I once saw a chart of how much a person retains based on the method of teaching. Listening to a lecture - you will probably retain about 5%; reading the material - 10%; If the material is demonstrated - roughly 30 percent. With more active forms of learning - discussion with others about 50 percent; practice by doing about 75%; teaching others or making immediate use - 90%. Teachers learn by teaching. Maybe that is part of the point of Moses' instruction in today’s Old Testament Lesson, where we read about the necessity of teaching your children at every opportunity. Of course, this command is about communicating truth to a new generation but it is also about forming the parents, those who are the natural teachers learning the law and incarnating, practicing it for their children.
Our Old Testament Lesson is found in the 11th Chapter of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy means “Second Law”. Moses is giving the Law again to a generation whose parents rebelled against God by refusing to believe His word and take the land of Canaan. You may recall the episode with the 12 spies where Israel looked at the walled cities and the giants that inhabited Canaan and refused to go in. Joshua and Caleb were faithful in their generation. In fact, they were the only two who were allowed to enter the Promised Land. All of Israel had to wander in the Wilderness for 40 years before a new generation was permitted to enter Canaan. God in his mercy gave this new generation the law again - He reminded them of the blessing and curses of the Law, how they could love God by being obedient. Here, in our Old Testament lesson, Moses in his lengthy introduction to the Law tells them to have the Law always before them.
Moses reminds them of the source and the gift of the Law. In fact, it bears repeating as Moses has already given a similar reminder in Chapter 6. Throughout this chapter, there is a focus on the blessing and curses of being God’s people. The Lord promises to send the right amount of rain at the proper time; he promises that the cattle will increase – if they obey his word. If they show their love for him in obedience to what he has said. On the other hand, the same destruction (often worse) will come upon Israel if they disregard the Law. They cannot expect the blessings of God without obedience. They received the land as a gift - just as the Edomites, just as the Moabites who inhabited the land to the East - the difference for the Israelites is that God promised His presence to go with them. The blessings He offered them were real, material, substantial, but He would not abide with them in temporal blessing if love for His name and His presence wasn’t central to their lives.
The cure to apostasy, the key to relationship with Yahweh was continuing in the faith through obedience, which was the application, the internalizing of God’s law.
That’s why in verse 17, we read the “Therefore”. This is a conditional term meaning as a result of, in this case, blessings because of loving obedience to God’s Law. Moses tells the children of Israel to store the words of the Law in your heart and in your soul. Literally, Moses commands them to “Set these words upon your heart and mind.” One must be deliberate, take an active role in taking the Law to oneself. This is putting it upon the heart and the mind. In other words, to identify with the truth of God’s word in such a way that it directs your deepest emotions and shapes your thought-life. We have an analog within the Anglican world in the prayer for the second Sunday in Advent - where we thank God for the gift of the Holy Scriptures. We pray that we might “hear, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest” the Bible - moving from hearing it in its barest presentation, to reading it for ourselves, engaging with it as we mark - or notice - its key features. We are to learn - to internalize it so we may think about it often and then inwardly digest it - just as we digest and are nourished by our food to the health of our bodies, we are to be strengthened, shaped and transformed by our meditation on the truths of God’s words. This is the proper progression in our use of the Holy Scriptures.
Notice here there is a growing self-awareness about its contents. Moses commands that the Law be bound by the frontlets to the head and to the arm. The word was not on the lips only. It was to be symbolically tied to the head and so to the thoughts and to the arm as to direct one’s actions - one’s body was burdened as it were with the Law. Thoughts and deeds incorporated the teaching of the Law.
The Jewish tradition was to have two small black leather boxes containing four portions of the Hebrew Scriptures ( Exod 13:1–10, 11–16; Deut 6:4–9; 11:13–21.) attached to the forehead and the left arm.
Then, it isn’t sufficient for the parent to know the Law, to love it, to be knit to it - there was a positive commandment to teach one’s children. To take every opportunity to show how the Law educates daily life. The child is to be obedient to hear what is taught. Yet, the parent, who was once a child, once the student, continues to develop in their understanding of the Law by teaching. For the reality for God’s people, whether under the old covenant or under the new, is that we never stop being students even as we are teachers. We never move on from the beauty of God’s good word. We just take different postures of engagement.
From humility of trusting that the parent is telling the truth, to the precarious reality of learning to walk in that truth, to the daunting prospect of having the responsibility of being the instructor. Mastery through teaching. Integrity through faithful living. Transformation, by God’s grace, through both.
Notice the key in teaching here is to make use of consistent and constant application, giving object lessons in common experiences. When you rise up and when you go to bed, the timing of this is to be particularly mindful about beginnings and endings of days. No doubt that everything in between is to be seasoned as it were with discussions about the Law, God’s love in giving it to his people, and the joyful responsibility of obeying. Yet, the reality is that there will be little thought of the Law if it doesn’t happen in the beginnings and in the endings. The beginning of the day before distractions come and as a means of preparing for what may lie ahead.
At the end of the day, recalling where we began and reflecting on what happened during the day. Once again, in the New Covenant, in our tradition, we have the practice of Morning Prayer - thanking God for bringing us safely through the night and praying for safety and Christian mindfulness of His presence until the evening. Then, we bring our praises for the safety and provision of the day as we conclude with Evening Prayer. There we ask for protection for the coming evening and the hope of another day if God so wills it.
Moreover, the Law was to be written on the gates - both of the family compound and the broader village or city. We have the progression from individual reading, to marking one’s body with the Law through the frontlets, to teaching one’s children continually through word and deed and now it was to be written above the door of the ancestral home and then inscribed on the village or city gates.
Here, like the phylacteries worn on the body, the ancient Jews bound the Scriptures to their gates and door posts in little boxes called mezuzot. Interestingly enough, within our own tradition, we have examples similar to this. For instance, the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool, J.C. Ryle covered the beams of his first parish with texts about hearing the Word - “Take heed how ye hear” on the way in and going on the way out “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
The teaching here is that the Law was to permeate every aspect of life. There was to be holism, an integrity as every aspect of their lives was to bear some impression of God’s righteous requirements. In doing so, Israel was to remember their redemption, remember the loving gift of the Law and be faithful to the Covenant. The Law wasn’t to be an end of itself. It was a means of blessing, it was so that their lives may be prolonged on the earth.
Generally speaking, obedience to God’s commands leads to longer life. God blesses those who trust him by obeying his words.
Moses concludes our Old Testament Lesson by reminding them of the non-neutrality of the covenant. It is either yes or no, and to be lived in the immediate moment. Obedience or disobedience. Blessing or curse. The stakes are high. God promises His blessing to those who walk with Him, who obey the Law. Those who are mindful of the requirements and lovingly submit to God’s rule through His law. On the other hand, the children of Israel would experience a curse if they disobeyed. We read in other sections of Deuteronomy that the curses for Israel’s disobedience would be worse, in fact, than the curses and judgement that God brought about upon the Canaanites when Israel conquered them. For though they had certainly heard about the great deeds of Israel’s God, the Canaanites did not have access to the Law, they were not beneficiaries of the covenant with Abraham.
They weren’t saved out of Egypt and sustained in the Wilderness. Grave curses awaited Israel for turning from the love of God revealed in His law.
So, this morning, we receive the commandment to know the scriptures, to study them for ourselves; and then knowing them, to grow in our understanding of them by practicing and teaching them to our children and the young around us. We take every opportunity to find consistent application of those truths as we move throughout our day, letting them shape our households and our broader social networks. For truly, the Scriptures can make us wise unto salvation. They can lead us into the good life that God intends for us. Knowing the Scriptures should lead us into deeper love and obedience to the Lord of our salvation. In our Old Testament Lesson, the point of knowing and studying was to grow in obedient love of God. That is just as true in our present circumstances.
We are called to walk in obedience and we receive an admonition to that end. It begs a series of questions: how familiar are we with the Holy Scriptures? How often do we spend time reading and studying it by ourselves? Are we availing ourselves of opportunities throughout the week to study the Scriptures together? How are we doing with teaching our children and grandchildren the Scriptures? Even if we are well versed in them, even as we teach our children, how are we doing with the part about doing the word, obeying what the Scriptures actually say? All of these are relevant questions and we should give some thought to our own answers. As we do so, we must never miss the joyful reality that God’s grace goes before us and makes the practice of the faith - not a burdensome service, not a begrudging duty, but truly fulness of joy - where we grow in our love of Jesus Christ, where we grow in holiness. Knowing God and His Love is still the root and the point of Christian obedience.
Let us take seriously the call to know and apply the Scriptures while also acknowledging the purpose of all of this is to love the Lord with every aspect of our lives and then love and serve those around us. Amen.
