The Bible Recap - Day 075 (Deuteronomy 14-16) - Year 6
Episode Date: March 15, 2024SHOW NOTES: - Head to our Start Page for all you need to begin! - Join the RECAPtains - Check out the TBR Store - Show credits - Phone Backgrounds from Hope Nation FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - February ...R&C Episode - Leviticus 21:5 - Psalm 16:11 - Find out more about D-Group - Check out our D-Group Promo Video BIBLE READING & LISTENING: Follow along on the Bible App, or to listen to the Bible, try Dwell! SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | TikTok D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X TLC: Instagram | Facebook D-GROUP: D-Group is brought to you by the same team that brings you The Bible Recap. TBR is where we read the Bible, and D-Group is where we study the Bible. D-Group is an international network of Bible study groups that meet weekly in homes, churches, and online. Find or start one near you today! DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.
Moses is still giving his final speech to the Israelites before he dies and they enter
the promised land.
He starts with some peculiar commands about haircuts.
Back in the day, one of the way pagans grieved was by shaving their heads.
And Moses was outlawing this because it was pagan adjacent.
This law had already been given to the priests
back in Leviticus 21, but here Moses gives it
to all the Israelites who were supposed to look
and live differently than their neighbors.
Pagans were also known to cut themselves
as a part of their ritual morning practices,
and Moses forbids that too.
He also covers some dietary laws, much of which we've seen before.
One of the interesting ones here that carries a lot of weight in keeping kosher comes from
1421, the command not to boil a goat in its mother's milk.
Over the years, many rabbis have debated over what all the laws mean and how to apply them.
They often extend the boundaries of what is unacceptable to make sure they don't get
anywhere close to breaking the actual law.
They call this building a fence around the law.
One of the things the rabbis deduced about this law was that they should avoid mixing
milk and meat.
So today, if you go to Israel, you'll find that those two things
aren't served at the same meal
for any place that keeps kosher.
You can switch it up however you like schedule-wise,
but typically, dairy is served at breakfast,
loads of cheeses and milks and yogurts,
and meat is served at the other meals.
Kosher households won't even use the same plates
for meat and dairy.
And if you're a wealthy kosher family,
you probably even have two whole separate kitchens.
This is how far people would go
to avoid breaking these laws.
And the heart behind this could be good,
but we'll see over time how these fences
began to be treated like they were the law itself,
instead of a manmade attempt to protect the law.
In the laws for the sabbatical year,
we see God's heart toward the poor on display again.
Debts are forgiven and servants are released from their contracts.
God promised that if they remain faithful to His command,
there will always be enough to go around,
and those who would be considered poor
will be cared for by the surplus of the wealthy.
If they're faithful to Him, he will bless them so much
that the other nations around them will borrow from them
and they won't ever have to borrow.
This keeps the Israelites free
from the kind of financial attachments to pagan nations
that might result in their being enslaved again.
God also sets out some commands about how to feel and think,
not just how to act.
God's concern for things at a heart level doesn't
just start in the New Testament. He's always been after our hearts, not just our obedience.
In 15 9 through 10, he says things like, take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart,
and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him. He cares about our motives.
Your heart shall not be grudging when you give to Him. He cares about our motives.
In February's R&C episode, we talked about how the arrangement for debtors
is different than the Atlantic slave trade, even though the word slave is what's used in Scripture.
If you missed that conversation, check it out when you have a chance.
I think it will be really helpful. We'll link to it in the show notes today.
In the arrangement for the Sabbath year release of these servants, God commands that they not only
be released, but be blessed and provided for.
By the way, do you remember how Jacob agreed
to serve his father-in-law Laban seven years
in exchange for his daughter Rachel?
That's exactly the kind of agreement
we're talking about here.
Arranging to work for someone for seven years
to pay off debt.
In Jacob's case, he was working off the bride price,
and he had to do it twice
since he accidentally got himself two wives.
He voluntarily stayed with Laban for a few more years
after his debt was paid.
Then he asked Laban to bless him
with some animals when he left.
This gives us a good picture
of what these slave relationships were like,
even though that particular one was still far from ideal.
If a slave really liked his boss, he would decide to stay with him forever
and be absorbed into the family, which was always voluntary.
They would mark this decision by piercing his ear.
Moses also goes over some of the festal calendars again.
He's reiterating a lot of these laws now because, remember,
they've been celebrating these things in the wilderness for 40 years,
and now the way they're going to do things will shift
since they'll be spread out in the promised land
instead of gathered together as one large group.
These festivals will require them to travel to the central location
where the tabernacle will be established once they take the land.
In 16.3, Moses says,
All the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out take the land. In 16.3, Moses says, all the days of your life,
you may remember the day when you came out
of the land of Egypt.
And in 16.12, he says, you shall remember
that you were a slave in Egypt,
and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
You'd think that would be the kind of thing
most people would wanna forget,
like the past is behind you,
don't look back or you'll never move forward.
But that's not God's approach to this.
He says remembering where they came from
and what he has done for them
is what will keep them humble and grateful.
The Exodus is for Jews
what the resurrection is for Christians.
It's the most important thing in their history.
Moses tells them to always look back at that
to remember who they are, just as we should
always be looking back at the resurrection to remind us who we are.
But we also get to look forward to the return of the resurrected Christ.
We live in the time period theologians call the already but not yet, because we live between
the first coming and the final coming of the Messiah.
The best way for us to stay humble and worshipful is to remember these two things as well.
And that's where my God shot came in.
I saw that not only will remembering keep us humble and worshipful, but it will keep
us joyful too.
In 16, 14 through 15, when Moses is talking about the feast of of Booths. He says, you shall rejoice in your feast.
And the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands
so that you will be altogether joyful.
He's after our joy.
And he knows where joy is found.
It's one reason he keeps drawing us near to himself.
Not only does he want to be near us, but he wants us to be joyful.
In Psalm 16 11, David says it like this, in his presence there is fullness of joy.
And David was right. He's where the joy is.
Can we talk straight here? Who do you study the Bible with? Maybe you've tried Bible study groups
before and were really turned off because they seem
to be mostly centered around gossip or complaining or showing off.
So then you tried doing a six-week Bible study on your own, but you've only made it through
two weeks in four months.
Maybe you feel defeated or intimidated.
Enter D-Group.
We've built out a structure and format that continually works to encourage you personally
while preventing and eradicating chronic problems people experience.
We're the place where you know what to expect and what is expected of you.
Some of our groups are connected to a local church and others are made up of people from
different churches.
We start new studies every six weeks and we would love to have you join us as we launch
our next session.
Just click the link in today's show notes for more info or visit mydgroup.org.
Keeping Scripture in front of us in a place where we see it often can help encourage us
and remind us of God's truth.
And there are few things in front of our faces more than our phone screens.
That's why my friends at Hope Nation have made 14 phone backgrounds with scriptures for you to choose from.
To download your favorite, click the link in the show notes.