Week 2 – Monday 14 March

‘So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.’

Reading

Deuteronomy 10.12–11.1

The Essence of the Law

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.

Rewards for Obedience

You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.

Reflection

The people are free, so what now? How can they organise themselves in ways that will enable all of them to stay free, rather than reproduce hierarchy and oppression? Scripture is pretty down-to-earth about it. The people need structures to help them live well. Laws are given to enable the boundaries for justice needed in the new community, to ensure that there is a space where all can flourish.

But laws on their own do not deliver a just society, they merely make it possible. It is the attitudes underlying the laws that matter: caring for the poor, the disadvantaged and the stranger, not primarily out of duty, but because they are people made in the image of God, loved by God. The laws of Scripture keep reinforcing that to do justice, to love our neighbour goes beyond duty: it is a response to God’s love.

Prayer

God of justice and mercy, teach us to live well, to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger, and love our neighbour as ourselves. Amen. 

Today’s family challenge

Read about the Ten Commandments

God gave the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5.6-21) to the Israelites to help them build a new life.

They still shape our world today.