Bible Reading & Commentary for the Week Dec. 7 – Dec. 12, 2020

LynnBible Reading Guide

Monday, December 07, Deuteronomy 13

Vv. 6-10 — Why was God so severe in His punishment of those who enticed fellow Israelites to worship heathen gods?  That’s because He wanted to keep Israel spiritually pure so He could fulfill His promise and send them and us a Savior from Abraham’s seed.  Even today, so we don’t lose our faith in Jesus, God exhorts us not to be partners with unbelievers (II Cor. 6:14), and to avoid those who teach falsely. (Rom. 16:17)

 

Tuesday, December 08, Deuteronomy 14

Vv. 3-8, 11-18 — There were many animals that were unclean to Israel.  God forbade them to eat such meat.  While we today are not bound by those laws (Col. 2:16, 17), those Old Testament Ceremonial Laws were constantly to remind Israel that God detested anything unclean which especially included their sins (Is. 59:2).  How God made Israel and us perfectly clean forever was through Jesus’ perfect work of atonement on Calvary’s cross.  Read I John 1:7.

 

Wednesday, December 09, Deuteronomy 15

Vv. 1, 12 — In Israel, no one ever had to declare bankruptcy.  In the 7th year, all debts incurred were canceled and any Jew enslaved was set free (v. 12). Think of the joy and gratitude those people must have felt who were given their freedom.  These laws were to remind the Jews of something Jesus would do that would far exceed being set free from human bondage.  Jesus accomplished that when He set us free from sin’s bondage and restored to us again Paradise, where someday we’ll live in total freedom forever.

 

Thursday, December 10, Deuteronomy 16

Vv. 1, 10, 13 — The Feasts of Weeks and Tabernacles were harvest festivals.  We might compare them to our

 

 

Thanksgiving.  Out of Thanksgiving to the Lord we should give in proportion to the blessings the Lord has given us.  Do you?  The Passover pointed ahead to Jesus who could provide what no lamb could do.  Read John 1:29-36.  Jesus fulfilled perfectly what the Passover pictured.

 

Friday, December 11, Deuteronomy 17

  1. 15 — Israel’s kings were not to be like the world’s kings. The fact that they were selected and appointed by God was meant to be an indicator to the people that the king was God’s representative to the people and was to rule according to the Lord’s Word.
  2. 17 — The king was not to accumulate great wealth and wives, to avoid the temptation of forgetting God. While David grew in riches, Solomon, his son, had problems with it. His wealth and wives were a distraction and trouble for him (I Kings 10:14-23; 11:1-4).  The problem isn’t wealth itself, but our attitude toward it. (I Tim. 6:10)  How many wives does God want us to have?  Read Gen. 2:24 and I Tim. 3:2, 12.

Vv. 18-19 — The common people did not have copies of the Old Testament to read and study.  The king, however, was to “write for himself” a copy of the law.  That was to guide his day-to-day decisions.

 

Saturday, December 12, Deuteronomy 18

  1. 13 — “Blameless” doesn’t mean that we gave it a “good try.” It means perfect, without fault, without sin. The reality of the law is that we cannot measure up to how God expects us to live.

Vv. 15-18 — This prophecy points ahead to Jesus.  He would teach and do what God commanded.  Through his life and ministry, salvation was accomplished for the world.  He took our place under God’s law and both kept it perfectly for us and paid the price it demanded for our sin (I Peter.