Moses said: Now this is the commandment–the statutes and the ordinances–that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
———————————————————————————————————-
This is an optional Old Testament selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 26. If chosen, it will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a reader on Sunday November 4, 2018. It is important because it is identified by Jesus as the first of all commandments, when one of the Temple scribes asked him to answer that question. As the part A of a two-part answer, from which all of the other commandments stem, the faithful will love God with all their hearts, all their souls, and all their strength. That love of God is then what brings God’s love upon one in return, via the Holy Spirit.
This alternate Old Testament reading choice is based on the Gospel reading from Mark 12. I have prepared an analysis of Mark 12:28-34, which offers an opinion on verses four through nine here. I recommend reading that article, as I will not take time to rehash that in this writing. I will offer some opinions on the first three verses.
In verse one, where we read, “Now this is the commandment–the statutes and the ordinances–that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy,” there are two important aspects to grasp. One, Deuteronomy 5 restates the Ten Commandments and tells of Moses speaking for God to the Israelites. As such, verse one refers back to the prior chapter, of instructions that God had commanded through Moses. Second, the singular number spoken – “the commandment” [from “ham·miṣ·wāh”] – is both all that was spoken in chapter 5 AND that about to follow, as the singular Word of God. Everything Moses spoke (and thus recorded in writing) “—the statutes and the ordinances—“ was God’s commandment.
Verse two beings by stating [appearing later in the above paraphrase], “Purpose you may fear Yahweh your god,” where “Yahweh eloheka” is written. The “purpose” for God’s commandment is to fear Yahweh, who must be “your god” (from “elohim,” meaning “gods”), collectively and individually.
This is a commandment that the LORD IS GOD, the only God of Israel, and He has given Commandments, statutes and ordinances that demand compliance or all will be lost. Fear of breaking the commandment should then make each and every Israelite make the LORD become your gods. Anyone who does not have this fear of God will not comply with “the commandment –the statutes and the ordinances” and will start walking around wearing a Big Head, thinking one is him or herself a god.
Moses, then speaking for God and himself said, “I command you” to keep all the statutes and commandments, not only alone, but to teach one’s children (“son”) and grandchildren (“grandson”) to keep them. This was based on oneself having a fear of God; but to teach one’s family was not motivated by a fear of God. It was motivated by love of God, such that the greatest fear of God was not from Him punishing those who broke His commandments, but from losing God in one’s life. One’s greatest fear was that one’s actions would disallow one from God’s love.
This aspect of one’s love of God is then that of a devoted wife (regardless of human gender), who has loved God and been loved by God in return. There has been a commitment made between the two. The commitment is spelled out in the marriage contract that is the commandments of God. Still, that loving relationship has led to offspring (“ū·ḇin·ḵā” – “your son”) and [after forty years in the wilderness, a second generation] then further offspring (“ū·ḇen- bin·ḵā” – “your grandson”).
This is then the marriage contract taught within family, out of love of God and bloodline being born of God’s love. It is the wife also becoming one with the Father, so that parents [both wives of the Lord] love their children in a Father–Son manner, with a commandment being for all to “honor your father and mother,” where “honor” means to continue the bloodline and the love of God.
This is why verse three says “that it may be well with you that you may multiply greatly.” The word stating, “it may be well” is “yî·ṭaḇ,” which is rooted in “yatab,” meaning, “to be good, well, glad, or pleasing.” This then states the power of love in the production of offspring.
These three verses are then stating that living up to the commandments of God demand love. That love puts one in touch with God individually and deeply, so each of the Israelites felt the love of God born in them. Through the teachings of the commandments, carried on by loving parents and grandparents, each soul felt the wonders and powers of their God.
That love from God was so special, no one ever wanted to not love God completely. Still, the thought of losing God’s love – as a divorce that was justified by cheating on God, through serving another [even self] –was the fear of God each had to rely on, should any doubts or trials enter into one’s mundane life.
As an optional Old Testament reading selection for the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s own personal ministry for the LORD should be underway – one fears God and fears losing God’s love – the message here is to follow the most important commandment(s) – love God completely and then love your neighbors [extended families, all related by blood with the Father] as yourself. Love of God is what places God’s love in one’s heart, where all the commandments are written.
This modern world (which began developing long ago [see Ruth 1]) has ceased being led by hearts that love God. The brain has become “your gods” that keep all from loving God totally. This pretense of self as god then prevents most from being able to recognize our “neighbors,” so we can love them too.
We have become followers of dogma, with empty souls standing among us who preach, “Jesus would love foreigners (or sinners, or non-family, or those who have never loved God totally),” as if they have been given a piece of sheepskin that proclaims “Authority on Jesus Christ.” They have no fear of losing God’s love, because they think the way to God’s heart is through His Son. As such, they love the ideal of Jesus Christ, but always speak of him in the third person, never as the Son having been reborn.
If they did, they would preach, “I love all foreigners,” speaking as one filled with God’s Holy Spirit, as Apostle-Saint reborn to the world as Jesus Christ. Since Jesus only spoke the truth of the Father, such bold claims would be known to be lies. Jesus of Nazareth never promoted all Jews love all Romans and welcome them into the land once known as the Promise Land. Jesus actually said, “I come only for the children of Israel,” which rejected those who were not commanded to love God totally, loving others of the same God as themselves (who loved God totally).
Instead, those reborn as Jesus Christ today should open their mouths only when teaching their family the Law. Rather than venom being spewed on people – fellow Christians who also say they love Jesus Christ, but do not love foreigners or those Christians that speak lies – one reborn as Jesus Christ would say, “Bring me the children.”
Priests of Yahweh would stand with smiles on their faces, saying, “I love God. I teach you to love God with everything within you, because losing the love of God turns one into a worshiper of self-ego.” They would then add, “Loving God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength means wherever one is then so too is God. There is no need to roam the world for a nice place to love God.”
There is a silent movement in the United States to mix the blood of a Christian [albeit misled] society with those of different blood, different ideologies, and different gods [if any]. This long-term plan has been promoted through the propaganda of network television and national advertisements (and still is).
The more people watch such false familial projections, the more [especially in the children] they begin to think “I should be like that.”
That program’s success is based on the breakdown of the historic family units, where love is the common bond, so it can be replaced by confusion about how a modern family should act. It will not be taught to obey the commandments of God and to love Him completely.
The concept of love in today’s world has been reduced to physical delights and material pleasures.
The wellness, the goodness, the gladness, and the pleasing nature of oneness with God, so it spreads to one’s family and to one’s neighbors, who are all married to Yahweh has been perverted. Love has been changed into a physical lust of the brain, in unnatural ways that the heart cannot bear. The love of God becomes a desire for worldly things and relationships are from Big Brain planning, which demands a hardened heart to accept. There is no longer a fear of God because all sense of love towards God has been mutated, if not stripped bare.
Last night I watched a clip of an interview between a cable news talking head and a comedian and his producer. They were promoting an upcoming movie that questioned, “When did America lose its sense of humor?” The comedian was saying that comedy has always been left of center, but it had been presented in a way that could easily be laughed at.
Chevy Chase mocking President Ford in 1975.
He said that now, comedy has become propaganda of hatred. It is not funny. It is an outright attack on those of conservative values, such that one has to immediately defend oneself (needlessly), saying why one is not a racist, one is not a homophobe, one is not a terrorist, or one is not an abuser of women, simply because the left [liberals against conservative and retaining standard social values] has caricatured values that have always been based on love as now being evil.
The producer friend of the comedian said (I paraphrase), “I am a religious man. I was raised to be religious and to fear only God. However, I have told friends that there is significantly more fear of the extreme left in this country, than there is fear of God.”
Amen to that brother.
Fear of God means to love God with one’s whole being. It means to know God in one’s heart. One’s mind will then be led by God’s love in one’s heart. When that love is present, then all the blurred parameters of who one should love and who one should hate disappear.
Just as God is love, He is the absence of hate. When one is in union with God, then one becomes God’s love.
In a world that is filled with hatred, one must be led by God’s love to avoid direct conflict with those who serve other gods and are filled with hate. One loves one’s enemy by letting that enemy hate him or her, without that hatred getting in the way of God’s love. [“Get behind me Satan.”]
The love of God is then between those in one’s bloodline family that also loves God completely, and those other families [neighbors] whose blood is also born of the love of God. God said (through Moses), “[Maintaining the commandment of God is] so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.” That meant, when one land is divided into twelve parts, each part will be neighbors, just as the parts of one’s body makes a whole. To love one’s neighbors as oneself is then akin to saying, “Love your hand as you love your foot, because all parts are connected to one who loves God, and who God loves in return.”
One fears God by refusing to vouch for those whose criminal acts [against God’s commandments] are defended by non-believers who blaspheme the Son of God as a lover of evil. One has to fear losing God’s love more than one fears being outcast and persecuted for not getting with the blended family program.
Comments