September 6, 2017
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Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 14 (ESV)
“You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
3 “You shall not eat any abomination. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex,the antelope, and the mountain sheep. 6 Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7 Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you. 8 And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.
9 “Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10 And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
11 “You may eat all clean birds. 12 But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 13 the kite, the falcon of any kind;14 every raven of any kind; 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16 the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl 17 and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. 19 And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20 All clean winged things you may eat… Continue Reading
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When I read all the rules about what they could eat and how their tithes work, it just reminds me how we are no longer under these rules and the law. If we’ve truly let Jesus be ruler of our life their should be something “holy” and different about us in the way we act, but we aren’t under all these rules any more! Thank you, God!!!
Yes indeed, Saved by grace!
28″At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. 29And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.
Recovered my password! 🙂💛
Awesome, Sally!! I’m so glad to see you here!!
Welcome back, Sally!
Set apart by God
The first part of this chapter certainly reminds me of the vision God provided Peter in the book of Acts where Peter is granted permission to eat things that were formerly labeled unclean. It showed that God was changing His standards around food laws. We need to realize He never did that with the moral law and many of those are reinforced in the law of Christ. So we as believers are not without laws/rules, but we engage with them differently because of the cross. They become an implication, a result of the life of Christ within us rather than the thing that mediates our relationship with God. Our righteousness is not based in them, but they provide our standards for living the Christian life and differentiating what is of God and what is not. We follow them by virtue of the grace and power God provides and they are to be written on our hearts rather than on tablets of stone.
And the tithe reminds us that God owns all of it but asks for a portion back to orient our relationship with material things to Him rather than greed or materialism. We also get to participate with our finances in things that God is doing on the earth to win the hearts of people.