Fernando Deuteronomy

Loving Obedience to a Loving God
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3103-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 768 Seiten

Reihe: Preaching the Word

The book of Deuteronomy is a call to obedience-the proper response to God's faithfulness and love. Consisting primarily of speeches that Moses gave to the Israelites shortly before they entered the Promised Land, Moses' words proclaimed God's covenant faithfulness in hopes of motivating the Israelites to obey God despite the coming temptation to conform to the Canaanite culture. The challenges they faced then are remarkably parallel to those facing Christians today as we grapple with the issue of obedience in a world that offers other attractive ways of life. We wonder: How can we be faithful to God? And how do we help our children and the people we lead to be faithful? This book tells us how Moses tackled these challenges and, as Paul confirms in the New Testament, Deuteronomy serves 'as an example...written down for our instruction' (1 Cor. 10:11). Ajith Fernando unpacks the relevance of Deuteronomy and captivates us with rich anecdotes from his thirty-five years of ministry to first-generation Christians in Sri Lanka. He offers concrete examples of how the truths contained in Deuteronomy can be applied, and he teaches us that obedience is the necessary response to the God who loves and saves us. Part of the Preaching the Word series.

Ajith Fernando (ThM, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the teaching director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka after serving as the ministry's national director for thirty-five years. He and his wife, Nelun, are active in a church ministering primarily to the urban poor, and his ministry includes counseling and mentoring younger staff and pastors. He is the author of twenty-one books published in twenty-four languages. Ajith lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with his wife, and they have two adult children and four grandchildren.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fernando, Ajith

Leseproben

Preface:
Why I Am Excited about Deuteronomy

In my thirty plus years of ministry I have worked primarily among first-generation Christians from other faiths both in Youth for Christ and in the church where my wife and I serve. We have faced three huge challenges in this work. The first is that of making contact with these people who have no contact with the church so that they would have an opportunity to hear the gospel. The second is communicating the gospel in such a way that they would not only understand it but also be persuaded to leave their past allegiances to accept the salvation it offers. I have addressed these two challenges in two books, The Supremacy of Christ1 and Sharing the Truth in Love.2

The third challenge is nurturing people who have not learned to view life using Biblical categories—that is, those with a worldview that is not Christian—and helping them move into a godly life. This is also becoming an increasingly important challenge in the West where those outside, and sometimes inside, the church have attitudes that are alien to the religion of the Bible. Around twenty years ago, while walking along the beach and praying, I told God that one day I would like to write a comprehensive theology of the Christian life, especially focusing on how to move people on to holiness. I think this book is God’s answer to that prayer.

When my friends found out that I was writing a preaching commentary on Deuteronomy, I usually got one of three responses. Some responded with enthusiasm, pointing out that it is such an important book. I share their enthusiasm. Others pointed to what a tough assignment this would be, and I agree with them too. When I started on this project I had not realized what a large book Deuteronomy is and how much I had to learn about its background in order to do this project justice. The third type of response I received seemed to imply that this is a dry book, with a lot of difficult and irrelevant material, which does not seem to have much to teach us today. I take strong exception to that sentiment!

Deuteronomy is an exciting book that is very relevant today. I first realized this about twenty-five years ago when, early in my ministry, I read the book for my devotions. I found that there was so much I can learn about the Christian life and ministry that I began to list it all. I ended up with a huge list that has had a huge impact on my ministry. For example, I made a list of 142 incentives to obedience from Deuteronomy. So when I was asked by my friends at Crossway whether I would be interested in writing the Deuteronomy commentary in the series I responded with an enthusiastic yes.

Why am I so excited about Deuteronomy? Primarily because in this book Moses is attempting to do something that is still so important for all Christians. He is close to death, and they are close to entering the promised land without him, the one who led them for forty years. Deuteronomy gives Moses’ farewell addresses to them. His aim is to motivate them to go forward and conquer the land and to help them to be faithful to God amidst all the challenges to such faithfulness that they will face. He warns them of challenges, he encourages them to a life of holiness, and he tells them the consequences of living and of failing to live such a life. All the time Moses was aware of the temptation the people would have to compromise their faith by assimilating aspects of Canaanite religion.

Are these not some of our greatest challenges today? How can we remain faithful to God? How can we avoid compromise when the lure of the society around us is so powerful? And how can we help our children and the people we lead to be faithful? Deuteronomy tells us how Moses tackled these challenges. After citing a story that appears in Deuteronomy, Paul writes, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

Therefore I have approached every passage of Deuteronomy as having significance to Christians today. Because all of Deuteronomy is part of God’s inspired Word, that affirmation should be accepted without question. But it is often not, for many Christians think that in this era of grace many of the teachings of the Old Testament are not significant for us. Indeed we may not use some of the laws and regulations that are given there because they apply only to the Jewish nation. But the religion of this nation had the same basic ingredients that the Christian religion has today. Their life was to be a response of faith and obedience to the God who had graciously acted to redeem them. So even the laws that are specific to Israel have principles behind them that help us in the life of faith today.

When I studied Deuteronomy this time around with a view to writing this book, I found another feature that makes it extremely helpful. Many consider Moses to be the greatest national leader in history. From what Moses says and does in Deuteronomy we can learn many important lessons on leadership. Perhaps this has been to me the most thrilling aspect of this present study that I have done of Deuteronomy. This book has also had a chastening influence in my life because often through it the Lord showed me areas where I have been slack in my Christian commitment.

The Biblical writers seem to have considered Deuteronomy to be a very important book; they used it all the time. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart say that “Deuteronomy has perhaps had more influence on the rest of the biblical story (both Old and New Testaments) than any other book of the Bible.” They point out that “Deuteronomy . . . had considerable influence on Israel’s and Judah’s prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah, and through them influenced the major figures of the NT (especially Jesus and Paul).”3 Chris Wright says, “The book of Deuteronomy lies close to the very heartbeat of the Scriptures. It is to the Old Testament something like the book of Romans to the New Testament. It deals with many of the key themes that inform the rest of the Bible.”4 It is quoted over eighty times in the New Testament, and references to it occur in all the New Testament books except John, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, and 1 and 2 Peter. Thus it belongs to a small group of four Old Testament books—Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah—to which early Christians made frequent reference.5 When Jesus was tempted, he quoted from Deuteronomy in each of his three responses to Satan.

We must never forget that when the New Testament was written, the only Bible that the Christians had was the Old Testament. When they “studied the Word,” they studied the Old Testament. Therefore it was not necessary for some of the things emphasized in the Old Testament to be emphasized again in the New Testament. The New Testament takes it for granted that Christians were very aware of these emphases. Some of these emphases are not very strong in the thinking of Christians today. Therefore it is especially important that we study the Old Testament, because the failure to do that would result in our not being influenced by a key aspect of God’s thinking.

Let me list some of those things that are very important for the Christian life but that the New Testament does not emphasize as much as the Old Testament because they already have a good emphasis there. Each of these is an emphasis found in Deuteronomy also.

• The importance of order and the attention to detail especially in connection with worship.
• The importance of visual and symbolic reminders of Biblical truth, such as festivals.
• The importance of constantly being aware of the holiness of God and how it influences a faithful life. In fact, in the Old Testament the life of faith is often described as walking in the fear of the Lord, an emphasis that may be much needed today when people tend to be careless about sticking to Christian principles in every sphere of life.
• The need for discipline and disciplining people when serious disobedience occurs.
• The need to have a vital relationship with the Word through memorization, meditation, discussion, and obedience.

Deuteronomy is particularly important because it records a series of sermons given to help people in their day-to-day lives. It begins with the words, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel . . . ” (1:1). Deuteronomy 1:5 says, “Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law. . . .” So it is an expository sermon. Paul Barker points out that “apart from chapter 34 there are only five major paragraphs in the book which are not reported speech.”6

Because it consists of sermons, Deuteronomy would also give us helpful models for preaching today.

• The sermonic style is found here with its sense of urgency, with frequent pleading and exhorting, and with calls to action.
• The laws are not simply listed, they are preached.
• Deuteronomy is full of imperatives to love, fear, serve, obey, walk after, and hold fast.
• The two main ways Moses tries to motivate the people to faithfulness are reviewing history and retelling the Law. Surely that has something to teach us about good preaching!
• “Almost every time Moses talks about the land, he is seeking to motivate Israel.”7 Therefore, when he mentions the land he qualifies it with terms like “which the Lord your God gave you,” “the good,” “flowing with milk and honey,” or “which the Lord your God swore (or promised) to give you.”

I must confess that usually I get excited about any book in the Bible I am studying at a given time. The study of all...