The word is at hand
This week's verses are Deuteronomy 30:11-14:
Moses is talking here to the people God had chosen at the time, the Israelites. He's talking about the Old Testament Law, but it's also a very simple proclamation of how lucky we are to have the good news about Jesus and the New Testament Freedom he bought for us.
They didn't have libraries and public schooling back then in Moses' day. Knowledge came at a cost. If there was a person who knew something important, you had to go find that person and hope they'd talk with you. If there was a book that contained some great secret, you had to go to where that book was, and sit there reading it, if the owner would let you, or buy it at whatever price he named. So imagine there's a key to good health and a well-tuned life. That would be worth travelling quite a distance to get, or paying a fairly large sum of money. And yet Moses had just given this knowledge to his people for free.
Nowadays information might require you to buy a $50 book, or make a "suggested" donation of $49.99 in some breakdown of instalments which are always described as "easy." Or maybe the information might be censored, or violate the publisher or website's arbitrarily decided "terms of service." What lengths would you go to in order to get the information that would bring meaning to your life, or organise things in a way that brings you peace, or reveals the way to cure your relative or friend's disease?
And yet we have no censorship at all of this truth. The Bible can be had for free on the Internet or most churches. How awesome is that? As Moses says, we don't have to go very far to find this truth at all. We already know it. It's in our minds and on our lips, so that we can live it.
Let that sink in. All of the truths about grace, and love, and supernatural power, and eternal life, are ours to have for free. Applying them may cost us something, but we can't claim at this point not to know them or that they're too expensive to find, too far to travel, too risky legally, etc. At any point in the day, during hard times or not, you can access that truth, for free, and put it into practice.
So I guess there's no deep theological truths to dissect this week other than to be thankful that we have heard the good news about Jesus for free.
“This commandment I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it too remote. It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” And it is not across the sea, as though one must say, “Who will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” For the thing is very near you—it is in your mouth and in your mind so that you can do it.
Moses is talking here to the people God had chosen at the time, the Israelites. He's talking about the Old Testament Law, but it's also a very simple proclamation of how lucky we are to have the good news about Jesus and the New Testament Freedom he bought for us.
They didn't have libraries and public schooling back then in Moses' day. Knowledge came at a cost. If there was a person who knew something important, you had to go find that person and hope they'd talk with you. If there was a book that contained some great secret, you had to go to where that book was, and sit there reading it, if the owner would let you, or buy it at whatever price he named. So imagine there's a key to good health and a well-tuned life. That would be worth travelling quite a distance to get, or paying a fairly large sum of money. And yet Moses had just given this knowledge to his people for free.
Nowadays information might require you to buy a $50 book, or make a "suggested" donation of $49.99 in some breakdown of instalments which are always described as "easy." Or maybe the information might be censored, or violate the publisher or website's arbitrarily decided "terms of service." What lengths would you go to in order to get the information that would bring meaning to your life, or organise things in a way that brings you peace, or reveals the way to cure your relative or friend's disease?
And yet we have no censorship at all of this truth. The Bible can be had for free on the Internet or most churches. How awesome is that? As Moses says, we don't have to go very far to find this truth at all. We already know it. It's in our minds and on our lips, so that we can live it.
Let that sink in. All of the truths about grace, and love, and supernatural power, and eternal life, are ours to have for free. Applying them may cost us something, but we can't claim at this point not to know them or that they're too expensive to find, too far to travel, too risky legally, etc. At any point in the day, during hard times or not, you can access that truth, for free, and put it into practice.
So I guess there's no deep theological truths to dissect this week other than to be thankful that we have heard the good news about Jesus for free.
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