Bible Readings for June 27th Deuteronomy 32 | Psalm 119:121–144 | Isaiah 59 | Matthew 7 Moses has given the entire law to the people of Israel, but in Deuteronomy 32, he takes a different approach to impress upon his people the necessity of obeying Yahweh: he sings to them a song. In this song, Moses acts out the story of Israel’s history with Yahweh and then he warns them of the dangers of departing from their covenant. To begin, Moses calls heaven and earth to give ear to the words of his mout...
Jun 27, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 26th Deuteronomy 31 | Psalm 119:97–120 | Isaiah 58 | Matthew 6 There is an engraved marble memorial at Westminster Abbey in London dedicated to John and Charles Wesley, the great leaders of the Methodist movement in the eighteenth century. At the base of the monument are the words of Charles: “God buries his workmen, but carries on his work.” In Deuteronomy 31, we are rapidly approaching the burial of one of God’s greatest workmen, Moses, and we begin to see how God will ...
Jun 26, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 25th Deuteronomy 30 | Psalm 119:73–96 | Isaiah 57 | Matthew 5 Back in Deuteronomy 10:16, Moses had commanded the people of Israel to circumcise the foreskin of their hearts, and here in Deuteronomy 30, heart circumcision appears again as the key to unlocking the meaning of the entire Mosaic covenant. Moses first instructs Israel about what they should do after they are scattered among the nations for disobeying the covenant (Deut. 30:1–10). If Israel begins to obey Yahweh...
Jun 25, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 24th Deuteronomy 29 | Psalm 119:49–72 | Isaiah 56 | Matthew 4 In Deuteronomy 29–30, Moses renews Israel’s covenant with Yahweh one final time before his death. First, just as he had done at the beginning of Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the gracious provisions of Yahweh through Israel’s history in Deuteronomy 29:2–9. This historical prologue sets the context of Yahweh’s covenant by reminding Israel once again that grace—not law—came first. Second, Moses points out the fulln...
Jun 24, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 23rd Deuteronomy 28 | Psalm 119:25–48 | Isaiah 55 | Matthew 3 Deuteronomy 28 is at the same time an inspiring and a horrific chapter in the Bible, laying out Yahweh’s covenant blessings and his covenant curses. These two lists were so important that they would be used again later in a larger ceremony that would come after Moses’s death. Just as Moses had mentioned briefly back in Deuteronomy 11:26–32, Israel was to remind one another of these blessings and curses after th...
Jun 23, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 22nd Deuteronomy 27 | Psalm 119:1–24 | Isaiah 54 | Matthew 2 At the end of Deuteronomy 26, Moses concludes his second giving of the law. Through the entire book of Deuteronomy, Moses had been giving an extended sermon to exhort Israel to abide in God’s law. But after proclaiming the whole law to Israel, Moses now—before he dies—explains to Israel the covenant renewal process in which they would partake as they entered into the Promised Land. So, Moses first insists that, ...
Jun 22, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 21st Deuteronomy 26 | Psalms 117 – 118 | Isaiah 53 | Matthew 1 For the people of God, giving is never meant to be a burdensome task. Deuteronomy 26 teaches us why we ought to give, using two events that were to happen when Israel took possession of the Promised Land: the offering of the firstfruits (Deut. 26:1–11) and the third-year tithe (Deut. 26:12–15). 1 First, upon moving into the land—a land that came prepopulated with vineyards and olive trees that Israel did not p...
Jun 21, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 20th Deuteronomy 25 | Psalm 116 | Isaiah 52 | Revelation 22 From Deuteronomy 25, we can make an observation that will help us overcome a major cultural barrier we have in reading and understanding the Bible. To put it simply, our own culture has an obsession with sex that the people we read about in the Bible did not necessarily share. This isn’t to say that lust was never a problem for the biblical figures. We can read many stories in the Bible where lust was the driving...
Jun 20, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 19th Deuteronomy 24 | Psalms 114 – 115 | Isaiah 51 | Revelation 21 Deuteronomy 24 contains several laws that the section headings in the ESV classify as “miscellaneous.” Quite a few of these laws (though not all in this section) regulate how Israel should treat the poor in their midst. We would classify these laws as civil laws (see the meditation on Deuteronomy 22), governing the day-to-day living of Israel. So, while Christians aren’t bound to the letter of these laws, ...
Jun 19, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 18th Deuteronomy 23 | Psalms 112 – 113 | Isaiah 50 | Revelation 20 Several of the prohibitions in Deuteronomy 23 almost make it seem as though Yahweh is squeamish about the human body. For example, we read that anyone with his testicles crushed or male organ cut off cannot enter into the assembly to worship in the tabernacle of Yahweh (Deut. 23:1). Then, we read that any man with a nocturnal emission must stay outside the camp until evening comes and he bathes with water ...
Jun 18, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 17th Deuteronomy 22 | Psalms 110 – 111 | Isaiah 49 | Revelation 19 As we read through the laws given to Israel that governed what to do with a lost ox (Deut. 22:1–4) or what specifications were required for building a roof on your house (Deut. 22:8), it would be helpful for us to talk about how Christians have traditionally approached Old Testament law. It’s clear that different laws had different purposes, and while some of those laws are still fully applicable today, ot...
Jun 17, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 16th Deuteronomy 21 | Psalms 108 – 109 | Isaiah 48 | Revelation 18 Deuteronomy 21:22–23 contains critical background information for understanding Jesus’ crucifixion. Here, we see that the cross was not a last-minute mistake but that Yahweh had been preparing to execute his own Son on a tree from the beginning. Deuteronomy 21 helps us better understand the crucifixion of Christ in three ways. First, hanging on a tree was only for the most heinous of crimes. It is clear fr...
Jun 16, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 15th Deuteronomy 20 | Psalm 107 | Isaiah 47 | Revelation 17 In Luke 14:15–24, Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet. In the story, a man prepares a great feast and invites many to come. Strangely, when the man’s servant personally delivers the invitations, each person has a different excuse about why he can’t come. One bought a new field (Luke 14:18), another bought five yoke of oxen (Luke 14:19), and a third recently married a new wife (Luke 14:20). Each of them d...
Jun 15, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 14th Deuteronomy 19 | Psalm 106 | Isaiah 46 | Revelation 16 In Deuteronomy 19, Moses turns his attention to the civil laws that were written to govern daily life in Israel. The three laws in Deuteronomy 19 underscore three important principles for understanding God’s idea of civil justice. The first law, regarding the cities of refuge, demonstrates the need for fair treatment of the accused. The people who could flee to the cities of refuge were those who had actually don...
Jun 14, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 13th Deuteronomy 18 | Psalm 105 | Isaiah 45 | Revelation 15 Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are filled with regulations for the Levitical priests in Israel, and in yesterday’s reading from Deuteronomy 17, Moses laid out the requirements for the kings of Israel. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses gives instruction for the last of the three major Old Testament offices: the prophets. There are two important provisions in this passage that we will look at today. First, Yahw...
Jun 13, 2025•5 min
Bible Readings for June 12th Deuteronomy 17 | Psalm 104 | Isaiah 44 | Revelation 14 Deuteronomy 17 serves as the standard against which we should judge the kings of Israel and Judah as we read about them in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. In this passage, we find three details that set up the storylines of what the kings of Israel and Judah will eventually become. First, it seems it had always been Yahweh’s plan to give Israel a king. When Israel eventually demands a king, they do so...
Jun 12, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 11th Deuteronomy 16 | Psalm 103 | Isaiah 43 | Revelation 13 In Deuteronomy 16, Moses names the three festivals that all Israelite males were expected to attend: Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Booths. As we saw in our meditation on Deuteronomy 14, the people who lived too far away to travel to the place where Yahweh chose were granted an exception, but for the most part traveling to the three festivals was a regular part of what it meant to be a...
Jun 11, 2025•5 min
Bible Readings for June 10th Deuteronomy 15 | Psalm 102 | Isaiah 42 | Revelation 12 Toward the end of yesterday’s meditation on Deuteronomy 14, we talked about how the tithes of Israel were meant to take care of the needy as well as the Levites, who did not have their own inheritance but depended on the tithes of other Israelites for their income. In today’s reading, we get a little clearer picture of the kind of generosity God is teaching his people to live out. In Deuteronomy 15, Moses establi...
Jun 10, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 9th Deuteronomy 13 – 14 | Psalms 99 , 100 , & 101 | Isaiah 41 | Revelation 11 Deuteronomy 14 changes the way that we see our offerings to God. Sadly, we can too easily come to look at the act of bringing our offerings to God as a kind of a tax, where we send off our checks to some impersonal government in a distant land so that they will do whatever they want with it without any regard to what would be best for us, the tax-payers. But not so with Yahweh. The Israelite...
Jun 09, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 8th Deuteronomy 12 | Psalms 97 – 98 | Isaiah 40 | Revelation 10 Moses reveals in Deuteronomy 12:8–9 that Israel’s informality in their worship would eventually need to change: “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving to you.” Here, Moses is acknowledging that there was chaos in Israel’s worship during th...
Jun 08, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 7th Deuteronomy 11 | Psalms 95 – 96 | Isaiah 39 | Revelation 9 By the time of Jesus, the signs and frontlets that Moses wanted to see bound to the eyes and hands of Israelites (Deut. 11:18) had largely become an outward show of hypocrisy. Jesus explicitly condemned the Pharisees for the way they wore their signs and frontlets (in Greek, “phylacteries”) to gain attention, saying, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and thei...
Jun 07, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 6th Deuteronomy 10 | Psalm 94 | Isaiah 38 | Revelation 8 When God commanded in Genesis 17 that every male in the household of Abraham be circumcised, he never intended for circumcision to be merely a physical act. Instead, physical circumcision—the cutting away of the flesh—always pointed to a larger, spiritual reality. In Deuteronomy 10, we get our first glimpse of God’s overarching purpose for circumcision. In this passage, Moses pleads with the Israelites: “Circumcise ...
Jun 06, 2025•5 min
Bible Readings for June 5th Deuteronomy 9 | Psalms 92 – 93 | Isaiah 37 | Revelation 7 In Deuteronomy 9, Moses shatters the final false belief that Israel might hold onto about why Yahweh was removing the inhabitants of the land of Canaan in order to give Israel the land as a possession. This has nothing to do, Moses assures Israel, with their righteousness. So, Moses warns them, “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness ...
Jun 05, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 4th Deuteronomy 8 | Psalm 91 | Isaiah 36 | Revelation 6 Deuteronomy 7–9 contains three separate reflections on the scandal of particularity, the subject we discussed in our meditation from Deuteronomy 4. In these chapters, Moses raises three possibilities to explain why Israel might be receiving the blessings of Yahweh—including the full wealth and prosperity of the Promised Land—and then he knocks each one down. It is neither because of Israel’s size (Deut. 7) nor becaus...
Jun 04, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 3rd Deuteronomy 7 | Psalm 90 | Isaiah 35 | Revelation 5 Deuteronomy 7 features the second-best circular logic in the Bible. Let me explain what I mean by pointing out Deuteronomy 7:6, where Moses reminds Israel that “you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” At this point, Moses pauses to ask himself a question: Why does the LORD love I...
Jun 03, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 2nd Deuteronomy 6 | Psalm 89 | Isaiah 34 | Revelation 4 Deuteronomy 6 is one of the most important chapters in the Old Testament, not least for the fact that Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 as one of the two greatest commandments (“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”; see Matt. 22:37, Mark 12:29–30, Luke 10:27). But the main focus of Deuteronomy 6—and our focus for today’s meditation—is Moses’s insistence that ...
Jun 02, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for June 1st Deuteronomy 5 | Psalm 88 | Isaiah 33 | Revelation 3 In Deuteronomy 5, Moses does not simply repeat the Ten Commandments, but he also reminds Israel of what their response had been at the time when Yahweh had given them the Ten Commandments: fear and reverence. When Yahweh appeared at Mount Sinai to give his law, Israel was terrified that they would be struck down by Yahweh’s holiness for their sinfulness, so they pleaded for a mediator (Deut. 5:24–27). Yahweh, for his...
Jun 01, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for May 31st Deuteronomy 4 | Psalms 86 – 87 | Isaiah 32 | Revelation 2 The phrase “scandal of particularity” describes the shock of realizing that Yahweh chose to save the world through a particular person in a particular place at a particular time. Jesus, of course, is the greatest example of the scandal of particularity, since he was born to a poor Jewish teenage girl from the tiny, out of the way town of Nazareth, during a period when Israel lived under the shameful oppression ...
May 31, 2025•5 min
Bible Readings for May 30th Deuteronomy 3 | Psalm 85 | Isaiah 31 | Revelation 1 If it is tragic to read Moses’s prayer that Yahweh would grant him the right to enter into the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 3:23–25, then it is terrifying to read Yahweh’s flat refusal of Moses’s request: “But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the LORD said to me, Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again’” (Deut. 3:26). What are we to take from this passage to l...
May 30, 2025•4 min
Bible Readings for May 29th Deuteronomy 2 | Psalms 83 – 84 | Isaiah 30 | Jude 1 As we discussed yesterday, Deuteronomy gives us Moses’s final sermon before his death. It may seem strange, then, that Deuteronomy, the “second law,” does not begin with the law at all. Instead, Deuteronomy opens with a lengthy retelling of Israel’s history, beginning from the point that Israel left Mount Sinai in the land of Horeb (Deut. 1:6). Then, Moses retells the story of Israel’s refusal to enter into the Promi...
May 29, 2025•4 min
