Contemplative Bible Reading

Deuteronomy 6:20, 24 (New Living Translation)

20 “In the future your children will ask you, ‘What is the meaning of these laws, decrees, and regulations that the Lord our God has commanded us to obey?’ … 24 And the Lord our God commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear him so he can continue to bless us and preserve our lives, as he has done to this day.

I like the words used in the New Living Translation in verse 24.

What is the meaning of all these laws given to the people in the Old Testament (and there were many laws)? Why did the Lord Jehovah YHWH give all these laws?

So the Lord can continue to bless us. Oh, the laws were a route to blessings. The laws were a reason for blessings.

In the New Testament, why does Jesus advise against divorce? Why does Jesus implore us to love one another? Why does Jesus suggest all the things He suggests? The same reason as given here. God wants us to be blessed, to be happy, to enjoy what He has created.

I suppose that is too simplistic for some of us. I suppose it is too simplistic for most of us some of the time. Sometimes we learn slowly.

Luke 3:8  (New Living Translation)

Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.

In this verse, John the Baptizer is chastising some Jews. At this time, Jews valued their ancestry. In some cases—like this one—they valued their ancestry too much.

These Jews didn’t live their religion as they should have (sound vaguely familiar to many Christians today?). Instead, they proclaimed, “I’m related to Abraham. Ha! Top that.”

John corrects them with harsh words.

That means nothing!

Well, that pretty much concludes the matter. Your ancestry is nothing. The way you live is everything.

Today, we don’t brag on who our ancestor from a thousand years ago was. We do, however, proclaim who we know, where we live, where we go to church, and all sorts of associations and variations of:

I’m with them.

How about this one?

Keep our mouth shut and let people see how we live.

Luke 3:5 (New Living Translation)

The valleys will be filled,
and the mountains and hills made level.
The curves will be straightened,
and the rough places made smooth.

These verses from Luke’s Gospel are about John the Baptizer. The words are quoted from the prophet Isaiah describing how John would prepare the way for Jesus.

This verse hit me hard. Several years ago, I was caught on the road in a snowstorm. I was in Virginia, where there are hills and valleys and (small) mountains. It is difficult to drive on a snow covered road that is going up a hill.

I recall vividly driving on Interstate 81 all alone. There were no other vehicles on a stretch of road that traversed about 20 miles. As I drove up each hill, I prayed. I prayed that the van would make it to the top and not slide back down to the bottom uncontrollably. We made it.

Good roads, good cars, all those conveniences make us forget how much an obstacle hills and valleys present. We lose the appreciation for how Isaiah described the work of John.

Leviticus 19:31 (New Living Translation)

Do not defile yourselves by turning to mediums or to those who consult the spirits of the dead. I am the Lord your God.

By this verse, I infer that there were people who could consult the spirits of the dead. I am glad that in our (post or whatever adjective we use)modern world, we don’t have this…ooops. Look on Google. We have lots of people who consult the dead advertising in our version of the Yellow Pages.

“But those are just a bunch of nuts and wackos,” so we say.

If they are nut-jobs, why would God tell us not to go to them? I don’t find anything in the Bible after this verse that explains how consulting the spirits of the dead stopped at any point in history. I infer that this still happens.

So what am I to do? (1) Follow the Old Testament admonishment. (2) Seek out these mediums and share the good news of Jesus the Messiah.

Deuteronomy 4:34 (New Living Translation)

Has any other god dared to take a nation for himself out of another nation by means of trials, miraculous signs, wonders, war, a strong hand, a powerful arm, and terrifying acts? Yet that is what the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, right before your eyes.

Jehovah is talking to His people. The LORD reminds them of of what He did for them in bringing them out of Egypt.

I’ve been attending church all my life. I’ve been reading the Bible all my life. So much of the Bible can become, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. So what?”

Stop and think. God retrieved a nation that was enslaved by another nation. Oh, by the way, that had never happened before and hasn’t happened since. And, that happened right before their eyes, and the didn’t realize it.

And then, a few centuries later, God came to earth as a human and sacrificed himself to wipe away by filth—another unprecedented rescue. If I will only open my eyes, as these things happen right before my eyes, I will see God’s unprecedented rescue everyday of my life.

Thanks be to God, and God, please help me see what is right before me.

Deuteronomy 2:14-15 (New Living Translation)

14 “Thirty-eight years passed from the time we first left Kadesh-barnea until we finally crossed the Zered Brook! By then, all the men old enough to fight in battle had died in the wilderness, as the Lord had vowed would happen. 15 The Lord struck them down until they had all been eliminated from the community.

These verses describe the situation as the Israelites are about to cross into the promised land. They had finished the 40 years of wandering in the desert. A little math and some other passages tell us that some of the men old enough to fight were now 88 years old.

These 88-year-old men died of, well, unnatural causes. The LORD killed them. That was definitely not  natural cause.

This, and other passages, tell us about an unnatural period of 40 years. The people lived in the desert in tents. They ate manna from the LORD, their sandals did not wear out, and men age 88 were capable of fighting in battle.

How do you explain all that? I can’t. These things are far beyond what the natural sciences tell us about human life and the degradation of the physical world.

Something unnatural, a.k.a., spiritual was at work.

Numbers 22:4-8 (New Living Translation)

⁴ The king of Moab said to the elders of Midian, “This mob will devour everything in sight, like an ox devours grass in the field!”

So Balak, king of Moab, ⁵ sent messengers to call Balaam son of Beor, who was living in his native land of Pethornear the Euphrates River. His message said:

“Look, a vast horde of people has arrived from Egypt. They cover the face of the earth and are threatening me. ⁶ Please come and curse these people for me because they are too powerful for me. Then perhaps I will be able to conquer them and drive them from the land. I know that blessings fall on any people you bless, and curses fall on people you curse.”

⁷ Balak’s messengers, who were elders of Moab and Midian, set out with money to pay Balaam to place a curse upon Israel.They went to Balaam and delivered Balak’s message to him. ⁸ “Stay here overnight,” Balaam said. “In the morning I will tell you whatever the Lord directs me to say.” So the officials from Moab stayed there with Balaam.

Balaam was a man who seemed to have a connection with the spiritual world. Balak, king of Moab, wanted such a spiritual person to curse God’s people—the Israelites. I guess in those days you wouldn’t hire just some plain old butcher, baker, or candlestick maker to curse someone. You hired a special spiritual person.

Anyways, Balak sends some of his boys to talk Balaam into coming to Moab to curse the Israelites. Balaam lived far to the East near the Euphrates River. Look at a map and you will see that Balaam lived F A R to the East.

Two things: (1) Balak had a lot of faith in Balaam’s power to curse because he sent his boys a long way on an expensive and time-consuming journey to find Balaam.

(2) Balaam, even as far away as he lived, had heard about Jehovah (the English translation of YHWH). People far and wide had heard about the God of the Israelites. Note, the Israelites were a homeless, wandering bunch of no-bodies. Still, their God—Jehovah—was known far and wide for His power. Jehovah had freed a million or more slaves from the mighty nation of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 1:16-17  (New Living Translation)

16 “At that time I instructed the judges, ‘You must hear the cases of your fellow Israelites and the foreigners living among you. Be perfectly fair in your decisions 17 and impartial in your judgments. Hear the cases of those who are poor as well as those who are rich. Don’t be afraid of anyone’s anger, for the decision you make is God’s decision. Bring me any cases that are too difficult for you, and I will handle them.’

Moses is charging the judges he has appointed. He reminds them that God is making the decision through them. Hence, they should not fear those who become angry when they pronounce a judgement.

Easy advice for Moses to give. I mean, he won’t be the guy standing in the local town square when the majority of the town starts literally gathering stones to express their displeasure with God’s decision delivered by the local judge. And the local judge might be hurriedly hopping on a donkey to leave town.

Who wants that job? You deliver what is often bad news to locals with a lot of local power?

Still, this is what Moses asks; this is the duty of a judge. The judge delivered God’s decision and faced the short-term, short-distance ire of his neighbors. In time and space, those who rebelled would be punished. The local judge might be dead when punishment was delivered, but the local judge was righteous.

As a Christian, I have a sense of the long-term justice of God. And I also have a sense of the short-term injustice of my fellow man. God asks me to do what Moses asked the Old Testament judges to do. Follow God, be righteous, love my fellow man, and endure without fear the hatred of some people.

This isn’t an easy job, but God provides, and He asked His son to do so much more.

Numbers 16:12-14 (New Living Translation)

¹² Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, but they replied, “We refuse to come before you! ¹³ Isn’t it enough that you brought us out of Egypt, a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us here in this wilderness, and that you now treat us like your subjects? ¹⁴ What’s more, you haven’t brought us into another land flowing with milk and honey. You haven’t given us a new homeland with fields and vineyards. Are you trying to fool these men? We will not come.”

Yes, Egypt. The people described Egypt as a land flowing with milk and honey. What happened to all that stuff about the people crying in the pain an agony of slavery? Things sure changed in a hurry. Now Egypt was flowing with milk and honey and lollipop trees and all that goodness.

Us today? Gosh I was miserable then, but now I am happy. That is until I am miserable in my new circumstance and then yesterday seems so sweet and why oh why did God put me in this miserable place with these miserable people? How does God tolerate us? I am thankful that He does.

Leviticus 7:21 (New Living Translation)

If you touch anything that is unclean (whether it is human defilement or an unclean animal or any other unclean, detestable thing) and then eat meat from a peace offering presented to the Lord, you will be cut off from the community.

Ever been cut off from a church? No big deal, there are lots of churches. Just look in the Yellow Pages or on your Google machine.

Not so in the Old Testament. Always try to remember that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, the Jews, the Hebrews, were one big family. They were all related and they could easily trace their common ancestors (“Oh, you are my 13th cousin!”). To be cut off would mean severing all ties to all your blood relatives.

The above verse is just one of many that give an offense that is punishable by being cut off from your relatives. They Jews took this seriously, well, at least some of them did. Many had their lapses in memory and judgement.

Today? Yes, there are deeds we can do that will cause a community of believers to cut us off from the community. The community will, at least I hope will, allow us back if we confess and repent of the deeds. I know God will accept us back into communion with Him if we confess and repent. Such is the limitless Grace of God. Such is the difference between the old and new covenants. Such is just one part of the many blessings we enjoy in the Christ, the one appointed to redeem us all from our sins.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.