Robbing God

“But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.” – Malachi 3:8-10

I can think of people in my life—Dave would be among them—who have the gift of generosity. Who just as easily give away money as keep it. But that is something I’ve historically struggled with. It’s ugly to admit, but I tend to feel entitled to what I earn. A while back, I wrote a piece to myself entitled, “Why does God own everything?” and listed four main reasons: because he created it (“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,” Psalm 24:1-2). Because he can take it away at any time (“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” Job 1:21). Because we can’t take it with us after we die (“For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world,” 1 Timothy 6:7). And because he enables me to earn what I do. It is only by his grace that I was born a woman in the late 1900’s and not the late 1800’s; that I had a supportive family and educational opportunities; and so on. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 says, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” 

 

God owns everything, and this should change how I live. It does not negate the need for financial wisdom and prudence, but it frees me from anxiety and the desire to control money as a primary means of security. It shoots down my pride. It should lead to greater contentment, freedom from the need to compare what I have with others, and an even greater ability to materially enjoy what I do have. And it should lead me to give willingly, because what I have is not mine but God’s. He means it when he says we rob him when we keep for ourselves what should be accounted as his.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected… the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on his accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between himself and God. Where our treasure is, there is our heart, our security, our consolation, and our God.” My old pastor put it more succinctly: “Money is like manure: if you spread it around, it helps things grow. If you hoard it all in one big pile, it stinks.” Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of these not-so-self-evident truths.

Mystery Unveiled

“Not to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed…” – Romans 16:25-26

I was out this morning in the fog that so often blankets this part of the world that time of day, out in a mountain forest. There was a moment when the fog lifted, and crystal-clear I could see the redwoods looming around me. “The redwoods,” wrote Steinbeck, “once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”

The fog lifted to show me what had been there all along: what I had sensed but not been able to trace in detail, and it was something entirely beyond myself and my time. When Paul talks about mystery and revelation, it reminds me of N.T. Wright’s description of what the temple meant to a first-century Jew: “The Temple in Jerusalem was not just a big church building at one corner of the city; in Jewish cosmology it was the place where heaven and earth actually overlapped and interlocked… This is not about something ‘up in the sky’ – it is like a curtain being pulled back in the room where you sit.”

For some reason, we do tend to think of God as up in the sky somewhere, but Paul speaks to a first-century Jew who would have been looking for Him here on earth. The concept of God showing up like the unveiling of a secret right here in our space is a bit radical and unsettling. He is not unobtainable or ethereal; he is not an invention. He existed before my ability to see him, he is right here next to me and now within me, and he is as solid as the trees rising slow and strong around me, whose trunks I can touch, even if I can’t quite put the feeling they give me into words. “I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers,” writes Paul (Romans 11:25). Let us open our eyes to it, to this God who is “very near you… in your mouth and in your heart” (Deuteronomy 30:14).

The Medium Of Endor

“Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.” – 1 Samuel 28:15

This is certainly a strange passage. Saul, afraid of the Philistines, reaches a new low: unable to hear from God by other means, he consults a medium, breaking a law that he himself had set (28:3) and which directly violated the law of God (Deuteronomy 18:9-11). He goes to the trouble of disguising himself and traveling past the Philistine camp to reach Endor, and stranger yet, Samuel appears from the dead. Most commentators believe this truly is Samuel; it is unclear whether he is summoned by God or by necromancy or how much the medium knows. 

But what is most striking to me about this episode is how clearly it fulfills words Samuel spoke to Saul the last day Saul saw him alive: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Divination is abhorrent to God because it is idolatry, a rejection of God’s word in seeking supernatural guidance elsewhere. The fact that Saul resorts to such means shows us something: he is desperate to know the future. He is desperate to know what will happen. He wants to be told what he should do, but he doesn’t really have a heart of obedience. He disobeys in the worst ways just to ask.

How many of us have said, “I just want to know God’s will! I just want to know what God wants me to do. If he would just tell me, that’s all it would take.” We ask because we want a God we can “summon” for information. We are not asking for wisdom, really: we are asking for knowledge, a specific kind of knowledge about the future. We want outward data, but God cares more about inward direction. We listen for future answers, but God desires the kind of listening that is lived out in present obedience. It is that kind of obedience that changes who we are, and God ultimately cares more about who we are than just what we do. What good is it knowing which job to pick if you’re still idolizing it? Which person to marry if you’re still selfish? If God told us what he wanted, would we really do it? Has not God already told us what his will is for us, all throughout the Bible, implicitly and in many places, explicitly? 

The irony is that Saul goes to desperate, criminal measures only to hear from Samuel the same thing he’s heard in the past. There’s little new information offered, and what is new is bad. “Sheol” means “the asking place,” and “Saul” means “the asked for one”: in a grim play on words, we learn the asking place will now receive the asked-for one. Knowledge without obedience has only led Saul to death. Chronologically, this story is out of order: it is sandwiched prematurely into the story of David as he lives with the Philistines (27:1-28:2 on one side, 28:3-25 on the other), which brings out interesting comparisons. Both David and Saul are outside of the Israelite camp, but while the medium at Endor asks Saul, “why have you deceived me?” the prince of Gath tells David, “I know that you are as blameless in my sight as an angel of God” (29:9). We see from these stories that true future life and victory comes when we are willing to search out any rebellion or presumption in our hearts, and to live out a listening obedience in the present. 

From Thirst To Rivers

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” – John 7:37-39

During the Festival of Booths (Deuteronomy 16:13, Numbers 29:12), there was a ceremony of water-pouring that, though never recorded in the Bible, is well-documented historically: at dawn on the first seven days of the festival, a priest would lead a procession down to the pool of Siloam, where a golden pitcher was filled with water. The procession returned to the temple as the morning sacrifice was being offered, and the water was poured out at the altar as the temple choir began to sing the Great Hallel (Psalms 113-118). The ceremony was not enacted on the eighth day. It is among a crowded throng of thirsty pilgrims, after enactment of God’s past provision and their continued need, that Jesus makes this proclamation, the same one he made to a solitary Gentile woman by a well (4:14).

Jesus gives us the living water of eternal life. But he doesn’t go on to say, “into” our hearts will flow living water. That would be the logical conclusion. The movement is in the opposite direction: “out of” our hearts flow rivers. No one knows for sure what Jesus is quoting here, but one possible reference is Ezekiel 47, where we see water flowing from the temple, first ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then waist-deep, then becoming a river that one cannot pass through. A river deep enough to swim in, that gives life wherever it goes, on whose banks are trees with leaves that do not wither and fruit for healing. We see similar imagery in Revelation 22, where the “river of the water of life, bright as crystal” flows from the throne of God through the city with the tree of life on its banks. 

And so, this is not just water-talk, but temple-talk. Jesus is God tabernacling on earth; the Spirit flows like the river, received after Jesus was “glorified.” “Throughout John’s gospel,” writes N.T. Wright, “there is a build-up towards the ‘glorification,’ the ‘lifting up,’ of Jesus—which turns out to be, with heavy paradox, the crucifixion of Jesus seen as the moment when his glory is fully and finally revealed, when the love of God which was always at work in him shines out most fully.” We are filled with the Spirit not for our own sake, but for the sake of spreading God’s glory and life into the wider world. This is a feast not only of celebration, but of vocation. After all, that was the ceremony: the filling in, the pouring out. We drink not to become lakes, but rivers, until “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Discipline

“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” – Proverbs 13:24

The question I get asked most frequently as a parent is: how do you discipline your children? Most people seem to be looking for technique, several kinds of which we’ve used. This verse is quoted with some controversy in the context of spanking: some claim the word for “rod,” shebet, refers to the kind of wooden stick used for physical punishment; others point out that it is the same word used in Psalm 23:4 of the comforting shepherd’s rod. Regardless, the main point is that disciplining our children is such an important part of how we love them that to avoid it is akin to an act of hatred. And most of the time, when discipline fails, it’s not a matter of improper technique as much as how we use them.

The word for “love” here, ahab, is the same word that describes how God loves us (Deuteronomy 6:5). We must always exercise discipline in a way that represents God: in the life of our children, we are the look of God’s face, we are the touch of His hand, we are the tone of His voice. Think for a moment about the glory of God’s utter faithfulness in how he reveals his authority and law to his children: that is how we are to discipline our children. Never inconsistently or affected by our own emotion or mood. Never selfishly or affected by how they make us feel or look. Never impatiently. Never with demeaning or condemning words.

In other words, before we discipline our children, we must discipline ourselves. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “When you are disciplining a child, you should have first controlled yourself… What right have you to say to your child that he needs discipline when you obviously need it yourself? Self-control, the control of temper, is an essential prerequisite in the control of others.” It does no good to have the perfect technique down if you use it sometimes but not others, or if you use it in anger. As we ask God to bring us into greater submission before Him, to help us overcome our own anger and frustration, we allow Him to reveal in us any sinful or selfish ways we view our children. The more we open ourselves to receiving His correction in our lives, the more we can rightly love our children through the correction we offer them. 

The word for “diligent” here is shachar, which means “to break forth as light, as the dawn,” which one lexicon describes as “a word altogether poetic.” It reminds me of when Zechariah speaks of “the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high” (Luke 1:78). We are to earnestly seek the dawning of the good news of Jesus into our lives. To look for the breaking in of God’s mercy. To diligently orient all our discipline so that it points to the gospel.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of discipline as opportunities God gives me to allow the Holy Spirit to work His conviction and grace in my children’s lives. God has given me authority over my children, but He has not given me the power to change them. I can’t fix them; it’s not up to me. Only the gospel has that power. If I operate on the assumption that I can change my children, then I see every misbehavior as failure, and I become over-focused on the behavior itself. But if I realize that only God can change my children, I look diligently for every opportunity to open their hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit: and discipline moments are exactly those kinds of opportunities. Nothing reveals the heart condition of my children like their misbehavior does, and if I modify their behavior but miss their hearts, I don’t really change them for the long-term, anyway. 

Orienting discipline towards the gospel means coupling any discipline technique with instruction, typically a brief conversation that helps them understand the heart struggle behind their behavior, presents the gospel in some form, and opens space for confession and grace. Most of the time, nothing seems to happen, and that’s normal. But sometimes His grace really does break through. It was during a discipline moment that Eric accepted Jesus as his savior. He has been our most difficult child to discipline, and it was an episode like any other, but somehow that day, when I explained that Jesus died not only to free him from the consequence of his sin but the power it held in his life, something clicked. I don’t know how many conversations after difficult discipline moments I’d had with him before that day—very many—and I’ve never had an experience quite like that with the other children—but I thank God I can look back now and see that it is always worth it. Being diligent in our discipline is one of the most important ways we love our children, even though it’s one of the hardest things we do. 

Holy Hope

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering.” – Deuteronomy 31:16

Some have called Deuteronomy the first sermon series, and Moses has just finished. He’s preached the longest sermon in the Bible, the last sermon of his life, there on the plains of Moab. He’s led them all these long and wandering years, and just before he is about to climb a mountain and die, God tells him this: the people he’s given his life in ministry to are about to turn their backs on everything he’s just said. How would Moses have not felt utterly crushed? We tend to gloss over this, because well, it’s no surprise to us, and we know how the story ultimately ends, but consider how it would have felt to hear that, at that time. Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “He dies, by all human accounting, a failure, and knowing that he is a failure, knowing that everything that he has worked for in leading, training, and praying for this community will unravel as soon as the people enter Canaan.”

We have hopes for the people we care for. The closer they are to us, the more we invest in them, the higher and dearer our hopes are—and the more potential there is for us to be hurt or disappointed if our hopes aren’t met. I’ve had this conversation several times with various women: how do I have hopes for my husband without expecting too much? How do I see what I think is good for him, pray for and encourage those things, without being frustrated if I see no change? And the same could be asked elsewhere. How do we continue to strive and serve in ministry when people don’t respond or show up? Parent children who make life decisions that pain us? Honor parents who disappoint us yet again? Be open to new friendships or communities when we feel hurt or abandoned by past ones?

We know now Moses is no failure, yet the world would say he was one that day. His story teaches me that, in so many ways, my hopes come with an expectation of timing or outcome that are influenced by personal or worldly perspectives, and that is not how God works. It simply isn’t. He works with the eternal view in mind. He may disappoint my hopes for my own sake, to show me that they are rooted in some amount of selfishness, pride, insecurity, or idolatry. He may disappoint my hopes because it is ultimately better for the whole body of believers, or for the sake of spreading or illustrating the gospel, or for the sake of the very people I hope it for.

The very next thing God tells Moses is to sing. It’s hard to sing without it changing the way you feel; singing is talking pitched to the soul and sentiment. He turns to these people he knows now will disappoint him, and sings them a song. Maybe he sings it to himself as well. What does he sing about? God’s perfection. His greatness, his past grace and faithfulness, his just vengeance, his power. Moses’ song goes back to God. While we hope for those we love, our faith is not in them. Our faith is in God, whom we know has our and their eternal good in mind. This makes our hope not feebler, but stronger and higher. This is a holy kind of hope: a hope that is purified in motive and content. A hope that is held together with faith in a mighty and good God. A hope that is therefore able to have a loose grip on outcomes and timing. A hope that strengthens my labors rather than cripples them. 

Would Moses have still preached those sermons with all the force of will and heart he did, if God had not waited until the end to tell him what would happen? And yet I’m glad Moses did. Despite the immediate outcome, think how meaningful his sermons still are, how precious the time he took to preach them and have them written down, because they bless us today. Our labors are not lost, and that too is part of the lesson he leaves us, part of the promise we have in Christ.

Scripture Memorization

“But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” – Deuteronomy 30:14

The single most transformative spiritual practice I have experienced is memorizing extended passages of Scripture. It has changed my life more than any Bible study, mentoring relationship, sermon series, or podcast. You can’t keep the word of God near you, and not be changed. And there is no better way to keep it near than to memorize it.

Memorizing Scripture is highly encouraged, if not implicitly commanded, by God, and Jesus modeled it. It allows us to meditate on every word from the mouth of God, a practice on which our very spiritual existence depends. It sanctifies us by both convicting us of sin and giving us weapons with which to fight temptation. It transforms our worldviews. It gives us wisdom for counseling and the ability to share the Word at any time. It comforts us during trials and sorrows. 

And it’s not as hard to do as it seems. Mostly, you just have to want to do it. It takes more desire than skill. More methodology than natural aptitude. In his book An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture (free online), Andy Davis walks you through why memorizing books is better than memorizing individual verses; how to choose your first book or chapter; how to make your plan. His method involves memorizing one verse a day using the following steps:

1. Recite yesterday’s verse out loud ten times, looking at the text as needed.

2. Recite all previous verses together out loud once, up to and including yesterday’s verse.

3. Read today’s verse out loud ten times looking at the text. Then cover the text and recite it ten times, looking back as needed.

The whole thing takes maybe 10-15 minutes, longer of course the more verses you collect, and there are various modifications once you get farther along. After the entire section or book is done, you recite it daily for 100 days, and if you want to keep it within memory’s reach, once a week thereafter. I’ve found a great time to do the once-a-week recitations is while running: gives my mind something to focus on, is an undistracted time, and I can measure how far I’ve run by how many chapters I’ve recited.

If I could share one exhortation for the new year, it would be this: keep the word near you. Memorize an extended portion of Scripture. You will understand it in entirely new ways and it will change your life. 

Far As The Curse Is Found

“‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” – Deuteronomy 27:26

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’… Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”- Galatians 3:10, 13

These chapters in Deuteronomy are fascinatingly horrific to read. We know about the curse from Genesis 3, but here it is fleshed out in detail so terrible and gruesome that it’s hard to keep looking at the page. In family and work, kitchen and field, weather and body, war and love, king and children: this is what God’s wrath upon disobedience looks like. This is what it means to be forsaken by God. This is what the death and disintegration began in Adam looks like. One would think the decision to obey was a no-brainer! And yet, despite this warning that was read to the people every seventh year, we’ll see in books to come that much of the curses came true. 

Paul quotes these chapters multiple times in Galatians 3 to help us understand what it is Jesus redeemed us from. I was under a curse. Jesus became a curse for me. He took my place. He had all my sins laid on him. He received to the full the physical and spiritual suffering of the accursed, in my place. He lifted the curse from me. Question 39 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “Is it significant that he was ‘crucified’ instead of dying some other way?”  Answer: “Yes. This death convinces me that he shouldered the curse which lay on me, since death by crucifixion was accursed by God.”

We still live in a cursed world, but one day he will set even that right. As we sing during this time of year, “No more let sin and sorrow grow / nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make his blessings flow / far as the curse is found…” Written by Isaac Watts in 1719, these words are based on Psalm 98 and are actually about the second coming of Christ. The world will be remade, Revelation 22 tells us. The water of life will flow from the throne of God. “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” That is what we’re singing about. Christmas in this world is bittersweet: there is light but still darkness; there is family but still dysfunction and absence or loss; there is holiday but still work looms; there are gifts but still clutter and covetousness. But this first coming of Jesus reminds us too of his second. We have not only the beginning of the story but the end. We know the time will come when blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

Teach Them To Your Children

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” – Deuteronomy 11:18-19

I need regular reminders that one of the main goals of parenting is to teach our children the word of God. Sending them to church does not suffice: consider that my kids spend over thirty hours a week at school, learning all kinds of other subjects, not to mention hours on sports or music. How many hours a week are they learning the Bible? The fact is, my kids aren’t spontaneously picking up the Bible. It’s up to me to teach them.

We can process this in two practical ways. The first is through daily family devotions. God’s word is to be on our hands and between our eyes: it has to be there every day; it has to be something we can’t avoid seeing. Family devotions provide that kind of daily discipline and reminder. The format, timing and content changes with each stage, but the point is to have one, to not give up experimenting until you find something that works. Even something short, done daily, is better than attempting something elaborate that is hard to keep up. Generally, we try to at least have some element of prayer and direct encounter with God’s word. We’ve found the easiest way to read the Bible is through books like The Ology or to pick a short Bible passage that we write up on the wall and talk slowly through. The kids are surprisingly willing to memorize things, so we’ve memorized the books of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and are starting on the beatitudes. We end with sharing time, for prayer requests, to bring up unresolved emotional issues from the day, or to report on how we’re feeling (for some reason, Elijah always says with a dramatic sigh, “I’m tired”). We encourage them to pick people to pray for, or one of the adults just prays if attention spans are waning. 

In the past, we’ve done other things like sing through a hymnal (the Trinity hymnal is my favorite) or read about famous Christians. During December we go through a simple advent calendar. We encourage the kids to ask questions, no matter how basic. And finally, there’s the biggest secret to success: ice cream. At one point my parents advised making Bible time synonymous with ice-cream time, and well, now they won’t let us miss a night.

A second way is to ask God to help us both work the gospel into, and bring the gospel out of, any given moment of the day. We are to talk of the Bible when we walk, sit, lie down, and rise. This is not a program or an event; this is a lifestyle. Certain habits outside of family devotions can help, like listening to Adventures in Odyssey or GT Halo in the car, praying the Bible during bedtime routines, stocking up on Bible-based books we can’t find in libraries. But mostly, this involves doing everything Moses talks about in the earlier sections of these verses: after all, it is to us parents that Moses speaks. Our children can only receive what we have to give, and if the word is impressed on our hearts and souls, we won’t be able to help living this way. More than anything, our children will see what the word means to us: how precious it is, how holy and esteemed. And that’s my hope. I hope they love it, because I do. I hope they treasure it, because I do.

Shema

“And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, ‘Hear, O Israel…’” – Deuteronomy 5:1

Listening is complicated. There what you think, then what you say, then what the other person hears, then what they think about what they hear. Any step of that can get muddied up by bias, expectation, mood, tone, concurrent noise, and, in the case of young children, more important questions like can I have ice cream? We talk a lot at home about what tends to help the other person listen (direct eye contact, a touch to get attention) and what doesn’t (raising your voice, which alienates the listener and makes you mad if you weren’t already). We talk about how it helps to give a verbal sign that you heard, like “coming” or “okay,” even if you can’t do what is asked right away. All things I need to work on as much as the kids do.

But in the Bible, listening is about even more than all that. Did you know that there is no Hebrew word for “obey”? The word translated “obey” in our Bibles is Hebrew shema, which is the same word translated “hear” in this passage. Shema is about a lot more than acoustics. It means to focus on, to understand, to respond. It is used by Leah, who names her son Simon (Shim’on) “because the Lord has shema that I am unloved.” It is used at the beginning of many Psalms to ask God to act (“shema my voice when I call, O Lord,” Psalm 27:7). It is used by God twice, for emphasis, in Exodus 19:5 when he asks us to “shema shema my voice, and keep my covenant.” To hear is to obey; they are one and the same. 

True listening, listening the way God means, requires attention and action. This is so important that it became the name of the prayer Jews have recited twice a day for thousands of years. In a world of push notifications and banner ads, where multi-tasking is the norm, what do you stop to focus on? What do you give your attention to? Do we hear the summons of God’s word, understand it in a way that changes how we live? 

Free To Sabbath

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” – Deuteronomy 5:15

“Anyone who cannot obey God’s command to observe the Sabbath is a slave.” – Tim Keller

The institution of Sabbath comes only after liberation from slavery. We tend not to connect the two, but it is the primary reason Moses gives to keep the Sabbath. Quite simply, as slaves, the Israelites could not have kept a Sabbath. The Egyptians made themselves to be gods, and they exerted their dominion over the Israelites through work. And so, the Sabbath was not only the most concrete of all signs that the Israelites were no longer slaves, it was also a reminder that though they would still work, the work was no longer their master.

The Sabbath is a declaration of our freedom. Work is not our master, nor are we masters of our worlds through our work. In one sense, I take this quite literally. I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t beholden to work: as a student, to assignments and deadlines and exams; as a resident, to assigned shifts, clinic and operating room schedules. As moms, our time is not our own, and each stage has its own kind of work. After a week of freedom from routine, I realized coming back how much I really am at the beck and call of school and sports schedules, the emotional and practical needs of the kids. I am a slave to my labors.

Be a slave long enough, though, and it becomes your identity. We don’t know who we are without our work. We begin to believe we are gods through our work. In this deeper sense, I need Sabbath to help recover the me that is not a mom. I need Sabbath to remember that I am not the one who keeps the world running. I need Sabbath to reenter the goodness of a creation that exists outside the tunnel vision my work tends to inhabit.

It is all one journey: leaving Egypt and entering Sabbaths. And Moses emphasizes here that this journey is a story of rescue. It is not something we do on our own, but that God does for us: he brings us out with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. Hands are a universal means of work. Whatever cogitation may be behind it, ultimately it is my hands that operate, that cook and clean, that hug and dress, that type and write. But I can enter the Sabbath because it is God’s hands that have done the work. He has the might and power to release me from bondage. He has reached out to me; Christ has crossed realms to enter my world. To keep the Sabbath is to remember that I am neither slave to my work nor master of my world, but that God has rescued me with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. 

Ask Now Of The Days That Are Past

“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of... know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath; there is no other.” – Deuteronomy 4:32-33, 39

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.” – Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship Of The Ring

I’ve set myself the rather onerous task of going back to create family albums for each year, which means culling back through five years’ worth of photos. It is strange to realize that the younger two probably remember very little of their beginnings in Virginia, and what I put in these albums will likely become what they remember. 

Deuteronomy begins with Moses creating a forty-year photobook of the past. He has brought the Israelites to the brink of the promised land for the second time, but now with an entire generation gone. Some of the people before him were born in the wilderness, not as slaves; what they remember will be through story. We have a need for stories. Have you ever felt this? Children love and ask for stories. I crave them regularly myself, through a good movie or novel.

Part of our need for story is because all stories tell us about who we are, what we are here for, where we are going. Narratives are so foundational to how we think that they determine how we understand and live life itself. Our response to any situation is based on our grasp of the story. Human actions are all enacted narratives. And all narratives inform our actions. There is always a story under the story. Disney movies aren’t just princess tales; they are statements on self-actualization, individualism versus tradition, the primacy of romantic love, and so on, and if we watch enough of them, certain beliefs will seep in. Stories provide us with worldview, the comprehensive perspective from which we interpret all of reality, the lenses through which we see the world.

As Moses is wrapping up the first of three speeches that comprise the book, he does a remarkable thing. He takes off those glasses and holds them up for inspection. He asks, what does our historical narrative teach us about who we are? Who God is? How we should respond? He isn’t just trying to get the facts down. He’s trying to equip a new generation of Israelites with the master narrative they need to understand who they are and how to live, knowing they will be entering a land where the story the majority culture tells will be far different. What stories do our culture and workplace tell about who we are, how things are supposed to be, and how we get there? What story does the Bible tell? What stories are our children hearing at school, in books and TV shows, through our family life? In what ways have all these stories informed how we live, and the stories we ourselves tell?

Moses And The Rock

“Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” – Numbers 20:12

I am probably not alone in always having been somewhat bothered by God preventing Moses from entering the promised land. What does Moses do wrong here? He addressed the people instead of addressing the rock. He made himself both judge (“you rebels”) and deliverer (“shall we...”). His phrasing is one of grumbling and complaint. He struck the rock rather than speaking to it, directly disobeying the word of God. He struck the rock twice, even (sign of anger? lack of faith that striking even once would be enough?). Overall, his tone is one of anger and contempt. Don Carson writes, “His response is not only the striking of the rock, it is the answer of a man who under pressure has become bitter and pretentious.”

What God rebukes Moses for is unbelief: “you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy.” God desired to extend mercy through lack of retribution for the people’s complaints, grace through providing water. The rock itself points to Christ: “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Carson writes, “It is hard to resist the conclusion that the reason God had insisted the rock be struck in Exodus 17:1–7, and forbids it here, is that he perceives a wonderful opportunity to make a symbol-laden point: the ultimate Rock, from whom life-giving streams flow, is struck once, and no more.” Moses did get water, but did it with a heart of rebellion and unbelief against God’s mercy and grace, pointing away from Christ.

The other time there was judgment for not upholding God’s holiness was when Aaron’s sons offered unauthorized fire in Leviticus 10:3, an act for which they were killed. Commentators have observed that God shows Moses a severe mercy, in sparing his life despite preventing him from entering the promised land. And in the end, he does see it from a mountaintop (Deuteronomy 32:49).

It is hard to be a leader who faces unfair criticism. It is difficult to be a caregiver who absorbs persistent complaint and buffers emotional instability (I think of mothers here and Moses saying he pretty much feels like one in Numbers 11:12). There is always the temptation to lash out in angry outbursts, to view or label others with criticism or contempt, to let our frustration seep out in ways that prevent us from upholding God’s holiness, from believing in the grace he asks us to extend. I am guilty of these things, but I have hope too. Some of my gravest mistakes are God’s severe mercies to me, laying bare the condition of my heart, giving me the capacity for greater compassion towards others. And I have Jesus, the living water. The water did come from the rock, and in the end, God did show himself holy through it. God works despite, or precisely through, my mistakes, and that is at times the most encouraging thing of all.

A Test For Adultery

“And the priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord.” – Numbers 5:16

It’s helpful to know when reading this passage that trials by ordeal were a familiar judicial practice in the ancient world. The guilt or innocence of the accused would be determined by subjecting them to a painful experience, wherein the proof of innocence was life or lack of harm. Historically this has involved walking over hot coals, holding a red-hot iron, dipping a hand into boiling water or oil, or ingestion of poison. In the Code of Hammurabi, if a citizen accused a woman of adultery, the woman would have to jump into the river: if she died, it was proof of her guilt; if she lived, proof of her innocence.

Consider the contrasts here. Instead of any citizen bringing a charge, it had to be the husband. The odds were not stacked against her; she wasn’t considered guilty by default until proven innocent (in fact, one could argue the bias was towards innocence as drinking dusty water doesn’t tend to cause bodily harm). She is brought before a priest, within the tabernacle, in a controlled environment, with a mediator. The process itself was not physically painful. The judgment was in the hands of God, not her husband or other men, and it was definitive, presumably doing more to restore the marital relationship were she innocent, than a more inconclusive ruling by a human court of law. There are elements of redemption, even of protection for women, that one could tease out here. It’s interesting that God does not do away altogether with the culture in which the Israelites lived—he rather chooses to speak into it in this way.

I’m struck by the ritualistic and detailed nature of this passage: this may be the only place in the Bible where specific words for the priest’s prayer is given. I think about the woman, literally taking holiness into her body—holy water, dust from holy ground—which cannot reside together with sinfulness without physical disintegration. I think about her placing her hands into the barley, literally feeling her husband’s jealousy. All so symbolic and sensory. The verb that stands out is “bring”: bring to remembrance, bring her near, bring the offering. “Bring it to the altar” (Numbers 5:25).

We like to keep unseen sins secret, perhaps sexual sin most of all. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). It’s difficult to take those words seriously without being convicted on some level. There were separate laws for those caught in the act of adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10), but God goes to the trouble of addressing adultery that is “hidden from the eyes,” “undetected,” where “there is no witness,” because he cares about sexual purity. Our sexual purity is not a private issue. It affects our relationship with God. It affects others, potentially many others, more than we like to consider. Inward jealousies matter. God asks us to bring these matters before him. 

Manna For The Day

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” – Exodus 16:4

“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” – Deuteronomy 8:3

“Give us this day our daily bread.” – Matthew 6:11

For forty years, the Israelites went to bed six days out of the week with their stomachs full and their cupboards empty. Can you imagine that? Never being able to keep more than what you finish that day? Not having any other way of getting anything to eat? This is so absurdly outside our own experience that it requires some imagination, but I feel like a few things would become clear. One’s utter dependence on God for daily survival. God’s unfailing, individually-tailored, provision (verse 18 in particular is magical, particularly for anyone who has tried to estimate food amounts for large groups).

The manna itself is magical. The word “manna” literally means “what is it?” The first time the Israelites saw it, they didn’t know what to do with it, a scene which strikes me as comical. It looked like coriander seed, the seed of the cilantro plant; white, fine as frost, tasting like honey wafers. 

God provides his people with something completely novel, that vanishes by the day, to illustrate the spiritual truth that we need sustenance from the Word that only he can provide—it can come from nowhere else—and that it comes in a daily portion. Have you ever wondered why it’s important to read the Bible every day? Why not just read the entire weeks’ worth at once? For the same reason, I suppose, that we can’t only eat once a week. Spiritual growth is like physical growth: life, change, depends on regular daily intake. The word is meant to be lived in and meditated upon, and that just doesn’t happen if your intake is limited to the occasional binge. 

As James Cordeiro writes, “When you miss your devotions one day, you notice. When you miss them two days, your spouse and kids notice. And when you miss them three days, the world notices.” The more we read daily, the more we realize that we really do depend on the Word to give us wisdom, perspective, strength for that day. And when we read with the expectation that God will provide, that he can speak to us through a verse from that day’s reading, we often find that he does. 

There is also a kind of lived-out faith and freedom in this daily rhythm. There is the sweetness of knowing God desires me to come to him each day, that Jesus taught us to ask for what we need this way. If I was reading to efficiently canvass content, I wouldn’t do it like this, but the less I read the Bible like a textbook, the more I read it like a love letter, the slower I go, the more constantly I want to savor it. And by giving me only enough for each day, God is giving me permission not to worry about the future. He is extending an invitation to live by faith. As Ian Duguid writes, “God has not promised to give us the grace to face all of the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He has promised to sustain us only in the ones that he actually brings us into. He therefore doesn’t promise that we will imagine how we could go through the fire for his sake, but he does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use; each day receives its own supply.”