May 13, 2021
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Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 26 (NIV)
First fruits and Tithes
1 When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, 2 take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name......Continue Reading
Deuteronomy 25&26
The final section of specific laws deals with the offering of firstfruits and tithes in the land. This is a fitting conclusion, as it focuses on responding to God’s gracious gift of the land, a key theme in the book. As God gives the land, so Israel is to give back to him in response.
As God blesses us, we in turn should freely give back to Him of our time, talent, and possessions.
I believe that offerings to the dead were a pagan practice of that day.
Deuteronomy 24 – 26
Deut 26
It should be a honor to give back to God even just a fraction of what He has given us. It is easier to give with a cheerful heart when we realize without God we would have nothing and He provides for all out needs!
What a wonderful work God had done for and through Israel. As they entered the land, God wanted them to remember where they had come from and Who brought them there. What a good way to reenforce that by having them offer their first fruits and as they did retell the story of God rescuing them from Egypt and bringing them to this land that He had promised them long ago. That promise has come full circle with this new generation that Moses has been encouraging to see the blessed place that they are receiving and to follow the God who has made it all possible. The chapter ends with Moses encouraging them to do that very thing as well as recognize how precious they are to God as well as the blessing promised to them if they follow God.
I also found it interesting that the gifts that they brought in thanksgiving for what God had done would be shared by the widows, the orphans and the aliens in the land. Once again God reenforcing His care for them and His call for Israel to take care of them even as they enter the land.
Deut. 26 showing how thankful we /they should always be for all he does for us.
The people of Israel worship with their firstfruits, remembering what God has done.
16The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. 18And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. 19He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.