Year 4, Day 172: Deuteronomy 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

I think this is another very good chapter to speak about competency.  It opens with an interesting passage about an unsolved murder.  But the passage isn’t about how to solve the murder; it is about how to resolve the guilt for the dead person’s blood that God bestows on creation.  The blood guilt must be absolved.  It falls to the elders of the nearest city to absolve the guilt.

This is easily done, mind you.  There is a sacrifice and then a confession before the Lord that they cannot determine who is responsible.  So we’re not talking about a difficult calling; just a necessary one.

The reason that this is an issue of competency is that the elders have to care.  It would be so easy to say, “Nobody knows how the person died, let’s just forget about it and move along.”  It’d be so easy to say, “It’s an unsolved death, just bury the person and move on with life.”  But that isn’t what God wants of his leaders.  God wants his leaders to stop and care and think about the blood guilt.  God wants his leaders to pay attention to guilt.  God wants His leaders to care about how God sees things.  We are to care about the details in life.

The same is true for captive wives, for parents who play favorites, etc.  God desires us to take seriously how we treat women and how we treat our children.  It is easy to throw away a marriage that is no longer interesting.  It is easy to play favorites among kids.  But God’s leaders are called to not do those things and care about the details and get things done right according to God’s standards.  That’s what we’re supposed to be about.  It takes competent people to lead, to care, and to get the job done right.

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