Gospel According to Moses - Deuteronomy #5: The Gracious Gift of Life, 30.11-19

The Text

11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it? 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it? 14 No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (NRSV).

We have entered into the third speech of Moses with this stirring text. Beginning at 29.1 we hear Moses' farewell speech flow from his heart. This humble servant recalls the wondrous mighty acts of God (i.e. his amazing grace for Israel) all through chapters 29 and 30 . . . the Lord has indeed been gracious to his People. The Lord has proven himself not only a Redeemer but also Faithful to the faithless. This is why Israel must put her hope, faith and trust in Yahweh, even as Moses is about to depart. Israel's faith can not rest upon any human, not even one so great as Moses. It is the Lord, who has redeemed Israel with a mighty grace, that is to be the object of devotion and faith.

Israel is at a fork in her existence. Up to this point Moses has been the highly visible Man of God sent to be her prophet and mediator. But now Moses is about to depart and he is preparing Israel for this transition. It would have been easy for an Israelite to think God had loved Israel for Moses' sake and so the people lean upon him, but Moses encourages them that Yahweh is Faithful to Israel and not just him.

A Time for Choices


It is now time for each Israelite to make a choice for God even as Moses is about to die. Each individual Hebrew must choose to honor the covenant of love (cf. 7.9) with the Redeeming Lord. To live by the covenant means we are under Yahweh's Lordship, not our own. We will live as he wants us to. We cannot say I'm on the Lord's side but I won't alter my wish as he wishes (cf. 29.19)! That is not a choice for God, but for the Idol of Self.

Our text declares there are only two real choices a human being can make in life. We, in America, talk about choice and freedom a great deal. Abortion on demand is reduced to a choice, drugs are simply a choice, even sexual lifestyles are said to be our choice. We have the freedom to choose whatever we want and live however we want. Choice has become a very large idol even in American Christianity . . . some may even call it God.

Have you noticed, though, that the choices we fight for as fundamental tend to be quite trivial. They are meaningless and carry little significance in the grand scheme of things. Moses, a man with great insight, says that life can really be reduced to two very basic choices that every human must make every day of his or her life. Moses says the chultimaten to us is the ulitimate choice: The Gift of Life or The Agony of Death! This is it. There are no other choices at all. Everything we do in life, every action, every moment flows directly from this ultimate choice that we have made for either life or death.

When life is reduced to what it is all about, when we peal back all the veneer - the choice that must be made is not to difficult to see. The Choice to live for a God, who loves us the way our God loves us, is the only choice. The choice to live for God and follow his ways is made even easier because Moses tells us that the Lord's commands are not burdensome. They are intended to bless and guarantee quality and abundance in our lives. They are not in the heavens as to be beyond reach. They are not even across the sea where they are out of sight. No they are near and in the heart (30. 12-14).

Beloved, God has never intended his Gracious Torah to be an instrument of death, rather it is to be Life and Blessings. It is only in the context of legalism that Torah becomes a burden. Man in his sinful nature turns the Torah into something it was never intended to be . . . a means of gaining, attaining and winning salvation. The Law, not even the Law of Moses, was intended to bring salvation. Israel did not earn salvation by observing the Torah . . . she was ALREADY saved when God gave the Torah. She was saved by grace (not works) in the Exodus itself, she was not redeemed at Sinai! Exodus comes before Sinai; Calvary comes before Pentecost; Grace comes before faith; it always has and always will. The Torah was to enable Israel to live in fellowship, to experience the blessing of life with God.

Moses says the covenant is simply loving the Lord our God and to walk in his ways. We honor God by making a covenantal decision for Yahweh everyday of our lives. We cannot love God and fail to live in a way that honors him. What Moses is challenging us to do is to choose life . . . in so doing we will honor God.

Why Choose the Gift of Grace - that is Life?


To reject God and to walk in our own ways is to choose death. Only the proverbial fool would willingly choose death over life. Only one self-deceived would follow such a course. Who would reject what God has done on our behalf. He has defeated the "Gods" of Egypt, the Pharaoh and his mighty armies, he fed Israel as they wandered in the wilderness and graciously blessed them so that even the soles of their sandals did not wear out. He has given them a land flowing with milk and honey and most amazing of all . . . he has made his abode in their midst! What god has ever done what Yahweh our Lord has done?

Moses asks which will we choose; The Gift of Life and blessings from God or Death and destruction away from God? We all must individually make that Ultimate Choice. There is no escape from it, God has not given us that particular choice.

Resources for Living the Choice

Living for God, loving him and walking in his ways is a lifetime commitment. But God does not leave us alone to our own strength and devices even in the Hebrew Bible! Earlier God had commanded that we circumcise our hearts (10.16) as a way of showing our love for him. Humans, however, stained as we are with Sin do not have it in their own ability to do this. Moses informs us that God, in his amazing grace, performs the needed surgery for us. He will circumcise our hearts so that we may be able to love and serve him with all of our hearts. Here the gracious word:

The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and LIVE . . . (30.6)

Israel's religion was never one of Self-reliance but God reliance. God did not give the commandments and then expect Israel to climb a ladder to righteousness. Boot-strap religion is alien to the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. God knows we will never live perfectly and that is not the point of Deuteronomy 30. We are not expected to be perfect. Moses says that what is expected is that we make a choice for the Gift of Life! We make the choice for life and God will take care of us . . . I call that Good News. I call that the Gospel According to Moses. I call it Grace. I, nor you, are or ever will be (in this life) perfect, but we can make a choice to serve the Lord.

Concluding Thoughts


Moses closes his speech in vv. 19-20 by calling heaven and earth as witnesses. We have heard God's grace proclaimed, we have heard the word in the Torah, we have heard the Faithful One say he is on our side . . . so what will we choose? God will not allow us to stay on the fence . . . he has too much invested in you and me. We must choose him or reject him. We must make the Ultimate Choice, the only choice in life that matters, we must choose Life or Death. Moses pleads with us to choose God's gift of life . . . in fact he almost commands us to choose it (30.19). We must choose him for in a very real way his is Life. I love the text:

hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life . . .(NIV)

May the Lord bless and keep those who have read this piece. And may he make his face shine upon them.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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The Global Village: What it looks Like

The Global Village: What It Looks Like

If we could shrink down the Earth's population to a single village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaing the same, it would look like this:

There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western hemisphere (North & South America), and 8 Africans.

51 would be female; 49 would be male.

70 would be non-white, 30 would be white.

70 would be non-Christian; 30 would be Christian.

50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people, all six would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing.

70 would be unable to read this note.

50 would be suffering from malnutrition.

1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth.

Only 1 would have a college education.

Not one would have a computer.

When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed perspective, the need for tolerance, understanding and compassion becomes glaringly apparent.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Tidbits

Tidbits

Last week I was invited by Dee O'Neal Andrews to become a contributer to her blog called Grace Notes at http://gracenotesministries.org/. I am out of my league there with folks like Dee, John Dobbs, Patrick Mead, Bill Willaims, Greg England among others. But I consented to contribute. My first contribution was made late yesterday called Beyond the Sacred Page. I invite you to visit and bookmark this place. I am sure you will find grace wafting through the air.

I would also like to call attention to my friend Wade Tannehill's latest blog called "Before You Enter the Ministry (Part 1)." This is an excellent piece firmly rooted in historical reality. You can access this fine piece at http://wade.typepad.com/ Wade and I were friends long before there was such a thing as the World Wide Web or at least we never heard of it.

Go ahead visit Grace Notes and read Wade's essay.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Deuteronomy #4: What Does it Mean to Love God?

In previous posts I have argued that Deuteronomy revolves around three poles or centers of gravity: The Great Story of Redemption (the Exodus); The Great Commandment to Love God; and The Great Society of Loving neighbor. In this post I want to flesh this out some more in terms of the last two poles.

Deuteronomy raises the question "What does it mean to love God?" Love in Deuteronomy is always a verb, an action that finds focus in the values of Yahweh. God's love toward Israel consisted of his deliverance of her out of Egypt, of his guidance through the wilderness, and of his gift of the promised land (cf. 26.5-9). So, too, Israel's love for Yahweh was to be active obedience in response to his unconditional love. But Deuteronomy makes us go further and ask "What is the content of that obedience of love?" Concretely, what does the Lord command? All of the laws in Deuteronomy are intended to answer that question. They are explications of what it means to love God. In teaching these there is a plethora of material for contemporary churches.

Once again let me emphasize that these commandments are guides in the life of the already redeemed. These commands do not establish Israel's relationship with God but guide her to a full life within the Covenant of Love.

Some fo the commandments are no longer relevant to our lives. For example, we no longer have Levites (18.1-8), or wear robes with tassels (22.12), or lack modern plumbing (23.12-13). Some of the laws have been transformed in the coming of the Lord Jesus. Yet it is amazing how often the intention of these commands remain fully valid for Christians.

So if we ask what it means to love God? Deuteronomy answers that by giving us a picture of God's People living as the Great Society. That is we love God by being proactive in our love to those around us. Thus to love God means:

1) To Love God means to show liberality and kindness supremely toward the poor and oppressed (15.1-18; 23.19-20; 24.14-15; 24. 19-22)

2) To Love God means to respect your neighbor's property (19.14; 23.24-25) and to respect her dignity as a human being (24.10-11), even if she is a criminal to be punished (25.1-3)

3) To Love God means to actively protect your neighbor against accidents (22.8) and to help him out when he has suffered loss (22.1-4).

4) To Love God means to practice justice in court (16.18-20; 19.15-21; 24.17-18) and to be ethical in all business ventures (25.13-16)

5) To Love God means to recognize that there is a sphere of justice belonging to God alone, beyond human justice (19.1-10)

6) To Love God means to respect and protect the realm of nature as stewards of God's good creation (5.14; 20.19-20; 22.6-7; 25.4)

7) To love God means to foster the well-being of the family (24.5; 22.13-21) and to protect the honor of the unmarried (22.23-29).

8) To Love God means, in short, to construct a society (i.e. what I call the Great Society) which reflects the justice, the love and the mercy of God himself (5.15; 15.15; 16.12; 24.18, 22) -- surely a new phenomenon in the history of humanity. "We love because he first loved us" wrote John (1 Jn 4.19). John then asks how we can claim to love God whom we have not seen and hate our fellow human whom we have seen. He says it is impossible! But John is not being original in this insight rather he is echoing what Moses said in Deuteronomy millennia before.

But this is not the complete story of love in Deuteronomy. To love God in Deuteronomy also means to worship him in sincerity and truth. It means to offer Yahweh worthy sacrifices (17.1; 23.18), and to intend sincerly with the heart what we say and vow to him (23.21-23). To love God means to acknowledge with our gifts his blessing and ownership of all creation (15.19-20; 26.1-11) and it means to thank him with grateful hearts for his generous bounty.

Indeed, worship in Deuteronomy is above all a joyous occasion. Whether the occasion is one of the three great festivals (16.1-17), the fulfillment of a vow, a tithe, or a freewill offering (12.1-19; 14:22-29), a special day (27.1-18) or the offering of the first fruits (26.1-11). The thought is always that Israel shall "rejoice before the Lord" (12.7, 12, 18; 14:26; 16.11, 14; 26.11; 27.7) because she is worshipping a God who has first loved her.

Deuteronomy, the Gospel of Love, has much to teach us about what it means to love God by showing us what it means to love our neighor. I hope we will spend some time reflecting deeply and theologically on what Deuteronomy teaches.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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The What List

The What List?

What's Up? The Weather! Southeast Wisconsin has had (lite) snow 2x already and it is not even Halloween yet.

What's on the Coffee Table?
* Galaxies (Timothy Ferris)
* Wierd Wisconsin
* The Beatles: An Anthology

What's Spinning?
* Yuyariwai (cool Inca music)
* Best of Joe Walsh
* Tom Petty (Highway Companion)

What's in the Fire Place?
* Fire
* Smoke
* Ashes

What Pages are Turning?
* The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible (Eugene Ulrich)
* Peace (Walter Brueggemann)
* The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (Robert Alter)
* Immanuel in Our Place: Seeing Christ in Israel's Worship (Tremper Longman III)
* The Torah's Vision of Worship (Samuel Balentine)
* Christian Mythmakers: C.S. Lewis; Madeleine L'Engle; J.R.R. Tolkien, George MacDonald; G.K. Chesterton; Dante Alighieri

What's On the Screen?
* Downfall (possibly the best war movie I have ever seen)
* Cars (finally went to see it)
* Magnificent Desolation (great film in IMAX)

What's My favorite Word?
* This is hard. It could be shalom, hesed, grace but I think my favorite word in any language is simply Abba.

Acappella - Abba Father

Great Song and Video by Acappella about my favorite Word: Abba.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Deuteronomy, Gospel of Love #3:People of the Great Story? Deut 6.20-25

Moses must have had children! What parent has not been quizzed by a child seeking to understand her world? A trip to Wal-Mart can produce more questions than we ever imagine. But sometimes questions come that provide a golden opportunity to cultivate and illuminate faith in our precious children. The Bible is a big book. And Moses had a lot to say about the commandments of God. It is easy to for us humans to miss the significance of God's torah when all we can see is the individual "trees" so to speak.

Moses had a vision of a family conversation in which a child, a teenager perhaps (?), would say to her Dad "What is this all about?" "Why do we go to church?" "Why do we do this or don't do that?" "When your child asks, 'What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" (6.20)    The answer Moses instructs us to give speaks volumes about the nature of the torah and the nature of our relationship with Yahweh. The meaning of the commands are none other than the Story of salvation.  Moses says tell your daughter or son:

"We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders - great and terrible - upon Egypt and pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The 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 it is the case today ..." (Deuteronomy 6.21-24)

The parent/teacher becomes a theologian of sorts and passes on a few essential theological points to the listener. First, the meaning of the commandments is that God so loved Israel he became her Redeemer.  That is Yahweh took on the gods of Egypt and Pharaoh himself and defeated them for the sake of delivering Israel from slavery. Beloved child if you fail to see the grace of salvation in the torah, then we have failed to grasp the torah. There is not a command in the Law of Moses that exists for the sake of the command.  Paul would put it like this "the goal of the command is love" (1 Tim 1.5).   Second, God's commands testify to the faithfulness of Yahweh in keeping his oath to the Patriarchs. The stipulations are evidence that God has entered into his covenant with the children of Abraham as he promised.  Sinai is nothing short of God fulfilling the promise made to the Patriarchs. The commands again remind us of the promise keeping faithful to the covenant God.  Third, the commands remind us that God has made us his own at Horeb. Beloved daughter/son, we are people of the Story: People of redemption, people of election, people of adoption and this is what the torah means.

Deuteronomy reminds us in a powerful way that commands are not simply about commands. The torah of God points us to the Story, the Great Story of salvation by God's grace. Moses teaches us that the story provides meaning and motive for following God.

As NT Christians this Mosiac truth is still valid. What is the meaning of our bizarre rituals and antique lifestyle? Is it not that God rescued us by his own hand? Baptism is not about baptism. Nor is baptism even about remission of sins. Is not the act of baptism about the Story? Baptism tells the story of God's salvation. The Lord's Supper is not about bread and wine is it. Rather the bread and wine are vehicles to tell the story of God's Great Story of redemption. In both baptism and Lord's Supper we, like Israel of old, are invited to "remember" ... not the command but what God has done. Remembering in Hebrew is not simply a total recall of factoids. Remembering in Hebrew is more like what we call virtual reality ... as I follow God's commands my life is absorbed in the Great Story of grace.

When asked why do we keep God's commands, Moses' answer was not "because God said so." Nor did he reply in a number of ways we are tempted to answer. Why do we keep the torah? What does the Bible mean? Moses' reply is that we do this because we are People of the Great Story of Grace. If we have the story ingrained in our soul how can we but love his torah?

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Deuteronomy: Gospel of Love #2

In our book, Kingdom Come, there is a chapter on "Listening to God" through Scripture. Scripture is a gift from God and we encourage more communal reading of the text. Putting these words into practice I read long sections of Scripture especially on Sunday nights. Not long ago Deuteronomy was the focus of our communal reading. I chose to read all the passages in the book that has the word "love" (ahab). Such an exercise can be paradigm shifting. Today I am going to share a sampling of Scripture and highlight the terms love and heart so crucial to understanding the Torah. As mentioned in our previous post there are three centers of gravity in Deuteronomy ... we may wan to call them X, Y, & Z axises around which all coordinated. Or another figure they are the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system and this may be a better analogy because the axises are not equal they are just the controlling factors in the thought of the book. They are the Great Story (i.e. Sun) which is the story of God's incredible love and grace in redeeming Israel from slavery, this is the center of gravity around which everything orbits.  The Great Commandment (i.e. Jupiter) is the response to the Great Story, love God with our entire being for what he has done. The Great Society (i.e. Saturn) is also a response to the Great Story and is love in action for those around us.

Deut 4.32-40 ... Intertwines the Great Story and our Response or the Great Command

"Ask now about the former days, long before your time ... Has anything so great as this [i.e. the Exodus] ever happened, or anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God ... Has any other god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another ... by a mighty hand and outstretched arm ... You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God ... Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendents ... Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God"

The Shema, Deut 6.4f, 10, 12, 20ff: The Great Commandment is rooted in the Great Story. The meaning of the command of God is simply grace and redemption. We love him because he rescued us ...

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one. Love the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength ... When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore ... be careful not to forget that the LORD brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery ... In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" tell him "We were slaves of Pharoah in Egypt, but Yahweh brought us out with a mighty hand ..."

Deut 7.7-9: The Gospel of God's Love ... the Ground of Israel's standing with Yahweh

"The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD love you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you ... know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keep his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments ..."

For the moment I pass over the rich passage in 9.4-6 to 10.12-22. This is another passage that functions like 6.4ff. It goes to the root issue: What does God require? The passage ties the Great Commandment into the Great Story for building the Great Society. Watch how it unfolds:

"And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul ...

To the LORD belong the heavens, even the highest heavens ... Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you ... Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the LORD your God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt ... He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you all those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky."

Israel is to love God who redeemed them from the indiginity of slavery. God demands that his people be a blessing to other aliens because of his love toward them ... that is the Great Society. Israel transfroms the life of aliens.

Because 10.16 uses the startling imperative that Israel is to "circumcise your hearts" I bring into the picture the even more amazing promise of Yahweh in 30.6

"The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your decsendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul and live ..."

Moses in Deuteronomy calls Israel to be a people who are defined by the Great Story. Because Yahweh has performed mighty acts in history that have never before been done, nor have been done since, Israel is to respond with wholehearted love and devotion to the Redeemer (the Great Command). But love towards God in the book of Deuteronomy always finds expression in loving neighbor, loving the alien, the helpless, the slave and even God's creation ... I call this the Great Society (which is another way of saying the second great commandment).

The Torah is full of God's compassion and grace. How could it be otherwise if it is a revelation of the glory of God? We need to be reading and meditating so we can understand what God desires. Deuteronomy is a good place to begin.

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life ..." (30.19-20a)

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Deuteronomy: Gospel of Love #1

Deuteronomy is one of the greatest books in Scripture. While such a statement would hardly raise an eyebrow in the field of Hebrew Bible studies, it is often accompanied with shock and disbelief with Christians and their preachers. The influence of Deuteronomy is acknowledged by all biblical scholars on the rest of the Bible.

The section of Scripture that runs from Joshua through 2 Kings (minus Ruth) is a single work of history dating to the time of the Exile that is called the Deuteronomistic History (DtH) because its theological approach to history is rooted in Deuteronomy. A number of the prophets, especially Jeremiah, is shaped by this great book of the Bible. Outside the canonical Hebrew Scripture the influence of Deuteronomy is acknowledged in such apocryphal books as Judith, Tobit, and most of the Maccabean literature.

The importance of Deuteronomy for the owners of the Dead Sea Scrolls is evident. The thirty-three copies, or portions, of Deuteronomy found at Qumran is exceeded only by Psalms (40, some of which are mixtures). By comparison there are 15 for Genesis, 15 for Exodus, 18 for Isaiah, 2 for Proverbs, 1 for Ezra-Nehemiah and 0 for Esther. Similar kinds of statistics are true for the New Testament itself. Only Psalms and Isaiah are quoted more in the NT than Deuteronomy (according the UBS Greek NT 4th Revised and Corrected edition the numbers are Ps, 79x; Isa., 65x; Deut., 50x). Indeed all three of Jesus' scriptural quotations while in the desert doing battle with Satan come from Deuteronomy.

Yet the experience of ancient biblical writers and the Essenes is most often not paralleled by many Christians who have been influenced by the Greeks and have thought less of Deuteronomy (scholarship underwent a "conversion" of sorts about a century ago). The name "Deuteronomy" comes from a mistranslation in the Septuagint of 17.18 "second giving of the law". The Hebrew title is 'elleh haddebarim or "these are the words." When I was an undergrad student I learned nothing about Deuteronomy, except that it was the "second giving of the law." In "Old Testament" survey we did not spend even five minutes on the book. This unfortunately is not a unique happening. It was not until graduate school that I learned just how fundamentally wrong headed my perspective was and how central Deuteronomy has been for "Old Testament" studies for a century or more.

Deuteronomy is anything but a mere second giving of the law. Deuteronomy is theological hermeneutics on a grand scale. The person of Moses does in the guise of three speeches takes the entire Torah and casts Israel's relationship with Yahweh into something everyone can grasp: a Covenant of Love. There are three, unequal, gravitational centers to Deuteronomy (they are the black holes that control everything). Everything revolves around these three ... or perhaps just one. Perhaps we could think of these gravitational centers as the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar System. They are:

1) The Great Story of God's Mighty Acts (the Exodus, the grace of liberation from Egypt)

2) The Great Commandment (the response of love to Yahweh's Mighty Acts)

3) The Great Society (the redeemed community becomes the kingdom of God on earth)

Every line in the book of Deuteronomy falls into an orbit around one of these centers, including the command about boiling a kid in its mother's milk.

I began this post with a few stats and I will end with some that are amazing. The word "love" is the controlling word in Deuteronomy occuring at least 21x (for the sake of comparison "love" occurs in the NIV of the Gospel of John 27x, Acts 0x and Romans 14x); "heart" occurs another 25x; the cognates "joy" or "rejoice" occur another dozen times (always in the context of worship).

In our next installment I will list a few passages from Deuteronomy that simply torpedo that old saw that affirms the Torah is external and "fleshy" ... rather Deuteronomy is in fact Moses' Gospel of Love: God's Love for Israel, Our Love for Yahweh, and our love for our neighbor.


Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
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See Posts in this series:
Deuteronomy: Gospel of Love #2http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
People of the Great Story: Deut 6.20-25
Deuteronomy: What Does it Mean to Love God?
The Gift of Life: Deut 30.11-19

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Newsboys - He Reigns

Newsboys - He Reigns

This is still one of my all time favorite songs: "religious" or "secular." The diversity of God's Family is beautify. That we can stand shoulder to shoulder and praise his name. That we are even allowed to do it still blows my mind. Join the praise.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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Who Is Sound? A Thought from 1916

Who Is Sound? A Thought from 1916

In 1916, J. N. Armstrong was, among other things, editor of the Gospel Herald. Armstrong had consciously decided to follow the example he had witnessed in both Lipscomb and Harding of allowing open and free discussions in a brotherly manner. From time to time he felt the need to call the brotherhood back to these principles of non-sectarian Christianity.

In 1916 he asked a question as the title to an article: "Who is Sound?" Even in 1916 the term "sound" was a loaded, as well as a coded, word. To be labeled as "unsound" was a practical death sentence on a preacher. Armstrong though believed the way that term was understood was, perhaps, off. One can be faithful he argues while still having differences.

"If Christians are allowed to keep their individualities and permitted to make individual effort and progress in Christian growth, there must be, there will always be, differences among growing and developing children of God."

Looking back to his younger years he notes that some sort of change in the atmosphere has taken place.

"When I was a boy, the disciples were not alarmed by it [i.e. differences]. Bro. Jones does not agree with Bro. Smith, but nobody was alarmed by it. When I entered the Nashville Bible School at Nashville, it was well understood that that Bro. Sewell and Dr. Brents differed on the appointment of elders, on the millennium, and on other questions like them. So it was understood respecting Brethren Lipscomb and Harding, Taylor and Lipscomb and so forth. Each freely discussed his side, or phase, of the controverted point. That anyboyd would consider one 'unsound,' 'disloyal,' or unworthy of the most hearty fellowship never entered one's mind."

With that memory of the freedom and fellowship of the NBS, Armstrong issues this plea

"May I entreat you and your goodness of soul not to think of one of your faithful brethren's being 'unsound' because of his position on any of the differences now among us. The very thought is wicked. Let these differences be discussed fully, freely, and brotherly among us."

Armstrong continues on with a warning that those who refused to follow such a course of action are "factious men." Indeed, Armstrong senses that the real culprite might just be the rise of sectarian spirit within the church.

"I want to beg the readers of this paper to stand for this better ground. Don't tolerate and allow to grow around you the sentiment that would measure soundness by this intolerant, sectarian spirit. The progress of our beloved people and of that brotherly spirit so necessary to the peace of this people will not allow that divisive spirit . . . Let him not be afraid to make known his convictions lest he be called unsound; let us be real brethren, faithful brethren, loyal to one another, in spite of these differences."

Robert Henry Boll thought enough of this article from Gospel Herald to reprint it in full in Word and Work 10 (August 1916), 344.

The gracious, biblical, non-sectarian spirit revealed in this article is the kind I pray and long for in our fellowship today. This vision is what John Mark Hicks and I attempted to communicate in ch. 10 of Kingdom Come. It was likely a minority view in 1916 but it is my prayer that it will be the majority in 2006.

Ut omnes unum sint (John 17.21, Vulgate) ... "that they may all be one." Live the Prayer!!!

Bobby Valentine

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