Posts from March 2024

As John 20 begins, three days after Jesus’ death and right before dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb where her grief has brought her and sees that the stone in front of it has already been rolled away. Thinking there has been a grave robbery, she runs to tell the other disciples. Peter and “the beloved disciple” (whose real name is never told to us) now run to the tomb. The beloved disciple looks…

The first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy deal with the big picture – history lessons and spiritual foundations (like the Shema). Chapter 12 begins the nitty gritty commandments of Deuteronomy, the tangible “here’s what to do with your hands and feet” kind of commandments. And the first thing the Israelites are to do is to break, smash, and burn anything that has anything to do with an idol. (Deuteronomy 12:2-3) How startling (and how invigorating) that the life of covenant faithfulness…

Perhaps the most under-talked about sin in all of scripture is the sin of forgetfulness, the sin of forgetting that life and livelihood are a gift, and forgetting the gift giver himself. The book of Deuteronomy is essentially Moses’ farewell address before Israel crosses over the Jordan River into the land that God has been promising them since their ancestor Abraham (nearly 500 years earlier). They’ve spent 40 years in the wilderness living on simple manna, but now they are…