Theological Commentary: Click Here
There are
three distinct parts to this chapter in Deuteronomy. However, I believe them to be well
connected. The first and the last deal with
the same general topic: spiritual leadership.
Anytime we have a topic sandwiched between similar ideas, that is a sign
of importance. The middle passage deals
with the actions of the greater people.
Let’s start
there. God warns the people to not act
like the Canaanites. They aren’t
supposed to practice child sacrifice, which many of the Canaanites did. They weren’t supposed to consult the dead or
the spirit realm when making a decision.
Most cultures – in one way or another – still do this, we just like to
hide it and justify it and make it something it isn’t. They
weren’t supposed to tolerate fortune tellers and people who thought that they
could predict the future. Again, most
cultures have some sort of future-teller.
The question
becomes, then, if these types of things are bad and most cultured do them, how
are the Hebrew people to be any different?
This is where the bookends of this passage come into play. First, they are to ensure that their
spiritual leadership is firmly established.
They want to make sure that the spiritual leadership is able to focus on
teaching genuine spirituality by caring for their more mundane needs. They need to allow the spiritual leader to
place the spiritual leadership in the forefront where it ought to be.
Second, they
need to realize that true spiritual leadership is not a function of the people’s
election but rather God’s selection. It
is God who raises up leaders. It is God
who empowers them. God is in control of
who is granted wisdom to lead and who is not.
We as people need to look for those whom God has equipped and not the
people that the world has elected as popular or powerful.
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