Deuteronomy 15-22 Today's thought

Deuteronomy 15-22 Today's thought

 

What a collection of verses this is, from canceling debt to cities of refuge to punishment for rape.  Moses continues to lay out God’s plan for His people.  It seams as though these people have lived with no rules no morality no understanding of permanent community.  It is as if everything is having to be told to them for the first time.  Well it’s kind of true.  The people who Moses is addressing have lived their whole life as wanders, a nomadic community with God literally in front of them.  Taking their daily actions based on the decree of Moses and his interactions with their God.  This is about to change, they are about to become a people of a region, territories divided among their tribes.  Life will be different for them from this point forward, the will be separated as a whole and autonomous as cities and regions.  No one living among them has experienced this and this has not been part of their culture for more than 400 years (pre slavery in Egypt) God, being the responsible God that he is, he is preparing them with all they will need to know.  It seems laborious and repetitive to see these rules laid out over and over, with only minute differences for many of them.  Yet that is who we know God to be.  A God that is concerned with the details, and a God that is concerned that his people have a right relationship with him. He knows that to have that relationship His people have to live within His will,  for his people to have a reasonable shot at this they have to be able to fully understand God’s will for them.  It may be difficult for us to grasp, but then again we have the luxury of printed law, hundreds of years of community development, and leaders that have been led themselves by those who paved the way.  They weren’t just learning how to be good followers of a God who desperately wanted to have relationship with them, they were learning how to be an established nation in a hostile land.  God had a plan and victory in store for them, but only on his conditions.  This is what Moses was trying to prepare them for.

 

Have a great day

Rob