Thoughts on Deuteronomy 33 & Luke 12

Today's reading: Deuteronomy 33; Luke 12

Thoughts on Deuteronomy 33

Have you ever thought about what the point of the Bible is?

As much as this is not the point of Moses' blessings to the tribes of Israel in Deuteronomy 33, this is what came to mind as I was reading these blessings today. Specifically, the blessing for Asher really called attention to just how much the Bible doesn't tell us.

Check out this blessing to Asher:

And of Asher he said,
    “Most blessed of sons be Asher;
        let him be the favorite of his brothers,
        and let him dip his foot in oil.
    Your bars shall be iron and bronze,
        and as your days, so shall your strength be."

This is a really cool and kind of intense blessing for the tribe of Asher. Moses calls Asher the "most blessed" of Israel's sons, and says, "let him be the favorite of his brothers." So clearly Asher has a special status among the tribes. On top of that, dipping his foot in oil and his bars being iron and bronze speak to wealth and strength. If this blessing means anything at all, then it is clear that no history of Israel would be complete without serious attention given to the tribe of Asher and their contributions to the nation.

Do you see the problem with that though?

If you are very familiar with the rest of the Old Testament, you might recognize the issue I'm getting at: We don't really ever hear about Asher again, at least not in any way that matches Moses' blessing. Certainly we will see mentions of Asher as we continue on, but those mentions are only ever just as one of the tribes. We will see them getting their allotted territory, and we will see them provide men for battle and such, but we never see them singled out or see their contribution to the nation or their wealth or prestige in Israel mentioned a single time.

This doesn't mean Moses' blessing is wrong or didn't come to pass. What it means is that the Bible is not a history book of Israel. It includes books of history, but history for the sake of history is not why God has given us the Bible.

The Bible is the story of the world as God created it, how it got to the state it is in, and what God has done and is doing about it. It is the story of rebellion against God, both human and divine, and God's loving, merciful response to that rebellion in opening the door for His human image bearers to be restored to right relationship with Him and brought back into His family. It is the story of God, stepping down out of heaven in the person of Jesus to go to the cross and die on behalf of His rebellious children.

My point in all that is that this didn't happen through the line of Asher, but through the line of Judah. The Messiah, God's ultimate answer to sin and death, came through the line of David, of the tribe of Judah, and so the story we see traced through the Old Testament focuses much more on Israel as a whole or on Judah (and even then really just the line of David rather than the tribe of Judah as a whole).

The point of the Bible is not to give us every answer to our every question, spiritual or historical, or to fill in every detail, but to give us enough to understand our spiritual position and need before God, and to respond to what He has done to open the door for our reconciliation to Himself. 

Thoughts on Luke 12

I can't remember if I have talked about this in posts before, but I have struggled on and off for a long time with some of Jesus' statements here in Luke 12.

It's long, but I'm just going to include the whole thing here:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

The thing that I've struggled with in this is that Jesus seems to be saying that I shouldn't worry about things like a savings account because God knows what I need and can provide it when I need it. So is it an act of unbelief for me to not give every penny I could possibly give to the work of His kingdom?

Now, I know many (if not all) of you reading this are probably just rolling your eyes at me and thinking that I need to lighten up and not take things so seriously, and you're probably right, but I do tend to see things as very black and white, and so, when I read something like this, I can't help but wonder if we are supposed to be taking this at face value and trusting God to do what Jesus says He will do. Plus, if you read Christian biographies, you will very quickly come across people who took this and other similar statements incredibly seriously and have miraculous story after miraculous story of how God provided for their needs in truly amazing ways. So am I just being faithless??

This has kind of niggled for years at the back of my brain and I haven't ever really known fully what to do with it. On the one hand, I haven't felt like God is specifically calling me to give up all savings and such, but on the other hand there is the purely intellectual side of me that asks, "But aren't we supposed to follow God's Word whether we feel like it or not?"

I was recently hanging out with a friend of mine though and he made a comment that really helped me think about this better. He said, "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you are called to do it." He is a pastor and gave me the example of all the events and things that he gets asked to speak at. Any and all of those events are opportunities to preach the Word, share the gospel, and glorify God, which sounds great! But then each of those opportunities also takes away from other things. He is called to be the pastor of the church God has placed him in, and he is called to be a good and available husband and father. So if those otherwise good opportunities that he could take would interfere with his ability to do what he is called to do, then he should turn down those good opportunities in faithfulness to God.

Maybe that's already obvious to other people, but I had never really thought about this in that light, and I found it really helpful when I did. In fact, I think we have already seen something a few days ago in Luke that, if I had noticed it before, would have probably helped my thinking about this. In chapter 8 Luke mentions a few women who were following Jesus and providing for them out of their means. The reason Jesus and His disciples were able to go around preaching and serving people as they did was because there were people supporting them financially in their endeavors. God did know what they needed, and He did provide for those needs, but He used other people as the source of that provision.

So I guess this is a very long-winded way to say that Jesus is calling us here to trust our heavenly Father and know that He can and will provide for our needs much better than we ever could for ourselves, but that does not mean He is calling us to mimic the birds who have neither storehouse or barn.