This is the Bible Book Club, and we're in Deuteronomy.

Welcome to the club.

Last episode was a full episode of a lot of good Bible benders for me, and I know for you too, Susan.

And a lot in Acts, which I just love the whole Stephen story.

Yep. It's the continuation of, as Susan affectionately calls it, the just do-it sermons from Moses. And he's not quite telling the Israelites what to do in the promised land, but he continues with a deeper dive into how to apply the Ten Commandments in their life. Moses covered expanding the concept of honoring the Fifth Commandment by giving

instructions to respect those in authority, the judges, kings, priests, prophets. Moses ends with a

promise that God would raise up the prophet like him. Okay. In the last episode, Moses provided for a new

expanded civil order with judges and kings. We will learn in these next

chapters that the consequences for many of the crimes in this civil order are serious, often involving

capital punishment. It's important for us to remember that there are no prisons or police

in this young nation.

Additionally, their purpose is not to be a nation of law and order.

Their purpose is to have a relationship with a holy God in a manner that is so unique that all the nations will hear about it.

And know that Israel's God is the one true God. And of course, that holy

relationship will result in law and order because this is what God desires. Therefore, because

they know God and have been given the laws and the promises, their obedience must be complete.

They are his treasured possession, his chosen people. The blessing of the

promised land and their favor with God depends on their obedience. We've talked about that a lot.

The consequence for those who sin and break the commandments and pollute the land because it was

defiling sin was, we talked about that in Leviticus, in many cases is death. So don't be shocked by it. This is the way it was back then and there were a lot of reasons. Hopefully you've been with us through the whole entire Torah. And so you understand the whole purity and impurity thing. And we're going to talk about it a little today, but I'm not going to go into it.

Just know you can go back to Leviticus and listen to that.

The next concept that Moses is going to develop comes from the Sixth Commandment.

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