Matters of Life and Death

³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

Passage

Deuteronomy 13 - ‘You shall stone him to death with stones.’

Conditions

Everyone rose up without any defiance today, which surprised me. There was some general low mood at the table, to which I also made my contribution. We have needed some prepared prayers for days, I have felt. This morning was the last straw.

Time

Unlike most mornings in the new house (we’ve been in the east end of Toronto for 2.5 weeks) we had time this morning, at the table just before 7 am. Since we need to begin the laborious task of layering up for the brutally cold conditions of late autumn at about 7:20 am this gives us 20 minutes, which is plenty of time for some Bible and prayer.

Teaching

After reading we hovered over three points of teaching. (1) The Lord really doesn’t like idolatry. It is wicked and a grave offense to Him, as the one, holy Creator. While passages like this one might raise questions for modern readers, this should not be one of those questions. It’s unambiguous and should be taken to heart.

(2) Worship is more important than human life. This might need some refining. But the implication seems clear to me. In our time, human life (specifically individual human life) is understood as being the most important thing in existence. But in Deuteronomy 13 human life is to be taken from those who promote false worship. The church doesn’t put idolaters to death in our setting, but we should care just as much about false worship as God commanded Moses and Israel to in Deuteronomy.

(3) Lastly I mentioned that the destruction - by fire - of the idolatrous city is a strong warning of future judgement. These things happened in the past for a moment. But Jesus says a day is coming when both soul and body will be destroyed in hell. Exhortation: let us worship the true God and Him alone!

Reflection

As I glanced over the passage before reading (no preparation this morning) I was amazed to find myself wondering: Should we skip ahead to the next passage? Should I just skip the verses about the stoning? Another example of questions supposedly resolved theoretically (that all the Bible is true and good for all the people of God) feel a little less resolved when one actually comes to teach one of the hard sayings.

But, having pressed all the way through the books of Samuel, our precedent is set. And this too is a matter of faith. While reading these words to the children I am not in possession of a rationale for deciding to do so. In these moments it is more clear that we are in God’s possession before His Holy word, and it is better this way. To conclude I typed up a prayer for us to pray, specifically for beginning the day in the midst of temptation. The children copied down what I was typing on paper. It always amazes me how invested they become in whatever is ours.