January 25, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Deuteronomy and Corinthians? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 14 (NIV)
Clean and Unclean Food
1 You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, 2 for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.……Continue Reading
The list of animals that can and cannot be eaten is just another example of God setting rules and guidelines for our own good. (Many of those animals I would never want to eat anyway lol) But He is showing care and concern for us even in this that we would protect our bodies from sickness and disease in avoiding therse unclean animals.
Tithing is important to God and one thing I see is how it’s intent is to care for others (not make churches rich as many people of the world think). I am so blessed to see all the good and all the help LHCC brings people and that is simply because of the generosity of the people who give. Tithing another extension of worship to bring glory to God. To give back to Him what He has blessed us with so we can continue His work in a more tangible way and so certainly should always be done with a joyful heart!
Deuteronomy 14
Deuteronomy 14
No rabbit stew
Deuteronomy 14
This is basically a repetition of Leviticus. But it’s interesting how in Leviticus the introduction of each section was God describing who He is and the law given was based on that. Here we see that the law repeated is based on who WE are. Though we are under a new covenant under Christ and some of the rules no longer apply, our identity being grafted in to the people of Israel is the same.
““You are sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave a bald spot above your forehead for the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Deuteronomy 14:1-2 NASB2020
Deuteronomy 14
14, seems there was some pagan custom to make baldness, cut themselves for the dead. Man has all sorts of customs for mourning for the dead, burials, attention to the body. For whatever reasons these were practiced in chapter 14, God said, don’t do it. I can imagine, they had a distorted view of death. I don’t understand it otherwise.
I suppose, there are times when we need to do what the Lord says, even if we don’t know the reason why. It comes down to trust.
Deuteronomy 14
The Lord chose Israel to be His peculiar people as a testimony to all the other nations that they seeing how Israel was guided by God; that these other nations would also turn to God. He could have chose any nation but He chose Israel; the least of all these nations. What was revealed was the wicked heart of people. The Ten Commandments revealed the sinfulness of mankind. But in it all; God knew that mankind would never walk right for we are all sinners. The message is clear throughout the Old Testament that God had a plan. He was to be born as a helpless baby and then latter die on the cross for all of mankind`s sins. Past, present, and future sins. God is not surprised by anything. He had a plan all along to include Gentiles. Thank the Lord that we weren`t left out of the picture. We only need to put our complete trust in Him to pay the penalty for our sins. We can`t save ourselves for we before a HOLY GOD are an unclean thing. Thank God for His love and mercy upon us.
Deuteronomy 14
So much of the Israelite’s lives were to be different from other nations and this included the things they could not eat. It was to show they were a sanctified people, distinct because of the Lord. This is one part of the Old Testament that has changed for us because of the vision given to Peter at the beginning of Acts. But the fact that we should give to the work of God has not. Although a legalistic applying of 10% is not warranted, it is a good reference point and something Abraham gave to Melchizedek and that was before the law. Our giving should be thoughtful, thankful and generous, without compulsion and cheerful. And we should always be mindful of those less fortunate than us, for whom life has been a challenge. Thinking of ways we can give that fosters independence rather than dependence…
”And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.“
Deuteronomy 14:23 NKJV
We were talking a little about this at women’s Bible study, that if we had to think about whether what we eat is acceptable to the Lord, we would out of necessity be more focused on His will. We long for liberty but it may cause us to wander.