BIBLE STUDY: DEUTERONOMY 26

These are notes, summarizing the discussion in our noon Bible study from 4/17/18.

DEUTERONOMY 26

I.   Context

·         The book of Deuteronomy is a long review. 

·         The children of Israel are at the end of their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and are about to cross the Jordan River and begin their conquest of the Promised Land, aka Canaan, aka Palestine.   Moses knows that he will die before they cross over, so he gives them this “let me go over this one more time” final exam review of the Law, their history, and the parameters for organizing their community once they have taken possession of Canaan. 

·         Much of Deuteronomy is word-for-word or paraphrased recall of Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers.  But some of the rules in Deuteronomy aren’t in the earlier law.  The new rules represent unique situations that arose during the 40 years where the people needed a new ruling.   

II.  The offering of very first fruits (verses 1-11)

A.    1 “And it shall be, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it,

·         This is one of many commandments the Israelites could not keep when they were given.   They were homeless nomads with no national lands. 

·         This was God’s way of saying, “You have nothing now.  This is how you’re supposed to act when you get your blessing.”

B.     ² that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.

·         and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide = Refers to the center of national worship.  That ended up being Jerusalem, but not for about 500 more years.  In the interim, the site of national worship was in the Tabernacle or around the ark of the covenant and those moved from city to city.

·         The offering of the very first fruits was a national offering, a one-time nationwide celebration that God had done it.

C.     ³ And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days, and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’⁴ “Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.

·         Once the Israelites had entered, conquered, divided, settled, and begun to cultivate Canaan, they were to make a special sacrificial offering of their very first harvest(s).

·         This is like when you finally get that good job and you go to the church and contribute because God has been good to you and you just want to bless the Lord back.

·         This one time, 1^st time offering of the very first fruits of their harvest as homeowners was separate from every other type of tithe, offering, and sacrifice and festival. 

D.    and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide

E.     ⁵ And you shall answer and say before the Lord your God:

·         There was a ritual, like a liturgy or responsive reading, that accompanied the offering of the very first fruits  carried out by each landowner or head of household.

·         In those days there was no separation of church and state, no compartmentalization between legal and municipal issues and personal, communal, or religious issues.  God and community were a single set.

·         The Levites (clergy) were spiritual guides, heads of the local education system, municipal judges, doctors, and internal ambassadors who (because they were neutral and owned no territory of their own) arbitrated disagreements across tribal territories.

·         The responsive reading before the Levite was an act of worship, a social ritual to recall the people’s history.  It was like having a notary public certify that you had pain the tax/ tithe.

F.      ‘My father was a Syrian, about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there,             few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

·         The ritual oath/ responsive reading began by reminding the Jews that they were the descendants of immigrants.  Abraham was an ethnic Syrian/ Aramaean who entered Canaan with no property, dependent on the kindness of the natives.

·         Each generation of patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) experienced famine and had to flee to Egypt and survive on the welfare provided by friendly Pharaohs.

·         It was “Remember where you came from.  You ain’t always had what you have.”

G.    ⁶ But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us. ⁷ Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. ⁸ So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.

·         Reminder that the landowners, kings, and masters of the Promised Land are the children of slaves who did not have the power to free themselves.  But God . . . .

H.    ⁹ He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, “a land flowing with milk and honey”; ¹⁰ and now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land which you, O Lord, have given me.’

·         Their possessions and prosperity cannot be attributed solely or primarily to hard work and superior intellect.   God set them free.  God brought them through.  God made them the nation that they are.  Not their weapons or their ingenuity. 

·         Before the Israelites had a land of Israel to live in, God wanted them to have a proper sense of national humility.

I.        “Then you shall set it before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. ¹¹ So you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger who is among you.

·         Through ritual the Levite (clergy) certified each offering.

·         Notice verse 11.  The blessing to the landowner and the blessings to support the church (Levites) and the charitable blessing to the stranger (homeless and immigrant) aren’t considered separate funds.     

III.  The 3^rd year tithe (verses 12-15)

A.    ¹² “When you have finished laying aside all the tithe of your increase in the third year—the year of tithing—and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your gates and be filled,

·         The 3^rd year tithe is separate from the offering of very first fruits.

·         Every 3 years, a special offering was taken up consisting of 10% of the harvests, livestock, or equivalent income earned that year.

·         The 3^rd year tithe was administered locally.

·         After they settled in the Promised Land, the Levites scattered across the nation.  Every village/ community had a Levite to serve in all the ways mentioned above.   Some villages shared a Levite.

·         The 3^rd year tithe was brought to the local Levite. 

B.     ¹³ then you shall say before the Lord your God: ‘I have removed the holy tithe from my house, and also have given them to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed Your commandments, nor have I forgotten them. ¹⁴ I have not eaten any of it when in mourning, nor have I removed any of it for an unclean use, nor given any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that You have commanded me.

·         By ritual, the Levite certified that each individual had fulfilled his obligation to contribute 10% of income to the community.

·         The 3^rd year tithe was the endowment that provided ongoing support for: Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow = church/ clergy, homeless and immigrant, children without active fathers, and single mothers

·         Again, when these rules were given, the Israelites owned no land.  They didn’t have any harvests in the wilderness.  God was laying down the rules for how a community is SUPPOSED to work.

·         In God’s idea of community, EVERYONE contributes proportionately to support the church and charity. 

·         In God’s community, there isn’t a division between church and “ministry.”  The pastor eats and the poor eat.  The homeless have housing and the church building is maintained. 

C.     ¹⁵ Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land which You have given us, just as You swore to our fathers, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’

·         The ritual of the 3^rd year tithe moves from talking ABOUT God in the 3^rd person to talking TO  God in the 1^st person. 

·         It’s a testimony service.  Like when some body is talking ABOUT what God has done for them and after a while they get caught up and start talking directly TO God, praising Him “for all He’s done for me!”

IV.   Moses reminds them

                  A.    ¹⁶ “This day the Lord your God commands you to observe these statutes and judgments; therefore you shall be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. ¹⁷ Today you have proclaimed the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments, and that you will obey His voice.

·         After going over the two future offerings and rituals, Moses reminds the people (again) that these activities are part of the obligations of the covenant that they have agreed to.

                   B.     ¹⁸ Also today the Lord has proclaimed you to be His special people, just as He promised you, that you should keep all His commandments, ¹⁹ and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, in praise, in name, and in honor, and that you may be a holy people to the Lord your God, just as He has spoken.”

·         See 1 Peter 2:9.   Notice the similarities in language. 

·         The early NT church was led by Jewish men. Peter was a fisherman.  He didn’t read Greek philosophy.  His only exposure to grand ideas about leadership and organizing where from the law and the prophets (the Old Testament).  So, when Peter explains the nature of Christians’ relationship to God and to one another, he doesn’t invent something new.  He draws on the same idea of community that Moses articulated. 

·         When we today look back and say, “We should be more like the NT church,” we need to remember that the NT church was looking back saying, “We need to be like the Kingdom community God described through Moses.”

V.   Other Thoughts.

·         Why did God choose these people in this part of the world to receive His OT and NT revelations?  Why not tribes in the Americas?  Why not Europeans?  Why did God speak to Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Daniel and NOT to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle? 

·         I think that part of the reason is that the Middle-East-and-Africa centered peoples had a particular cultural mindset that God wanted to come out through His Scriptures.

·         In the Western mentality, the individual is the most important unit.  Individuals want a community that supports them.  When we don’t have it, we declare the community to be a bunch of haters and we shop for a more amenable job, group, church, etc.

·         In the mentality of the Biblical world (Middle-East and Africa), the community is the most important unit.  The individual is part of the community but he/she isn’t ever the center of the community.  God is the center.

·         Each individual’s highest good is to contribute to the prosperity and holiness of their people, to continue and expand the legacy and history of their people.  It is a cultural mindset more easily bent toward loving your neighbor to the same degree that you love yourself.

·         American culture is built on a Western mentality.  The Western mindset is still defined by the ideas of ancient pagan Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). 

·         So, there are lots of things in Scripture that contradict our Western mentality.  That’s why we cherry-pick scripture.  That’s why we read Divine commands to do justice and to care for the poor and the stranger but ignore them and instead only seem to remember verses that talk about how great and special I (Individual) am.

·         We treat prosperity as a command but compassion as an option.

·         We compartmentalize community and charity and worship and economics and declare each to be a separate thing. That’s Plato, not Jesus.

·         I think this is why Western Christians are so often and accurately accused of hypocrisy.  This is why we can’t find common ground even though we have a common text.

·         This is why African souls are troubled by trying to live out Middle Eastern Scripture with an American mindset.