Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Obedience
- Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity. Our true identity comes only from Father.
Deuteronomy 29 is like much of the rest of Deuteronomy. Moses is laying out the rules for community
before the people. They have the ability
to decide if they are going to listen and obey or not. Everyone can choose to walk with God and
obey. But not all will.
As we would expect in any chapter that has much to say about
obedience, it really does come back to identity. Moses speaks at length in this chapter about
the difference between those who will follow God and those who follow other
gods or their own desires. In order to
truly obey God, we must be absolutely committed to our identity coming from
Him.
What we see towards the end of this chapter is how contagious
obedience is. Moses begins speaking in
verse 18 about a single person who chooses to not be obedient. But by the time we get to verse 22 we hear
about the whole community being affected.
Obedience to God is catchy and transferable from one person to another;
the same is true for obedience to other things that are not God.
As the chapter ends, we come back to the fundamental question
before us always. Choose obedience and
the Lord will be with us. Choose
obedience to something else and the Lord will not guarantee either His
protection or His presence. The sad
thing is that by the end of the chapter we get the feeling that God and Moses
know mankind all too well. There is an
assumption at the end of the chapter that the people will not be able to remain
obedient. Human beings will fall
away. Such is life in Moses’ day. Such is life in the modern age. We must take this concept of obedience
seriously.
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