Deut 16:15-17 “...because the Lord your God will bless you...so that you will be altogether joyful... . They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.”
Giving is based on blessing. Giving to the Lord is a testimony that one has received from the Lord. Giving to the Lord is a proclamation of his goodness and generosity towards his people. To not give to the Lord is a proclamation that God has not blessed, even though he has! It is a proclamation that God is not good or generous towards his people, even though he is!
God blesses his people for many reasons, but the one given in the text above should increase our praise of his name! God blesses his people so that we would be altogether joyful! The blessings of God are meant for the joy of his people! We are to enjoy the things God sends our way as blessings to us.
However, our joy is not to end in the blessing. We are then to return a portion of our blessings back to God as worship, as thanksgiving, as cheerful giving! In this way, our praise and satisfaction is not spent on the blessing but on the Blesser! If we come to God with nothing to give that means we have indulged all the blessing on self. We have turned God’s goodness to us on its head and made the blessing our treasure, or worse, our self as our treasure! On the other hand, when we give to God according as he has given to us, we announce that he is our joy and we worship him alone. He has blessed us for our joy, and we give to him joyfully!
Deuteronomy 15 talks about compassion for the poor in Israel when they finally make it to their new homeland.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me that debts to fellow Israelites were canceled every 7th year (vv. 1+2), since I thought that was what happened at the jubilee year (every 50th year). Did I miss this command (7th year debt release) in an earlier text, or is this an additional law?
Interesting too to compare v.4 "But there will be no poor among you" and v.11 "For there will never cease to be poor in the land"! The ESV notes call v.4 "the ideal" which COULD be realized if people obeyed God's laws, since obedience would make the land so fruitful that poverty would cease to exist. What applications are here for me, for today? Does any of this apply to now? I am tempted to see much of the poverty in our country as consequences for bad decisions people have made, but there are always victims too. (Is this a dangerous judgment to try to make--the undeserving vs. the deserving poor, since I have received so much mercy myself? Or is it a good question--for wasteful people will continue to be wasteful, especially with gifts, unless they are taught differently?) Jesus said, "the poor you will always have with you," AND John the Baptist said that if a man had two coats he should give one to the man who had no coat (Lk. 3:11). My closet is packed with clothing! I want to be both compassionate and realistic. Are the two reconcilable? Any suggestions?
I think it's important to remember that we are not living in a theocracy as Israel did. We cannot equate America with Israel in the OT. There will always be poor people among us because of sin in general and at times people are directly responsible for their financial crises. At other times, they are not as when a plant suddenly shuts down.
ReplyDeleteWe must keep a balance between being sacrificial and giving with the resources God has given us and being a good steward of the resources God has given us. I want to lend a helping hand to someone who has fallen on hard times. At the same time, I don't want to hand a drug addict $20 for food when he'll just spend it on pot. I want to get him to rehab. So, I want to help both, but everyone who doesn't have money does not always need money. Sometimes they need something else.