Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Role of Poetry in the Bible | Torah | Deuteronomy 32:1-47

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

When you think about God, who do you imagine? Can you capture the full image of God? How can the Bible describe the complexities of God? In today's episode, Jensen uses Moses's poem in Deuteronomy 32:1-47 to describe the importance of poetry in scripture. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Deuteronomy 32:1-47 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. When you think about God, who do you imagine? It's fair to say that in culture where Christianity has been around for a while, there are many caricatures of who the God of the Bible is. Many people say God is love. He wants what's best for you, and he's there to offer you comfort when you need it.

For many, God is a tyrant in the sky, keeping track of God. of everything you do and happy to squash you when you step out of line. And still others see him as a distant god, creator and abandoner, happy to let the world exist on its own power. I've heard of the genie God or the vending machine God. He's around and you go to him when you need something. You ask and you get it. Many people believe in a God who loves them and whose main goal is to save them from their personal sin. But even that misses out on a huge part of who God is. is. In chapter 32, Moses is beginning to bring the book of Deuteronomy to a close. And in this chapter, he breaks out into song. Now, when I was reading, it almost felt like a breath of fresh air.

After so much law and historical narrative, it was refreshing to read poetry. This song often referred to as the song of Moses reiterates some of the main themes of Deuteronomy. God is faithful, and yet his people are sinful. And in their rebellion, they reject him. And in their rebellion, they reject him, and bring on the curse and wrath of God. But God is ultimately faithful to his covenant people and restores and redeems them even in their brokenness. We've heard the story before. So why does Moses say it all again? And why does he do it in song form? Now, you may have hated poetry in high school, but that doesn't give you an excuse to ignore it when it's used in scripture. So much of the Bible is permeated with poetry, and it does so with a purpose. If you've ever read poetry,

you know that it forces you to enter into a story. It pulls you in using all of your senses. The descriptive nature of the text takes you on a journey. It invites you to feel what the author is feeling, to experience the depth of what is happening. We are whole-bodied beings, and so often we approach the Bible with just our brains, trying to learn something. trying to study and dive into theology. But when we just use our minds to engage with the Bible, we miss out on the bigger picture. God doesn't call us to just know a lot about scripture. He calls us to live it, to dwell on it, to let it transform our lives. And I cannot think of a better way for Moses to bring home all the knowledge and facts and laws he has just imparted

on the people of Israel. They know the terms. They've heard the law, and now Moses invites them in to feel the importance, the depth, the stakes of what they have just heard. In Moses' song, the people have heard what God has done for them. They have been told of his faithfulness. But in this next section of scripture, I want you to allow the poetry to introduce you to the depth of who God is. Verse 7. Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many, generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord's portion is his

people. Jacob, his allotted heritage. He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness, he encircled him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided him. No foreign God was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock. Curds from the herd and milk from the flock with fat of lambs, rams of bashan and goats with the very finest of the wheat, and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.

Is that how you imagine God? This is a God who chose his people, you and me, for his inheritance. We see him as a father, who rescued his people, cared for them, adored them as the apple of his eye. Moses tells us he is like an eagle, caring for his young, catching them, tending to them. He provided for them with an abundance of food and drink. The picture we get is of a God who is close and intimately involved in the welfare and care of his people. I can't do it justice re-describing all that it says because the poetry paints such a beautiful picture. You can feel the love, the depth of the relationship.

And it's because the poetry invites you to feel all of that. In these next verses, the betrayal of his people is felt even more deeply. But Jeshurun, that's Israel, but Israel grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, stout, and sleek. Then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently whom your fathers had never dreaded. You were unmindful of the rock that bore you. You forgot the

God who gave you birth. You forgot the one who rescued you, carried you, fed you, protected you, the one who gave you birth. Do you see how this song of Moses invites you to experience? experience the truth of the gospel, the truth of who God is in an intimate way. I can't help but feel the heartache as a mother. My primary job right now is to care for my son, to feed him, help him sleep, clothe him, entertain him, comfort him, and to let him know that he is loved. And my heart aches at the idea that one day he might reject me, give his loved things that I tried to protect him from or forget me altogether. I can read scripture all day,

telling me not to go follow other gods and walk away unfazed and unmoved. But it's hard to read it with this imagery and not pause and feel the depth of the betrayal. And yet, even as the people suffer the consequences of their rebellion, God remains faithful. The people forgot their God, their father, they rejected him,

turned to other idols, and in doing so, they lost out on the goodness and provision of God, and instead making themselves his enemy, felt the fire of his anger. And in the midst of that, the Lord sees his people and has compassion on them. Moses paints another beautiful picture of a God who sees, calls his people out of slavery to idols, and cleanses their land so that his people can again live with him. The God who rescued and fathered and protected will also be the God who restores. When we make God into caricatures, we put him in a box. We make him one-dimensional. He's the loving God, or the vending machine God, or the rules God. But God is so much more complex, so much more beautiful than that. And when Moses takes us on this journey through a picture of the

gospel, we get a picture of that complexity and beauty, despite the brutal rejection of his people. God restores them, and he restores the land he has given them. We get a picture of a God with a mission, and he refuses to let the sins and rejection of his children keep him from accomplishing that mission. Isn't it so amazing how in the midst of an Old Testament book, we can see the same God who would come to die for his people so that he can establish a kingdom where his people can live a restored life for his glory. The next time you're tempted to think about God as one-dimensional, turn to the parts of Scripture that are full of imagery and depth.

Allow the Word of God to not just inform your mind, but stir your heart. We were not made to just learn about God, but to experience Him. and the life he has called us to live. You follow a God who has had a plan to restore all of creation since the beginning of time. The echoes of the gospel are found even in the Old Testament through the song of an old and dying man. May we never become calloused to the love of God. May we never become cavalier about our sin. And may we also feel the depth of our need for a Savior who will restore his people to his kingdom.

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