Monday, September 12: Deuteronomy 31- Passing God's truths to the next generations.

How do you preserve faith? How do you pass along faith from generation to generation?  How do you maintain integrity with its origins?

These questions are important today but in Moses’ day possibly even more so since they were an oral culture.

Part of the answer is that you write it down and you make sure people read it (or at least hear it) periodically.

So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Festival of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess” (9-13).

I wonder if Israel actually did this. There is the one occurrence in Ezra and Nehemiah’s time, but that was after the exile in Babylon. And in Josiah’s time, when the temple is being refurbished, we the find the Book of the Law. That comment doesn't bode well for reading it aloud to all the people at least every seven years.

Whether Israel did this or not, the principle of writing down and then reading to the people, the core of the faith repeatedly is sound. And Moses gives special heed regarding children who must hear the law and be taught to fear the Lord.

As I think about this I wonder if we are any better at this today. Oh, we are a written culture, but do we take the fact that things are in books for granted? Regarding our faith, I know we have God’s Book but do we transfer that wisdom, knowledge and revelation from God’s Book to our minds and hearts?

God directed that people repeatedly read His Book and then pass its content along with the fear of the Lord to the coming generations as they train up the children.

God’s whisper to me… do I attend to God’s Book and do I see that its content along with the fear of the Lord to the ensuing generations? Do I? Do you?

Lord, burn within me the treasure that we have in having Your Book. Burn within me a desire to honor it, know it, live by it, and fear You in the process. Burn within me the importance of passing along to the coming generations a reverence for and commitment to Your Book and even more importantly, a reverence for and commitment to You. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.