[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All right, so in this series we've had a couple of objectives, right? We're getting kind of near the end, so I'm hoping you've kind of picked up on these objectives and you've kind of understand what these really mean by now.
Right? And that's at the end of the series. You should be able to understand Deuteronomy as a place you can go for ethical guidance or physical explanations of our spiritual reality.
That Deuteronomy has a very specific literary framework, design patterns and central themes, and you should be able to kind of name them and pick them out in the text.
And above all that, you should have a good understanding of how the New Testament authors interpreted and applied Deuteronomy's teachings in their own writings.
And to accomplish these, right? We've had a couple of tools to understand the text and to help us as we've been reading, one of which that's been very important is this idea of lenses. It's gonna be very important again for this class, right? And this is the fact that you, or the idea that you can read scripture with different ideas in mind, you can read scripture through the lens of law, right? As very literal binary. Either you're doing it and you're doing well or you don't and you're sin.
Think of baptism, right? Acts, chapter 2, verse 38.
Or you can read scripture through the lens of wisdom, right? That there's some deeper truth in this passage that you can extract and then apply to modern day living, right? We think of the narratives a lot, proverbs, these kinds of passages.
Or you can read passage through the lens of prophecy, not necessarily as predictive, though sometimes it is, but as kind of physical explanations of our spiritual relationship with God.
Something that's very deep and abstract but can be explained through a physical example. Right. You think of the temples, the sacrifices, these types of things in the Old Testament.
And so with that, we'll have that again. I'll point some out as we go through reading, but along with that is this idea of structure, right? How Deuteronomy has been sliced up and understanding where we are in the text.
So the past couple of classes we've been talking about the stipulations.
It's this section, very large section of Deuteronomy that explains the ideal relationship between Israel and God. Not necessarily the relationship they had, but the ideal that God had for them, specifically 14th century Israelite farmers, if we're getting very specific about it.
So this is going to be the last class we have in this section. After this, we're going to move into this, that final covenantal section.
And the final topic we're going to talk about is this topic of generosity, which is really a subtopic of loving your neighbor as yourself.
And before we really get into the text, I have to make this comment that while a lot of the text we're going to talk about centers around wealth and giving money or giving food away, that isn't necessarily all generosity is, right? Generosity can be giving of time. It can be the giving of wisdom. It can be the giving of just literal strength, like helping someone.
It just so happens that a lot of the Deuteronomy text is concerned about wealth and wealth distribution and is a very, really good physical example of generosity.
So with that, I would like to start by reading this passage in Deuteronomy, chapter 26, verses 1 through 15.
And that reads, when you come into the land that Yahweh, your Elohim is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the, first of all, the fruit of the ground which you harvest from your land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you. And you shall put it in a basket and you shall go to the place that Yahweh your Elohim will choose to make his name to dwell there.
And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, I declare today to Yahweh your Elohim that I have come into this land that Yahweh swore to our fathers to give us. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of Yahweh your Elohim, and you shall make response before Yahweh your Elohim, a wandering Aramean was my father.
And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number. And there he became a nation great, mighty and populous.
And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor.
Then we cried to Yahweh, the Elohim of our fathers.
And Yahweh heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression.
And Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which you, o Yahweh, have given me. And you shall set it down before Yahweh your Elohim, and worship before Yahweh your Elohim, and you shall rejoice in all the good that Yahweh, your Elohim, has given to you and to your house, you and the Levite and the Sojourner who is among you.
When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levi, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, then you shall say before Yahweh your Elohim, I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandments that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them.
I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice of Yahweh, my Elohim. I have done according to all that you have commanded me.
Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people, Israel, and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing milk and honey.
So that was a lot.
But I wanted to start here because it has a very interesting point.
One is, this is the very last passage in the stipulation section.
And it acts as somewhat of a summary of this ideal relationship. And that summary is described in terms of a cycle, right? It starts with this person recognizing how God has saved him from slavery of sin through his past fathers, how God has provided for him in the land, and giving him all these things and because of this, he then comes to God to worship, to give back a part of it because of the grace God has given him.
And because of this, because he's following God, because of that, he then follows the other parts of the law, right? Specifically, the one that's called out is how every three years, instead of giving the tithe to God, he was supposed to give it straight to the poor and the needy, right? And that's what a lot of the laws end up being about, is this care for the vulnerable, the poor and the needy, for your fellow neighbor.
And because of that, what we find at the end is this extended blessing. That blessing goes and expands in the nation of Israel.
Now, that's really interesting. And if we look at it through the lens of prophecy, right, as a physical description of our spiritual reality, we can see that same cycle.
Christians, right? Your Christian walk starts with this recognition of the salvation that Jesus brought through his death and resurrection, that grace given to us, which leads us to become disciples, to follow him and to want to be like him and to follow his will, of which, when you read the Gospels, a lot of it is caring for the vulnerable, healing the sick, visiting the outcast.
And then because of that, what we find is in Acts, an explosion of people becoming disciples, right? That's spreading a blessing and grace throughout the world.
Now, to me, that's really interesting and really exciting, but I think there's a very practical idea that comes from this that has a lot of meaning for us in generosity, which is that when it comes to our relationship with God and following God, there are really two dimensions to it, right? There's this vertical dimension, right?
Fearing and loving God, keeping our pride in check, rejecting idols, right? How our relationship with God works.
But then there's also this horizontal dimension, how you treat the poor and needy, how you treat your brothers and sisters around you.
And that's why when Jesus is asked, what is the greatest commandment, he doesn't give a single answer. He gives two answers, one for each of these dimensions. He says, love your Father, love God with all your heart, soul and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself.
And it's this horizontal dimension that really comes to play when Jesus describes what the final judgment looks like in Matthew 25.
He says this, or he describes it as this.
He says, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me.
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothed you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?
And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food.
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me naked, and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.
Then they also will answer, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger, or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you?
Then he will answer them, saying, truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me, and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
All of that to say that our relationship with God, our discipleship, and as Jesus kind of states here, our getting into heaven is completely interdependent with how we love and treat those around us.
As John says in his letter in First John, chapter 4, verse 20, if anyone says, I love God but hates his brother, he is a liar.
For how can you?
For if you do not love your brother whom you do see, how could you ever love God whom you can't see?
Now, all of that, that's the topic.
Loving your neighbor as yourself, very broad topic. Deuteronomy has a lot to say about it, but I can't cover that in 45 minutes. So what I want to do is I want to talk about a subtopic of that which is generosity and plays a really big part, as we saw in Matthew 25, which is right, caring for the most vulnerable, the poor and the needy.
And doing that, I want to Talk about a very specific part of Deuteronomy which I think can give us a lot of wisdom, which is their economic system, right? How their economy worked or how the ideal economy was supposed to work. And a very specific part of that, lending, giving loans to people.
Now, in context, it's very important to understand how economics kind of or loans were thought of back then, right? There was no concept of a mortgage, right?
All their land was given to them by God. You don't really go get money to go buy a house or anything like that back then. There's no concept of a small business loan, right? No one's really starting businesses at the 14th century B.C.
they're all farmers with land already given to them.
And so the only reason people got loans or loans were given out was for survival.
Usually around, say, someone has a bad harvest one year, they go to the person who had a really great harvest that year and they get a loan so that they could kind of survive until the next harvest, and hopefully that one will be better.
And what's interesting is Deuteronomy actually has a few rules around giving loans. And the first one we can find in Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verses 19 and 20, and that reads, you shall not charge interest on loans to your brother.
Interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.
You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that Yahweh, your Elohim may bless you, and all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
So I think that law is so interesting because if you think about America, right, there is no loan or concept of a loan without interest, right? Your mortgage, your student loans, credit cards, whatever you want to talk about. In fact, America actually has the opposite law. If you try to give a loan above a certain amount and you don't charge interest, the IRX will tax you pretty heavily, actually.
And that's so interesting one, because it shows the difference in our economic systems and the time period that we live, but also in the idea of what it meant to give money to people.
One interesting thing to note here, the exception, right, it says foreigner.
Sometimes people get mixed up. They think of that as the same thing as the sojourner, right? One of the vulnerable people around.
That's not actually true. So that word is nokri in Hebrew, and it's a very specific word for foreigner. It's specifically like a traveling merchant, like someone who's only in Israel to do business.
So there was an idea of giving money for business or commercial use.
But when it came to the sojourner, we actually know that they were included in this ban on interest based on the same law in Leviticus, chapter 23.
But all of that, right? This is very complicated, and we're not supposed to follow it literally, right? And I would venture to guess that no one here has probably given a loan like that, right, to help someone just survive.
It's very rare.
But there's a very specific point of wisdom that I think we can get from it, which is that giving money to people or helping someone should never be for profit.
It is very evil to make profit off of someone's poverty or their.
For lack of a better term, they're suffering bad things happening to them, seeking to profit off of that, for Deuteronomy is a great evil.
That's something we should always keep in mind, is that when we go to help people, it should never be to profit us in some way in the future.
It should be to try and help them try and survive. And in fact, one thing that Israel had to deal with as well was the fact that there was a really good chance that they were not actually going to see this money ever again.
So turn with me to Deuteronomy, chapter 15.
I'm going to read verses 1 through 11.
At the end of every seven years, you shall grant a release.
And this is the manner of the release.
Every creditor shall release that he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother. Because Yahweh's release has been proclaimed of a foreigner, you may exact it. But whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall release.
But there will be no poor among you. For Yahweh will bless you in the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you for an inheritance to possess.
If only you will strictly obey the voice of Yahweh your Elohim, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.
For Yahweh your Elohim will bless you as he promised you. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
If among you, one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you. You shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.
Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart. And you say, the seventh year, the year of release is near.
And your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing. And he cried to Yahweh against you, and you be guilty of sin, you shall give to him freely. And your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him. Because for this Yahweh, your Elohim will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.
For there will never cease to be poor in the land.
Therefore I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy, and to the poor in your land.
So this was very interesting rule that they had, right? You can imagine this being applied in modern land. It's say your mortgage, your student loans, any credit card debt you had, any debt whatsoever, was just forgiven randomly every seven years.
And you can imagine what that might do to the economic system. But I kind of digress. When we talk about wisdom from this, a lot of the focus is not on the actual year of release. A lot of the focus is what it might do to you as a person.
And with that we get this kind of downward spiral. A lot of language around body, right, your body language.
And it talks about a heart hardening, the hand closing, selfish thought.
And then you look at someone differently, grudgingly, like, I have to give to that person, I have to do this. Really, compared to the righteous person described there, with no grudge in their heart and an open hand for anyone, no matter if they're even going to see the return or not.
And what it really describes is this process that can sometimes happen to us where we convince ourselves to not help the vulnerable, to not help the poor and needy.
You can imagine your heart hardens and your hand closed. Why you thought, this person can't give that money back to me.
They're just going to go use it for alcohol or drugs or whatever if I just give it to them.
So we don't.
And instead of helping them and figuring out a way to help them, we just ignore them.
And we convince ourselves that, ah yes, we're being prudent with our money, with our wealth by instead of figuring out an actual way to help them, just ignore them.
And this is what this passage is explicitly saying you can't do.
You can't ignore them just because you might not get something back because you're thinking it might not actually work.
You have to try and figure out a way to help them.
And it's this very thing that Jesus really amplifies when he starts talking about how to treat other people. So if you go with me to Luke chapter 6, read verse 34 and 35.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount.
But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return.
And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
So Jesus picks up on this wisdom from Deuteronomy, and he kind of expands on it a little bit, talking about how it really reflects the heart of God when you do this, when you give to people that you never expect to get anything in return.
And in fact, he kind of almost goes a step further, which is that you shouldn't just, you know, hold your nose and do it. You should actively reach out, find people to do that.
You should be searching for people to lend to, to never get anything back.
Because it's the thing that God does. He looks for the lost, the poor and the needy, and he gives without expecting anything in return, because we can never really repay him, right, the grace that he's given us.
Now, with that being said, there's another idea in these passages we've read in Deuteronomy that almost kind of goes under the radar a little bit.
And you can kind of see it at the end here in chapter 15, right? It says in verse 10, you shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him. Because for this, Yahweh, your Elohim will bless you in all your work and all you undertake.
Now, a lot of times prosperity Gospel people will take this and they'll come up with some lesson around if you give to the poor or really give to the church, this church or that church, whatever church that prosperity Gospel person is preaching out of, then God will make you rich.
And that's not at all what they're saying.
What the passage is really saying is that the reason God gives you wealth to begin with or blesses you is with this expectation that you're actually going to do this for him, that you're going to use these Resources, you get to go and help the poor and needy to lend to those who can't give back to you. And it really highlights a very specific idea about generosity, which is this mindset you have to have, which is that you don't actually own the things that you have, the resources you have.
They are just lent to you by God to do his will.
There's a difference between ownership and stewardship.
I want to show two primary examples of this. So I'm going to read two laws. So Deuteronomy 23, 24, 25, and then Deuteronomy 24, 19, 22.
So in Deuteronomy 23, 2425, we get this.
If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.
Then in 2419, 22, we get this interesting.
When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, that Yahweh your Elohim may BL you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow. And when you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it. Afterward, it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.
Therefore I command you to do this.
I remember when I first read these laws, and my immediate thought was, how is this? How are these laws not stealing?
Other than that, God says it's okay, right? That makes it's obvious okay, then it's okay.
But it sounds a lot like stealing. Like if we saw this today, our immediate thought was, ah, yes, they're stealing from that person's land.
Now, a lot of times we look over this because Jesus disciples do exactly Deuteronomy, follow the law in Deuteronomy 23 when they're confronted about the Sabbath.
But I want to give a modern comparison about how radical of a law and different this really would be.
A modern version of this law might look like this.
Say you cook for your family and everyone has their meal feed, everyone eats, they're full, but you have leftovers.
You cannot Put those leftovers back in your fridge. You have to leave it out in.
An immigrant or an orphan or a widow walks into your house, gets the food, and then takes it away.
That would literally be what that law is.
And we all sit there and we think that's kind of crazy that you would do something like that. That's kind of insane.
But it shows something that God is trying to get at.
And you can kind of see it in that second law. In chapter 24, it uses this phrase, it shall be for right. It says, it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
And what's interesting about that phrase is that literally in Hebrew, it says it belongs to.
Saying that actually that belongs to them, that they own it.
Right? What God is saying in that law is that not only do they have a right to those extra crops that you've left that you left behind, but they actually have a right to it. That if you were to go back and take them, you would be, in fact, stealing from them.
And you might generally ask the question, well, how the heck does that make sense?
It's because they don't. You're not supposed to think of your crops, your food, your wealth, all these things as yours anymore. Not supposed to think of it as owning something.
God has lent it to them. No matter if you've planted or plowed and done all these things, God gave them those crops, and he can give it to whoever he pleases.
And that's the reasoning behind it. He decided to give it to these people.
And that's the shift in mindset that you. That Christian generosity really has.
It's the shift from, I've earned this wealth. It's mine, I get to do what I please with to God has given this to you.
Now go and do his will with it. Help those in need.
Spread the gospel. Use it to spread the gospel effectively.
With all that said, I want to go back to the point I made at the beginning, because we've talked a lot about wealth in this class.
But again, generosity is so much more than that.
And I want to kind of end with Matthew 25 again, just to show this.
Again, this is Matthew 25, verse 31:46.
When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, were thirsty and give you drink?
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
Then he will say to those on the left, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food.
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me naked and you did not clothe me, sick and imprisoned, and you did not visit me.
Then they also will answer, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger, or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you?
Then he will answer them, saying, truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
And these will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous to eternal life, pointing out something now, generosity is more than wealth. In this list, he has many things.
I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick.
All you did was visit me.
I was in prison. And you know what? You came to me, right? Those are things that are much more than just money or resources. Those are things anyone can do and things we really should be doing as disciples of Jesus.
Thank you. I'll see you all next week.
