Deuteronomy 29–31: Hear & Learn

Read the Bible in 2011 ◊ Week 51: Monday

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”
Deuteronomy 29:29

Monday’s Bible reading is Deuteronomy 29–31. Moses continues to exhort and encourage the Israelites to love God and keep His commands.

Throughout Deuteronomy Moses has underscored the necessity for all of the people to know God’s Word. In Deuteronomy 6:1–9 and 11:18–21 he commands the diligent teaching of it to children by parents. In Deuteronomy 17:18–20 he commands that future kings should write out their own copy of God’s Word and read it daily. In chapter 30, Moses commands an occasion of the reading of the Law to the entire assembled nation.

So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. Then Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place which He will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law. Their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”
Deuteronomy 31:9–13

“…that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.” Throughout the Bible the purpose of hearing and learning the Word of God is to know God and to do His Word (James 1:19–25).

“Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how He is to be worshiped, or wherein true happiness lies…”¹

But we have been given those absolutes from God Himself; He has revealed Himself to us. That is why we must hear and learn His Word—and the Bible emphasizes the continuous, daily abiding in God’s Word (cf. Deuteronomy 6:1–9, 11:18–21; 17:18–20 and Psalm 1:1–3).

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¹John Owen, Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ, p. xl. Via: Kubecki.com