Scripture Daily

Context No. 1855 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 14:22-29: in context

22You shall surely tithe all the increase of your seed, that which comes out of the field year by year. 23You shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place which he chooses to cause his name to dwell, the tithe of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock; that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. 24If the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it because the place which the LORD your God shall choose to set his name there is too far from you, when the LORD your God blesses you, 25then you shall turn it into money, bind up the money in your hand, and shall go to the place which the LORD your God shall choose. 26You shall trade the money for whatever your soul desires: for cattle, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul asks of you. You shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. 27You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you. 28At the end of every three years you shall bring all the tithe of your increase in the same year, and shall store it within your gates. 29The Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, as well as the foreigner living among you, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

God gives instructions about the tithe, and they include a striking command to celebrate. Bring your tithe to the place God chooses, he says, and eat it there before the LORD; and if the journey is too long to carry it, sell it, take the money, and there buy whatever you desire, cattle, sheep, wine, whatever your heart wishes, and eat before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. And do not neglect the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, who are to share and be satisfied.

There is something unexpected in this command about the tithe: it is a command to feast and rejoice. We might expect the giving of a tithe to God to be a solemn, even grim, duty, a handing over of what is his with due seriousness. And part of it was to go to the needy. But part of it was to be eaten in a joyful feast before the LORD, a celebration with one's whole household, buying what the heart desired and rejoicing before God. Devotion to God, this passage insists, includes joy and celebration, not only solemn obligation. God appointed feasting and gladness as part of how his people were to honor him. This corrects a mistaken idea we often carry, that seriousness about God must mean joylessness, that true devotion is grim, dutiful, and severe, and that celebration and delight belong to the world rather than to the worship of God. Scripture says otherwise. God commanded his people to rejoice before him, to feast, to be glad; the joy of the LORD, elsewhere, is called their strength. And notice the reason given for this joyful feasting: that you may learn to fear the LORD your God. The reverence, the fear of the LORD, was to be learned in part through rejoicing before him, through glad celebration, not only through solemnity. Reverence and joy were meant to go together. There is an invitation here to a fuller devotion, one that includes not only the serious and the sacrificial, but the glad and the celebratory. To honor God is not only to give and to obey with solemnity, but also to rejoice before him, to feast, to delight in his gifts with thanksgiving. God appointed rejoicing as part of how his people draw near to him; and a devotion that has no joy in it has missed something God himself commanded. Eat before the LORD your God, and rejoice, he says; the fear of the LORD is learned in glad celebration as well as in solemn duty.

Do I imagine that true devotion to God must be grim and joyless, all solemn duty, or can I receive what this command teaches, that God appointed feasting and rejoicing as part of how we honor him, and that reverence is learned in glad celebration as well as in solemn obligation, so that joy belongs to the worship of God?

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