Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
Holy unto the Lord (Deut. 14:1-21) - These stipulations about what animals, birds, and fish are available to eat and which are not seems arbitrary—why this one and not that? Why does chewing the cud or not, having split hooves or not, matter? The key to understanding this passage (and many others like it) is found in words that bookend the commands. They are the principle reason why these food rules are important: “you are a people holy unto the Lord your God.” That’s it. “Holy” means “set apart for a special purpose.” We can also substitute the word “different” for “holy” and we’ll get the idea. Eating differently was a very practical, everyday way to remind the Israelites that they were not like everyone else.
Bring tithes into the storehouse (Deut. 14:28-29) - This reference is worth noting because of the prophet Malachi’s message from God when they broke covenant by withholding their tithes or brought less. God dared them to see how He would provide if they would trust Him in this practical way: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” (Mal. 3:10)
Bridge to better (Deut. 15:1-18) - I appreciate that while the indebted poor and slaves were a fact of life in that world, that these laws created avenues for Israel to care for their poor and a pathway to freedom for their slaves. Not to modern standards, of course. Yet perhaps the beginning of better.
Passover Reenactment (Deut. 16:1-8) - We continue to see references to God’s saving action in the Exodus being brought together for the people in the events of the Passover. And we see the reenactment of Passover as a critical act of worship that keeps them anchored to what God has done for them in order that they remember to stay true to Him. The parallels to holy communion for Christians are numerous.
Questions:
What practices in your life remind you that you are set apart to be different from the world for God?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, show me the practical ways I can live out dependence on you and remembering I’m called to be different for you in my daily life. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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