Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 15; Revelation 17
I know I keep bringing this up, but Deuteronomy 15 is another great foil to the common conception today that the God of the Old Testament was just about judgement and wrath, while the God of the New Testament is all about love. I keep bringing this up because I hear it so much, including from other Christians! I somewhat regularly hear people make comments about how much better it is to be living after the cross where there’s grace instead of living in Old Testament times when it was all rules and judgement. And it hurts my heart on the Lord’s behalf when I hear things like this because this is such an effective mischaracterization of God by Satan that even some of God’s own people are caught up in the deception and have all kinds of wrong views of our good and loving God.
We have been talking, pretty much daily through Deuteronomy, about what it was God wanted from His people, and it wasn’t perfectly following 1000 rules and laws, it was to maintain their believing loyalty in Him and not turn to worship other gods. But then here in chapter 15 we get a broader picture of God’s priorities for His people as He instructs them that every 7 years all debts and slaves are to be released.
This is the kind of thing God cares most about and wants His people to prioritize. If Israel is staying faithful to Him, there shouldn’t been anybody falling into poverty in the land, but if someone does end up in trouble, they are to be helped and given what they need, but at the same time they are to be protected from falling into generational debt or long term slavery by a reset every 7 years.
This is the kind of passage we need to be paying attention to if we want to understand the heart of God. We have the same God of justice, love, and mercy in the Old Testament as we find in the New Testament, and what we have seen so far that He expects from His people is to not forsake Him for other gods and to treat one another with the same kind of love and mercy that Israel has received from Him.
Not exactly the vengeful and wrathful God we hear people talk about…
No comments:
Post a Comment