This week's scriptures: Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11; Isaiah 40:1-26; Matthew 23:31-39; Mark 12:28-34.
The Book of Deuteronomy always seems like a pastoral letter to me. Contrasted with the other books of Torah there is a heart-to-heart feel threading through it.
The title of this week's Torah portion ('I pleaded' in English) illustrates this. Moses was able to talk to God as a child to a father, pleading to be allowed to go into the Promised Land. God's reply was as a father to a son – "Enough of that! Speak no more to me of this matter..." (Deut 3:26-27).
The way the Book of Deuteronomy is written helps us to understand that Torah is teaching more than it is impersonal law and justice (Dos and Don'ts). The Ten Commandments are in our portion this week, but set into the Book as a whole, we sense the father heart of God as much as what he requires of his people.
An Issue of the Heart
In this vein chapter 4 begins, "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land that the Lord God of your fathers is giving you."
Central to our portion is the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Deut 6:4-5). Jesus identified this as the greatest Commandment (Matt 22:37-38), central to all else that God requires of his people. Love is an issue of the heart, cultivated through experience with God the Father and with his people. It is not attainable through human effort alone, but through spiritual growth.
Education God's Way
Notice the emphasis on teaching – "Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you..." (Deut 6:1). The principle of teaching is applied to what God has commanded.
It is the clear responsibility of parents to teach their children all the things God requires – "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk in the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up" (Deut 6:7). Those walks and talks along the way of life are so important!
Education backed by punishments and rewards, lectures and written examinations, is (in some ways) easier to administer than one which cultivates a heart with a love of God, but is not certain to produce the result God is looking for. With the world around us setting the benchmarks of education it is easy to be beguiled by the world system rather than learning to educate in God's way. We must be careful! Worldly strategies for education can even creep into our Sunday School or Bible college curricula.
Only with Help
From the history of Israel, we know that it was not easy to achieve God's purposes through the written commands alone.
As we consider what Moses and Joshua sought to understand and teach Israel let us rejoice that God the Father and Jesus his Son have sent us their Holy Spirit to help us to study and teach. We only achieve true love of God through the transforming power of his Spirit in us, and that is the only way our children will achieve it too.
Author: Dr Clifford Denton
