September 10, 2017
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? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 18 (ESV)
“The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord‘s food offerings as their inheritance. 2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. 3 And this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. 4 The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.5 For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time.
6 “And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires—to the place that the Lord will choose, 7 and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, 8 then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony… Continue Reading
*If you click “Continue Reading”, you will leave this page and navigate to “bible.com” where you can read the rest of the chapter. Be sure to come back to this page to share what God has revealed to you by commenting below.
Already registered? Click here to log in.
Not registered? Click here (LHCC members only)
21And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken;
In my Bible classes last year, we looked at this passage to decide the qualifications of a legitament prophet. We decided they must be like Moses in some way (for example they parted water like Moses), they follow God’s laws and do not lead the people astray to other gods, and what they say comes to pass. In my classes we found that if a prophet does not have all of the qualifications he is a false prophet.
Levites live on faith
Right and wrong for all
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.” Deuteronomy 18:9-14
If you ever wanted to know what God thinks of psychics, psychic fairs, Ouija boards, seances, tarot card readers, or mediums, here’s His clear word on the matter.
And then there’s the sacrifice of children…
How important the standards of God are to guide, provide and protect. You would think a rule not to sacrifice children wouldn’t be necessary, but then we don’t understand the evil in the human heart like God does and the power of deception from the kingdom of darkness. And human behavior has clearly shown the depths of sin we can resort to and the need we have for His standards.
And did you catch the positional truth concept in verse 7? Every Levite can come and act like a Levite even if he has been living in another part of Israel and comes to the place the tabernacle is. It is the fact that he is a Levite that matters not what he has been doing. I also think it is neat how the Levites are like Israel’s tithe to God and therefore need to be taken care of as part of Israel’s offering’s to Him. It is a neat picture of sacrifice and grace!
And we don’t really need to be afraid of anyone who isn’t approaching life from God’s vantage point. It is God’s opinion, work and provisions that matters.