Deuteronomy 30

So often we are trapped by our own imaginations.

How can we live together as God’s people, people who flow with God’s eternal life?

Idolatry is the desire to manipulate God.

Jesus isn’t pitting himself against poor people. He’s one of them.

I came into the world cursed with the ability to see all sides of an issue.

Deuteronomy 30:15–20; 1 Corinthians 3:1–9; Matthew 5:21–37

Deuteronomy is a book of words, a book of preaching and exhortation offered as the word of God. It is made up of words given by leaders to the people before they are to form a new nation, establish homes, plant vineyards, dig wells. 

I played competitive tennis as a teenager. At one point, a new player started working with my coach. He was a natural athlete—quick, agile, and well coordinated. I was impressed.

My coach was not. He said, “That kid will never be any good.”

For those who are uncomfortable with any suggestion that our future is in our own hands, this might be one of those weeks to abandon the assigned texts on theological grounds. (It is extra tempting given the occasion of “Rally Sunday.”) In Deuteronomy we hear that if we obey we shall live and be blessed, but if our heart turns away we shall perish. And then very directly, “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Really?

This is not a Sunday for soft-pedalling the gospel. Moses and Jesus portray the life of faith as a "yes" or a "no" to God with lives that obey or that disobey. It is little wonder that it is common to summarize Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount with one verse, the "Golden Rule" (Matthew 7:12).

Somewhere along the line, choosing to worship the God met in Jesus became a matter of life and death for me.

Blessings and curses? My usual relational language with God does not include curses.