Tuesday, March 29th

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Deuteronomy 14-16, Luke 5:1-16

The first words that jumped out at me today are right at the beginning of our passage....

Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession. Deut 14:2b
Isn't that beautiful? And just as applicable to us today. The Lord has chosen you and me to be his treasured possession! Amazing!

Next, I found this sermon that had some really interesting thoughts on the debt cancellation in Chapter 15.

First, the debt cancellation flows from the fourth commandment - the Sabbath. The command to cancel debts (there are some who think it may have simply been a one year suspension of debts where payments did not need to be made and no interest would accrue) every seven years was, not coincidentally, related to the command to allow the land to rest. It would be rather harsh to expect continued debt repayment during a year when income was not being generated.

There is a correlation between rest and giving.

The call to rest the land, to cancel the debt (or at least one year’s payments) – is a call to obedience. What is important here is not so much what we get from the rest, but what we are then able to give to others by our resting, by our obedience to the command. The benefit of the sabbatical year is the abolition of poverty....

Deuteronomy 15 tells us that perfect obedience would end poverty, but since the presence of poverty in Deuteronomy 15:11 is a given, poverty serves as a constant reminder of our sin but also as an opportunity for grace. The key though is not in just dealing with the poverty, but going to the heart, having that changed. The reason Jesus accepted this gift (of the woman in Matthew 26 pouring expensive perfume on Jesus instead of giving it to the poor) is that the woman knows what the disciples did not: she recognized that Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection was central for a changed heart. Our calling is not just the end of poverty, not just the sense of duty, but our calling is to believe that our hearts are changed by God’s grace and with the work of Christ at the forefront of all we are and do. Then we can respond to those in need.

The existence of poverty is not an excuse for doing nothing, but should convict us that we are not doing enough. Yet the answer is not just to do more, but first look to Christ and repent of not trusting Him more. (emphasis mine, words in black mine)

Deuteronomy 15 is also linked to our passage from yesterday in Luke 4 where Jesus reads froM Isaiah 61 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

I would have never caught this....

That which the prophet Isaiah referred to was pictured in the Sabbath rest and the year of Jubilee. But it was fulfilled in the work of Christ. As Christ came to fulfill the Law, He did not come to abolish the Old Testament practices as antiquated rules of a by-gone era; rather in Christ they are understood in their truest light. The year of release is what you and I have today in the Gospel. This is now the year of the Lord’s favor.

The Sabbath rest we enjoy each week is but a picture of what Christ has done. That which we give to the poor is but a pitiful reminder of all that Christ has given us. The key idea in Deuteronomy 15 as well as in Luke 4 is that of release, of freedom. That word, aphesis, freedom, is the common word throughout the New Testament for another kind of cancellation of debt, another freedom which we enjoy because of the gift of Christ’s death in our place. That word is forgiveness. You and I have been set free from the debt we could never repay. Having been bound by the chains of sin and guilt, wracked with a poverty beyond any means of getting out of, Jesus Christ paid our debt and set us free so that we could serve our Savior out of the riches of His infinite grace. It is out of that freedom from God’s judgment that we now can help those in material distress as well as speak to them of the good news of a poverty far worse than homelessness, far more devastating than hunger – a poverty of our sin. The answer to that greatest need is Christ’s work on the Cross for us.

And that is why we are called to be fishers of men, like our passage in Luke 5. How's that for a real quick link between our OT and NT passages! ;)

Tomorrow's passage: Deuteronomy 17-19, Luke 5:17-39