Deuteronomy 11:19 "And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." We started the week with Jesus’s words about the authority of Scripture. God’s Word is living and active; it invites us and it provokes us. Yesterday we turned back to Deuteronomy, words written more than three thousand years ago, about how we should respond to God’s Word. God commands His people to internalize His words: to fix them in heart and soul, and also to wear them outwardly as a sign. God’s words are not meant to remain mere intellectual assent. They are to fill the inner person; affections, mind, and motives. Binding them on the hand pictures deeds; binding them on the forehead pictures thought, worldview, and public identity. Today’s verse calls for a lifestyle of constant, conversational faith: not a single lesson, but an ongoing, natural practice of speaking God’s truth into...
Deuteronomy 11:18 "Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes." We have already read the words of Jesus that teach daily dependence on God’s will, the authority of Scripture, the difference between physical and spiritual life, and more. We often call the Bible “the bread of life.” God’s Word is living and active; it invites us and it provokes us. John 1:1 tells us that the living Word is Jesus; the written Word is Holy Scripture. God spoke, and all things came into being. John 1:14 shows that His plan from the beginning was our redemption. Jesus later named Himself the Bread of Life (John 6:35). So when we pray for daily bread, we are asking not only for what feeds the body, but for the Word that feeds the soul, one day’s portion at a time. Today we turn back to Deuteronomy, words written around 1406 B.C., just before the Israelites entered the Promised Land ...