March 25

OT – Deuteronomy 4:1-49
I woke up this morning with the burning question “what does Deuteronomy mean?” in my head. Unfortunately, I have had to wait through a whole cheese market, an hour in the garden, getting ready for a party and getting Cole and Matthew off to their various escapades to find out.
Here is a short and quick version:
“Deuteronomy' comes from two words in the Greek language: deutero, which means 'second', and nomos, which means 'law'.

This is not talking about another new set of Laws, but a reiteration of it. When the Ten Commandments were given in Exodus 20, they were given to the first generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea with a huge natural show of God's power, camped at Sinai and heard the Ten Commandments for the first time. With the Ten Commandments are 613 laws of Moses. As we know, the people sinned and the consequence of it were the 40 years wilderness experience in the desert until the whole generation of those above 20 years old at the time of the escape died (except for Moses, Joshua and Caleb). They never had the privilege of taking possession of the Promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey!

The new generation were only little children when they crossed the Red Sea and camped at Sinai. Most would barely remember after forty years what had happened and certainly would not recall the reading of the law at Sinai. So, here's the purpose of the reading and explaining of the law for the second time, hence Deuteronomy, 'second law' to this new generation.”
http://hungryforgodsword.blogspot.com/2009/07/deuteronomy-what-does-it-mean.html

In the Hebrew, the name of Deuteronomy is Devarim. It means ‘second thoughts’. The Sages say that Moses (or in their name for him – Moshe) received these words in a wide wake fashion rather than in the trance he apparently was in during the receipt of the first set of commandments at Sinai. They also say that these are Moses’ last communiqué to the Children of Israel, delivered over a 3 day period as a sermon, imploring them not to go astray and to fulfill their destinies.
Just as we talk about the Gospels having a ‘certain’ audience, I think Moses was clearly dealing with certain problems. Look at vs. 15-19. All around them were peoples who were worshipping idols or images of the sun and moon. If Moses left Egypt during the time of Ramesses II which is the current accepted date, the big upstart religion was the renewal of Sun God (Ra) worship. Ramesses came to the throne 20 years after the dethroning of Akenaten who tried to introduce monotheism to Egypt. Ramesses had all traces of Akenaten removed and made a big show of the reintroduction of Amun-Ra as head of the pantheon of Egyptian gods.
This would explain why Moses goes to great lengths to forbid the sun/moon worship and idol worship. It might well explain the first and second commandments. I would say that the people heeded the sun/moon worship prohibition. The idol worship, well, that is a different matter.
Second thoughts. The second time the commandments are given. Moses’ last words. Surely, this is a book worth digging into. Don’t give up on me now.

Luke 6:39-7:10
Vs. 45 “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evile stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.”
Sounds like the proverb from yesterday, doesn’t it?
When Jesus says stuff like that in the midst of all this other symbolic talk, do your eyes just skip right over that? Mine did. It wasn’t until I started really looking at the gardening imagery (you know me!!!) that I noticed that little nugget. The overflow. What we dwell on, what we spend our time on, this is what fills our heads and our hearts. If we dwell on the negatives, the how I have been hurt, wronged, taken advantage of; we overflow with ‘bad vibes’. If we look for the positives, the times we have been helped, the times we help someone else, we overflow with Godliness.
We cannot produce good fruit (the fruits of the Spirit -- Galations 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”) without having an overflowing good heart.
Dwell on the good things, let the bad stuff go. Do good works, don’t return evil for evil. Stay in the Word.

Much love, peace and joy to you.