Hello, we're Scott and Maureen Proctor and this is Meridian Magazine's Come Follow Me podcast.

For today we're going to be studying Deuteronomy chapters 6-8, 15, 18, 29, 230, and 34 and we have with us a special guest today to discuss this.

We're so glad to have Dr. Carrie Mulestein with us again. This is so fun to be able to discuss these things with him.

He has spent a lifetime, a career of studying these things, teaching these things, spending time in the Middle East and enjoying, seeing these things open up to his mind and heart and we're so grateful to be able to discuss these things with him today.

Carrie is the author of a number of books including God will prevail which Maureen and I both read and love and also one of my favorites is I saw the Lord which is a book about the first vision but Carrie took the nine different accounts of the first vision and kind of put them into one flowing text of the first vision.

Absolutely love it. I've read it a number of times and just enjoyed so much his insights into the first vision and as we begin this discussion today Carrie we start in Deuteronomy and it looks like we have a lot of chapters to study and the church curriculum seems to think that this Deuteronomy must be pretty important if we're going to study all these chapters.

Deuteronomy itself is a really important book isn't it?

That is. It's one of the most important books we can study. In some ways Deuteronomy is the summary of everything from in some ways Genesis 12 through the end of numbers certainly Exodus through numbers. This is Moses summarizing the covenant and the process that Israel has gotten through to be a covenant people and what the covenant is and what they need to do about it.

So it's really important for them at that stage in life. This is really Moses's valedictory address. They're about to go into the promise line. He's going to leave them behind. This is really important for them but it's equally important for us as a covenant people who are trying to embark on building a Zion society to have this wonderful summation of what it means to be a covenant people and the journey that it takes to really be covenant keepers.

Well, so this Deuteronomy chapter 6 has some extremely important verses and 4 through 9 are really matter and let's just read the first couple. It says here, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.

Now this is beautiful and important to all of us. So let's talk for just a minute about why this particularly matters to the Jews.

Yeah, and let's say to the Jews, but it should matter to us as well. I hope it says meaningful for us as it is for them.

So if it's alright, hopefully I can remember this correctly, but I just love to read it the way that our Jewish friends would.

Shema, Israel, Adonai, Elohenu, Adonai, Akhad. And that's something that they will say again and again and again.

And you get this idea, I said Adonai, it really is Jehovah that it says there, but the Jews out of respect for the name of the Lord how important that is,

how much they should reverence it and not take it in vain. Don't say that name. And so they substitute it. Sometimes they'll substitute the word Shem, which really means name.

So for instance, this year's youth theme, trust in the Lord is often said Betach, but Shem, trust in the name. That's just their way of saying trust in Jehovah without saying that name.

But most often they substitute the word Adonai, which means Lord is in master or the person who you swear fealty to, this person who is over you.

And so they're saying here Israel that the Lord or Jehovah is our God and He is one. There are no others. There is no one else to worship. There is nothing else that should take that place in your heart.

So if we go back to our discussion that we had when we talked about the ten commandments and the fact that you have no other gods before God that nothing else prevails more in your life, this should be the creed of your life.

This should be the thing that you think of all the time. I worship God and nothing else. I love God more than anything else, nothing compares with the place that He has in my heart.

And that's really what is at the core here and that's what they're supposed to think of constantly and be reminded of constantly.

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