Spirital Food First (Deuteronomy 8.3-8.5)

Deuteronomy 8.3-8.5

Context: ² Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.)

 ³ He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

 ⁴ Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

 ⁵ Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

 (Deu 8:1-5 NIV)

God humbled the Israelites

“Humbled”

Root: “ah-nah”) is a word seen all over the Old Testament.  This is an incredibly common word, but it’s variety of meanings come from the particular verb stem used – which would be clear in context.  In this context of Deuteronomy 8.3, it means to afflict with the purpose of discipline, with God as the divine orchestrator.  (Thus the disciple seen in verse 5)

“Causing you to hunger”

(Root: “Rah-Av”) here clearly conveys the idea of God is the one behind the scenes orchestrating the hunger of the Israelites.  He did this by bringing them out of Egypt, into a desert with no food (Not to talking about every famine, but here in Deuteronomy he did for a specific reason)

“Feeding you”

(Root: “uh-call”)  Here, this is the same sense of force seen in God making the Israelites be hungry!  The Above when he causes them to hunger, he divinely orchestrated their wandering around severely hungry.  Here, he divinely provides food from heaven, and with a strong sense of causation behind it.  Manna does not magically appear, but God divinely makes it appear and they are forced to eat it because God has a lesson to teach them.

[Man will live by] every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Wandering around in the desert, thirsty, hungry, and no food in sight – God has a purpose.  He intensely desires for the Israelites to know that merely eating food is not enough to live on.  Man was created by God to long for and be sustained by spiritual food first, physical food second.

(Side-ramble: “word” is not included here, but implied.  What came forth from the mouth of God?  Verbal words.  What was written on stone tablets?  Written words.  Thus, this supports the theological truth that every single word of scripture is inspired by God, and if inspired, useful for teaching, preaching, etc)

Spiritual Food First

God delivered the Israelites from slavery, then divinely orchestrated suffering in their lives to discipline them and teach them that spiritual food is vastly more important than physical food. 

I have low blood sugar, so I am often tempted to think quite carefully and worry abundantly about what I eat, when I eat, how much I eat, and it is very difficult at times.  However, I have noticed that when I seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33) that things go much better.  The kingdom of God is my focus, and food and blood sugar problems seem to resolve themselves almost on their own.  I find with the Lord as my focus, I have more wisdom about how to handle the things of this life. 

When we in this life, in addition to reading the book of Job, we should read Deuteronomy along with Hebrews 12.  While God and suffering is a vast topic with many, many books written about it, here specifically God has a specific purpose:

“Suffering had a purpose – to teach the Israelites spiritual food is more important than physical food, and spiritual clothes are more important than physical clothes.”

Context of the passage?  Obedience.

8.1 –       “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today…”

8.2-5      –              “Your suffering had a purpose”

8.6 –       “Observe the commands of the Lord your God…”

Actions and Heart conditions (Deuteronomy 7.23-26)

Deuteronomy 7.23-26

Actions and Heart conditions

The Lord, who faithfully bought the Israelites out of Egypt, is about to give them the Promised Land.  There are other nations, kings and armies living there – but God has promised that land to the Israelites. 

²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God.

 ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

 (Deu 7:25-26 NIV)

There is a pattern in these verses that shows actions and heart conditions quite clearly.  Moses is clearly concerned about both, because actions and heart conditions are intertwined.

·         ²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire.

§  Do not covet the silver and gold on them,

·         and do not take it for yourselves,

§  or you will be ensnared by it

·          ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your                 house

§  Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

As they enter the Promised Land, there are other nations with other gods, and false idols representing their gods.  The true God has demanded they be utterly destroyed.

Action:  Burn the idols. 

Heart Condition:  Temptation to not burn everything.

The first action and heart condition is the Israelites are to burn these false idols in fire.  While they are burning, or perhaps as they are carrying these idols to burn them, they will be tempted to sin.  They will be tempted to want to take the silver, as well as the shiny gold all over these false idols that are in their hands on the way toward destruction. 

Action:  Secretly taking gold and silver off the idols

Heart Condition:  It will ensnare you

The second major action prohibited is moving past temptation to merely not destroy the idols.  The temptation was to not burn everything, but now it has moved toward keeping the extraordinarily expensive silver, gold, etc.  The outer action has an inner heart condition that will result – the Israelites will be ensnared by their sin.  One necklace, one solid gold ring, and nobody notices.  Two, three, a stash, digging a hole to store more and more – this will never be enough, and will be a death-trap of sin for the Israelites.

Action:  Do not bring a detestable thing into your house       

Heart Condition:  Secretive about sin

The action is not to bring anything you have taken (already a sin) into your house (deeper sin).  It is bringing sin directly into the household where Israelites live, eat, and secretly keep the silver and gold they were supposed to burn in fire.  A divided heart comes when we sin then keep it secret in the closet, holding on to it tightly.  They brought it into their house because they need more control over their sin.  Having a physical representation in a closet somewhere of the idol God told them to completely burn, means that when they worship the true God they will have a divided heart. 

What should believers do with sins they have brought into their household?  “Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction” means it might be a good idea to stop controlling rebellion against God, and do what He said in the first place.   Actions reflect heart conditions.  Heart conditions lead to actions.

God's prosperity (Deuteronomy 7.22)

Deuteronomy 7.22

Prosperity, Little by Little

The Lord, who faithfully bought the Israelites out of Egypt, is about to give them the Promised Land.  There are other nations, kings and armies living there – but God has promised that land to the Israelites. 

²² The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. (Deu 7:22 NIV)

“Little by little” here is so easily overlooked, yet so significant to the text and ultimately to our lives today.  God, in his infinite wisdom, did not merely give Israel nuclear warheads and tell them to go conquer easily, quickly, and effortlessly.  He could have, or something similar to immediately give endless blessings to his people.

Rather, God chose to give the promised land “little by little” emphasizing a greater purpose than merely possessing God’s promises.  The part about wild animals multiplying around them means if it was all at once, they would not have the ability to wisely use the Promise Land and be fruitful in it. 

Much like our lives today, God does not give us endless bountiful blessings, because often we show too clearly we can’t be trusted with what we already have, much less ten times as much.  Unlike prosperity theology that demands much instantly, God’s prosperity gives blessings as we grow and can handle them.  Indeed, it is a difficult thing to turn away from prosperity we long for, and be satisfied with what God has already provided.  Rather than spending our time seeking what we do not have, we should probably focus on getting wisdom to be faithful with what we already have.   It should be noted that God doesn’t condemn the Israelites for this.  Rather, it is a warning/explanation that God is less concerned with endlessly giving us things we don’t need and can’t handle, and more concerned with wisdom and taking care of his blessings He has given. 

What do holy people do?

What do holy people do?

This is my first of (hopefully) many Deuteronomy posts.  My goal is to read through the entire book of Deuteronomy in Hebrew by the end of the summer.  I’ve been reading a little less than half a chapter a day, give or take.

Deuteronomy 7.5 is where I left off yesterday.  It gives a response God’s people are expected to do, then gives a good reason why God demands such a strong action.  The context is Moses standing on the edge of the promised land, repeating all the torah God had given to him and the Israelites during their wanderings.  He emphasizes over and over, and over and over, the Israelites are to obey the commands God has put before them when they go into the promised land.  However, he also realizes they won’t entirely do this, even though they nod their heads in agreement.

Here, in 7.5 there is a command to drive out all the nations in the promised land they are about to cross over into.  They are to not make any treaties, and they are to show no mercy (2).  They are not to intermarry, because that will turn their sons away from the Lord, and God will quickly destroy them.

What they are to do, though, is pretty clear in verse 5.  They are commanded to smash down altars to false gods, smash sacred stones, cut down their poles carrying images of the goddess asherah, and they are to burn their idols with fire.

Why?  Because they are a holy people to the Lord, who God chose because he wanted to. 

God expects holy people to not do unholy things. 

God’s people are called to follow him and his commands faithfully.  Israelites had a tendency of justifying their actions, of serving both the true God and false gods at the same time, of keeping around idols up in the mountains to be able to go to every so often.  They knew God commanded destruction of those things, yet they were so appealing.  It was a visible sign of something to cling to, and the holiness of the invisible God was not enough for them.

God expects holy people to follow his commands

If they did intermarried beautiful, attractive women in the land despite being clearly told not to, God was also clear that the Lord’s anger would burn against them.

Having the Almighty God, Creator of the Universe angry at you sounds quite unappealing.  But the phrasing here, of “burn with anger” intensifies it even more so.  Being an unmarried single man, I have not yet fully experienced a wife burning with anger, but can only imagine that God himself burning with anger against me would be a wretched anger unlike any other.  Here, Moses is saying God will be intensely angry with the Israelites he chose, called, redeemed, delivered from Egypt, and uses to declare his glory –if they are so foolish as to spit in his face and adamantly turn against him.

The next passage, 7.7-11, has quite a bit of theological underlyings, of God’s faithfulness regardless of our faithfulness, and of his redemption, and the covenantal love of God.  I’ll try to get a post up on that fairly soon. 

Prayer in the book of Colossians

Prayer in the book of Colossians

There are numerous themes and concepts throughout Colossians, though the theme of prayer is often a neglected aspect of studying this book.   The theme of prayer in Colossians is dominant throughout, forming the foundation for countless sermons on how, why, and even what to pray for. 

The book of Colossians begins and ends with greetings to fellow believers.  After the introduction, Paul begins by describing his prayers for the Colossians – they always include thanksgiving to God when Paul and Timothy pray for them (1:3). 

Toward the end of the book in chapter 4, Paul clearly describes how the Colossians should pray, as well as what for (4:2).  Two things should be dominant in the way they pray – they should be watchful, and they should be thankful.  Additionally, Paul gives them specific things to pray for.  He requests they pray for him and Timothy so that wide doors would be open for proclaiming the gospel, and that Paul is faithful to preach clearly.  After listing his prayer requests, Paul strongly encourages the Colossians to have wisdom in the way they talk with those outside the Church (4:5-6).

Near the very end of the book, Paul gives a clear example of someone who is watchful in prayer, as he suggested above to the Colossians.  Epaphras (4:12) is a servant of Christ who is described as always wrestling in prayer.  His prayers center around the Colossians, that they would stand firm in the will of God.  He diligently wrestles in prayer that they will be mature and fully assured (4:12).  Paul develops the personal character of Epaphras in the next verse.  It shows he is not some endless prayer warrior spending 20 hours a day weeping before an altar, but rather, in addition to wrestling in prayer he is working hard for the Colossians as well as two other churches.  (4:13).  Paul is ambiguous as to what “working hard” means, but leaves no doubt that Epaphras typifies what many churches so desperately need.

Random Thoughts and Applications

Colossians gives simple mandates and then examples of how, why, and what to pray for.  In any Bible study or sermon on prayer, if it is merely and intellectual call toward more theoretical prayer, our teaching or preaching has failed.  We must not merely tell people they need to pray more, because everyone already knows that.  Instead, we must urge believers to be like Epaphras, to be a diligent wrestling prayer warrior who also works hard.  Prayer must not center around our individual church, but incorporate other churches as Epaphras did. 

It seems that most Americans already have a prayer list, so teaching should not focus on what to pray for at first.  Rather, it should focus on who we pray to, and how to pray.  If we pray with thankful hearts as we are watchful, what we pray for will be shaped out of how we pray.  With a thankful heart, there is no need to pray for more stacks of money, video games, etc., because a thankful heart is a content heart.  With a thankful heart there’s no need to pray for the things of this world, because God has already provided more than enough.

A watchful heart is aware that in church others are watching.  A devoted heart that is watchful knows that only a few things ultimately matter in this life.  When God calls to pray, they stop what they are doing and they pray.  When God is silent and not calling to pray, they still pray.   A watchful devoted prayerful heart knows the enemy is out there, but is more concerned about the Lord than the already-defeated enemy.

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