So as I read through this book over the past 2 days, I often wondered what Deuteronomy means. I figured it meant something like repeat everything from the past three books.
I was close. Deuteronomy means "second law." Because, well, Moses is giving the law a second time.
I ran into an issue yesterday after finishing my reading... And I have the same issue today. I don't really know what to blog. There have been verses and chapters that have been "blogable," but nothing has really gotten my head thinking.
So, what I am going to do is blog about a theme that I have seen in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Sin is really, really bloody. I mean REALLY, REALLY bloody.
Have you ever stopped to think about what an animal sacrifice would look like? I'm pretty sure that slaughtering cows and goats and sheep and birds is pretty grotesque.
And while it's gross, that is the point. It is the same thing with the crucifixion. Jesus endured an intense, life-draining, slaughtering to pay for our sins.
The movie, The Passion of the Christ, is a perfect example of why we (Christians in 2009) don't care about sin. We see the movie and say "wow, that is just too much to watch..."
Once again, that is the point. Sin is too much to watch. Pain and suffering is too much to watch. Blood and gore and guts and the sound of animals being slaughtered is too much to watch.
So, we have invented a "civilized" faith in which we have a pretty Jesus hanging on a pretty cross. We don't talk about animal sacrificing, because it is "politically correct." We clean up our faith so that we never understand their severity of sin and the death that pays for it.
Now, I am not saying we need to slaughter animals or have pictures of barely recognizable Jesus in our churches. BUT to be completely honest, I think that our lack of understanding for our sin is directly linked to the lack of commitment that we see in churches today.
I think that if Christians really understood the severity of their sin, then we have no response except to fall on our face before a Holy God and give our lives completely to Him.
I am no exception. I have only witnessed a few animals being killed in my life. And none of them were as gruesome and bloody as these animal sacrifices in the Bible are.
I like what Tiffany said a few days ago about how Leviticus is just blood here and blood there and blood on the altar and blood on the people and blood everywhere. I like it, because that's the point.
That is the point of sacrificing. You shouldn't want to sacrifice. This shouldn't be a day that you look forward too.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of an Israelite as you place your hand on the head of an animal and with your other hand you chop off that head with a knife. Then, you pour the blood all over the place. Then, you place this perfectly innocent animal on the fire in your place. You deserve to die, but that animal is in your place.
Animal sacrificing gets very personal when you view it that way.
Now realize, you are in the same shoes. You place your hand on Jesus' head and with your other hand nail him to the cross. You whip him over and over and over again. He is bleeding all over you. You are ripping the skin off his back. And then place this perfectly innocent GOD on the cross in your place. You deserve to die, but your Savior is in your place.
The crucifixion gets very personal when you view it that way.
So what is your response? What do you do know that Jesus has given His innocent life to pay for your guilty life? If you understand what just happened, you only have one response.
Fall on your face before a Holy GOD and give Him your life. Not just part... but the whole thing.
Tomorrow I am reading Joshua 1-13. But right now I am going to talk to God. Pray that God will continue to speak to me and continue to open my eyes as I read through the Bible.
You are more than welcome to join me. The hard books are over. I guarantee that you won't regret it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
gah!!! can't we skip to ephesians or something easy?? lol! deuteronony is just too convicting... :-P
ReplyDelete(i have been behind about a couple days' worth but am catching up slowly but surely... finished the last few chapters of numbers and trying to do the whole book of deut today! almost there...)
seriously reading through all 5 books of the law in less than 2 weeks is giving me a whole new perspective on the Bible, on God, on life... i wanted to fall flat on my face just reading the thing. deut. does repeat a lot of stuff, but it does it in first person... like Moses is talking directly to me, like I'm standing right there with the Israelites. And then I picture David, and all the other Biblical people, and even Jesus, reading this law, meditating on it, and basing their lives on it... it's pretty powerful stuff, even without the NT! (if anyone starts now, i wouldn't turn them away, but seriously, they're missing the best part!)
"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee [led me, Tiffany, through the Bible!] these forty years {okay so it just felt like it took forty years to read ;)} in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. {wow!}And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." again... WOW!
puts a whole new perspective on Jesus' quote of this verse, doesn't it? somehow you can't fully understand the NT unless you know the OT really well. so cool that everything i am reading makes clearer the things I've learned in the NT, too!