I think this will be the last post from Deuteronomy, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and I’ve enjoyed discovering new things as well as being reminded of texts I haven’t taught for a long time. Here’s one on the importance of daily Bible reading, talking about their future kings. If the kings had obeyed this teaching, things would have gone A LOT better for the Israelites!

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel. (Deuteronomy 17.18 – 20, ESV)

• What were they told to do?
  • Have a copy of the Book
  • Keep it with them
  • Read it every day
• Why? So they would…
  • Learn to fear the Lord
  • Obey the law
  • Stay humble
  • Not turn aside
• Result: they would continue long in their kingdom

Read Deuteronomy chapters 10 – 21. There’s a lot in there about not conforming to the cultures around you. Hence the instruction to stay close to the word in Deuteronomy 17. And this counsel is echoed in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12.2, ESV)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4.17 – 24, ESV)