Scripture Daily

Context No. 2212 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 12:20-32: in context

20When the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he has promised you, and you say, “I want to eat meat,” because your soul desires to eat meat, you may eat meat, after all the desire of your soul. 21If the place which the LORD your God shall choose to put his name is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, after all the desire of your soul. 22Even as the gazelle and as the deer is eaten, so you shall eat of it. The unclean and the clean may eat of it alike. 23Only be sure that you don’t eat the blood; for the blood is the life. You shall not eat the life with the meat. 24You shall not eat it. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. 25You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do that which is right in the LORD’s eyes. 26Only your holy things which you have, and your vows, you shall take and go to the place which the LORD shall choose. 27You shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the LORD your God’s altar. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the LORD your God’s altar, and you shall eat the meat. 28Observe and hear all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do that which is good and right in the LORD your God’s eyes. 29When the LORD your God cuts off the nations from before you where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.” 31You shall not do so to the LORD your God; for every abomination to the LORD, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.

As Israel prepares to enter the land and dispossess the nations there, God gives a warning about their worship. Be careful, he says, that you are not ensnared to follow the nations after they are destroyed, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, how do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise. God knew the pull to imitate the surrounding culture's ways of worship, to look at how others served their gods and copy it, and he warns against it: you shall not worship the LORD your God in the ways they worshiped their gods.

The warning is against a subtle temptation: shaping our worship of God after the ways of the surrounding culture. God foresaw that Israel would be drawn to ask, how do these nations serve their gods? and to think, I will do likewise, importing the practices and patterns of the surrounding culture into their worship of the true God. And he warns them not to. The surrounding culture's ways were not to be the model; God's own command was. They were not to serve the LORD in the ways the nations served their idols, but as he directed. This temptation is very much alive for us. We live surrounded by a culture with its own values, practices, and ways of thinking, and there is a constant pull to shape our faith and lives after it, to ask, in effect, how does the surrounding culture do things? and to conclude, I will do likewise. We can import the culture's values into our faith, adopt its patterns, let its ways shape our worship and our living, conforming to the world around us rather than to God's command. And God's warning to Israel speaks to us: do not shape your service of God after the surrounding culture's ways, but after his own direction. Do not be conformed to this world, Paul says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The pattern for our faith and life is not the surrounding culture but God himself. This searches how much we are shaped by the culture around us rather than by God. Do we ask, often without realizing it, how does the world around us do things? and shape our faith and lives to match, importing the culture's values and patterns into our worship and living? God warns against exactly this: do not serve me in the ways the nations serve their gods. The culture around us is not the model for our faith; God's command is. This calls us to shape our worship and lives after God rather than the surrounding culture. It is easy to drift into imitating the world around us, conforming our faith to its ways. But God calls us not to ask how the culture does things and do likewise, but to serve him as he directs, shaping our lives after his command rather than the patterns of the surrounding world, distinct as his people rather than conformed to the culture around us.

Do I shape my faith and life after the surrounding culture, asking, often without realizing it, how does the world around me do things, and concluding, I will do likewise, importing its values and patterns into my worship and living, and can God's warning to Israel not to serve him in the ways the nations served their gods move me to shape my life after God's own command rather than the surrounding culture, distinct as his people rather than conformed to the world around me?

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