Daily Lesson for February 20, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 12, 13 and 15:

12 “And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you . . .15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. "

This morning I was disturbed in spirit to read this Old Testament text from the Deuteronomic Law as the daily lesson. This kind of "Do good, get rewarded; do bad, get punished," message has been used for all kinds of abuse.  If you have children and are disease free and have ample food then you must be a good person and so God is blessing you; but if your crops don't grow and so you suffer from lack of nutrition and therefore are more susceptible disease and therefore can't have children, well then it all must be from God because you obviously must be a sinner.

There is a special Latin word for that kind of theology; it's called Bovinus Excrementus.

It needs to stop.  We must put away all wooden, literalistic readings of either Old Testament or the New Testament scriptures which make God out to be abusive, vengeful, violent, cruel, or anything else other than loving and kind. Trusting these scriptures do have something to say to us, we have to be free and imaginative enough to interpret them spiritually rather than literally. For as Paul said, "the letter killeth; but the spirit gives life."

So here's a stab at trying to interpret Deuteronomy 7 by spirit, rather than law:

Those who live in God find God's grace. They live at peace with God and with all the earth.  There is beauty and serenity in themselves and in their families. This is what it means to live a blessed life.  And they live in the blessing even in the midst of hardship and disease. On the other hand, those who live at enmity towards God and the people of God will never find peace.  They are always struggling, and always striving and always at war within themselves and with all the world. They literally make themselves sick; eventually they will destroy themselves, their families, and their whole community.

All Scripture is inspired by God, yes; but not all interpretations are. Whenever Scripture is interpreted in such a way as to make God out be as petty and vindictive as we, then be assured we are getting the full letter of the Law, but no spirit.