know why exactly. Perhaps I got that idea from preaching I heard, where the preacher seemed to represent a god who was constantly angry--or ready to be at the slightest provocation. Or perhaps in my own mind I shaped the idea that God was pretty much a policeman who was just waiting for the opportunity to arrest, convict and punish someone like me. Perhaps I got the idea partially from inconsistent Christians who sometimes could be extremely condemnatory. Perhaps, too, in my own life, even as a child, I was ready to condemn those who were different or did not live like I thought they should, so I shaped God too much in terms of my own flawed human view.
___Probably all these factors contributed to my view of God as a policeman god. Consequently, my thinking about God many times had an element of fearful dread. God, however, is not a policeman god. The gospel of Jesus Christ delivered me from that kind of fear of God.
___A healthy fear of God is one in which a person has an attitude of respect with a great dose of awe included. God is creator, God is sovereign, God is sustainer, God is deliverer and we find God to be the supreme reality of our lives.
___We fear or respect God enough that we do not try to assume we are gods. We respect his righteousness and his demand for righteousness so that we do not take evil lightly nor support it. We respect the fact that every person is his creation and consequently is to be treated as one possessed of value and dignity. And we recognize that he has made us stewards of his creation so we understand that we are to treat his creation with respect as well.
___Therefore, as Israel was called to act out of healthy fear of God as motivation for keeping his commandments, so are we called. We live our lives in worship of who God is; we honor who God is by the way we live. Living out a "fear of God" in our lives is witness.
___"Observe them diligently ..."
___Our lives testify how seriously we take God. I am surprised sometimes when parents will go to great effort to get their children to everything that happens at school, and that can be very good, and yet make little or no effort to worship with them or involve them in worship.
___If we do not take worship of God seriously, do we expect our children to do so? Or our brothers and sisters? Or our neighbors? Or our spouses? Or our job group?
___Diligence in observing the laws, Moses taught, meant that it would go "well" (6:3) with Israel. If Israel were faithful, they could have "a land flowing with milk and honey" (6:3). A land flowing with milk and honey points to the prosperity and well being of life.
___While I do not believe in a health and wealth gospel, I do believe that a person who accepts and follows the gospel of Jesus Christ is a healthy person and lives in a state of well being in her or his particular circumstances.
___Also, we must remember that Moses spoke to the people as a whole. A society that follows the commandments of God is a society that does have longevity and prosperity. If the commandments of God are followed, however, this does not mean a selective prosperity, for all the members of society will be served by the whole society under God's commandments.
___God was not calling his people in terms of a political and governmental structure, but as his redeemed people in the larger society. As a redeemed people living out God's will in a larger society, his people stand as an open invitation to God for all others to join in. His people become a redemptive force in society in which all of society is blessed.
___The church is to be that force today. Christ has called the church into existence to be his people in the midst of a people. People everywhere and from every place are invited to come in, and society is blessed. Even those who reject the invitation of Christ's salvation are blessed by Christ's redemptive force, his church, ministering in his name in society.
___"Hear O Israel ..."
___The statement in 6:4 is called the "Shema." "Shema" is an imperative in the Hebrew, and "hear" is a transliteration of the Shema. Thus we read the English translation as beginning with "Hear" as a command to God's people. The Shema expressed for Israel that which was foundational for the law and for God's people.
___A lawyer asked Jesus what he should do for eternal life; Jesus asked him what the law said. The lawyer responded with the Shema (Luke 10:25-28). When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment of all, Jesus replied with the Shema (Mark 12:28-30).
___ Look at 6:4-5 in the verses at the top of this page to read the Shema. By Jesus' reference to it more than once we understand its importance to us.
___We hear at least two things in this Shema. One is that God is God alone, and two is that we are to love God with everything we are and have. This is what God basically wants us to hear and understand and respond to. Of course, the response is voluntary, but it is of supreme importance that we do so in obedience.
___Why does God want us to respond like this? Is it because he wants attention? Is it because he has some need of his own to be fulfilled that can only be fulfilled if we respond positively to the Shema?
___God has no needs to be fulfilled. He is complete; he is God. We are not complete, but he is. Actually God wants us to faithfully respond to the Shema because it is good for us. In it he is meeting our needs when we respond positively. If we get the commitment right in our attitude, commitments and living, life will go in the direction it should go to fulfill God's purposes. Of course, for us God has met us in Jesus Christ, and we respond with commitment and love for Jesus Christ for Jesus is the very expression of God.

For thought and discussion
___ We know we are to take God's commandments seriously and keep them. How do you think you are doing? Also, how can we keep from viewing the commandments in a legalistic fashion where we are proud or constantly guilty, and use them as judgment upon others?
___ What are ways we can express and understand the commandments in a very positive way so that we know God gave them to us for our good, not because he simply wanted them kept for his sake? Sometimes, do you not think, when we keep these commandments we are doing so to render some good to God without thinking of the positive impact upon us?
___ How well do you think we are teaching our children so that future generations may know, and also pass along, what we have learned about God and his truth? Teaching God's commandments to the children was vital for Israel remaining true to God through the generations (6:7-9). The commandments of God can be forgotten; they can be pushed aside as not very important. So teaching is important.___
___ Also, how well do we remember and recount God's great acts of deliverance to our children, not only deliverance in the history of God's people but deliverance in our own lives. Israel was to remind its generations of God's great deliverance from slavery in Egypt to freedom (6:20-25).

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