Deuteronomy 15 - The Year of Jubilee - | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church
The Bible by David Alley · David Alley
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (content.rss.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
In this video listen to Deuteronomy 15 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.
In Deuteronomy 15 Moses talks about debt, slavery and defective sacrifices. First on Debt: Imagine a country which cancelled debt every 7 years. Debt and credit would be low. God put in place a number of things to make sure there were no poor among them, including this debt management strategy, and elsewhere things like Jubilee, and the gleaning during harvest.
But we do see poverty in scripture… why? Simply that people didn’t follow the laws of the Lord. Much later the Lord exiled his people for 70 years, to Babylon because of the 70 sabbath years which were not observed. Effectively, lending was to be approached like giving.
We are told in NT terms to give to the poor, and we don’t expect to be repaid. This was effectively the same, but the poor were given a time frame within which they could repay and regain their dignity. Second on Slaves: We talked about bond slaves already in Exodus 21. These are love slaves, and Christ is the door.
We are to put our ear to Christ and be pierced into the door, permanently listening to him. Paul called himself a bondslave of Christ. Thirdly, on perfect sacrifices, Christ is the perfect sacrifice, and our sacrifices to him should also be perfect. Cain offered a sacrifice that may have been good in quality, but from a non-perfect heart.
That sadly constituted a sacrifice not accepted. Paul writes in Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge your brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship.” Here our attitude to God is part of making the sacrifice pleasing and true, and our lives, rather than the life of a sheep, are to be given to God.