Questions from the Scripture text: What must Israel do with God’s commands (Deuteronomy 12:32)? What mustn’t they do? To what type of person does Deuteronomy 13:1 refer? What does he give? And what happens (Deuteronomy 13:2)? But what does he say? What shouldn’t Israel do (Deuteronomy 13:3)? What is happening? So, what shall they do (Deuteronomy 13:4)? And what shall be done with the prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5)? Why? Who else might entice them similarly (Deuteronomy 13:6-7)? What must they do with them (Deuteronomy 13:8-10)? Why (Deuteronomy 13:10-11)? Who else might entice them similarly (Deuteronomy 13:12-14)? What is to be done to a city that has permitted its members to do so to others (Deuteronomy 13:15-16)? Why (Deuteronomy 13:17-18)? How are Israel to view themselves (Deuteronomy 14:1)? What mustn’t they then do (Deuteronomy 14:2)? Why? What must be governed by this consecration (Deuteronomy 14:3-21)?
How was Israel to apply the third commandment to their life in the land? Deuteronomy 12:32–14:21 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word read in the public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these forty verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that Israel was to apply the third commandment to their life in the land by carefulness in theological speech, by church discipline, and by consecration of all of life.
In this section of Deuteronomy, the Spirit applies the third commandment to the life of Israel. Deuteronomy 12:32 is actually grouped with what comes after it. So the Hebrew Masoretes made it the first verse of chapter 13 in their reckoning. It provides an apt introductory summary to the third commandment: do not add to, or take away from, the Word of God.
The bulk of chapter 13 warns against the second-commandment-dangers of third-commandment-breaking. Those who alter God’s Word on their lips, or otherwise take it lightly, or blaspheme Him, influence others to take YHWH lightly as well. So much profane swearing and misuse of God’s Name does this. And there is little that is more blasphemous than for the prophets, those who speak in YHWH’s Name, to direct the people to idolatry.
Though the wider world around us is definitely a threat to influence us to sin, it is not the greatest threat. It is those who are officers in the church (Deuteronomy 13:1-5), and nearest of kin (Deuteronomy 13:6-11), and other churches (Deuteronomy 13:12-16), that are the greatest threats of influencing us to sin. The more impressive the church officer, the nearer the kin, and the more influential the church, the greater the threat. We must have such regard for the Name of God, and the Word of God as the greatest expression of that Name, that we will be vigilant even (and especially) with respect to such people.
In the dealing with the city from which these spiritual seducers came, there is an important lesson that is seemingly lost upon the churches of your author’s own day: the need for corporate church discipline of churches that fail to exercise it locally. Though the church no longer has the power of the sword, it does have the keys of the kingdom, which are exercised disciplinarily via excommunication. And, when gospel-corrupting, soul-destroying, God-blaspheming spiritual poison spreads from undisciplined members of one church into the surrounding church, as occurs in Deuteronomy 13:12-16, that entire church needs to be censured, not preserved. Church discipline is a corporate responsibility. Even the non-officer member in such a circumstance has a duty to bring charges, and a duty to transfer membership if discipline is not exercised. One of the reasons that this is generally taken lightly is that we do not see it as Deuteronomy does: a third commandment issue in which the properly weighty bearing of God’s Name is at stake.
Of course, the third commandment requires us to bear God’s Name weightily, not only upon our lips, but upon our lives. The introduction to chapter 14 makes this plain. Being “YHWH’s children” (Deuteronomy 14:1) means, especially, to have His Name upon them. They are too consecrated to Him to be desecrated for others: a holy people, a chosen people, and a special treasure (Deuteronomy 14:2). This is the way to think about (or talk to others about) things like tattooing: you are already invisibly (but much more “real”-ly) “tattooed” by the Name of God upon you. You mustn’t employ this, or other measures to try to stamp your identity, when you already have this glorious identity: “holy, chosen, special treasure!”
The rest of our passage (Deuteronomy 14:3-21) consolidates a number of food laws from Leviticus 11, helping us to see, once again, the point of those laws. It was not that those foods were inherently unhealthful or corrupting. (This would make no sense of the Lord’s permitting them under the gospel, as if He would apply Christ’s finished work to us by permitting us to poison ourselves!). Rather, it was a way of distinguishing the holy people by prescribing to them a diet that He Himself has chosen, rather than man. Parents often prescribe a particular diet for their children, and that is what YHWH is showing about His people by the holiness code of the food laws: they are a chosen and treasured people whom He has consecrated to Himself.
We must live this way: as those Who have His Name upon us, so that in everything that we are, and everything we do, we seek the honor of Him Whose Name is upon us, and in Whose Name we must speak and act and live.
How are you exercising carefulness to say only those theological things that are certainly true and helpful to God’s people? In what ways and circumstances do you most need to be more careful with God’s Name upon your lips? How are you careful to participate in the holiness of the congregation’s theology and discipline? What are some circumstances in which you have not presented yourself in a way, or behaved in a way, that was intentionally seeking to bring honor to the Name of God upon your life?
Sample prayer: Lord, forgive us for how often we have spoken carelessly theologically. And, forgive us for how often we have carried ourselves in a way that does not treat Your Name as weighty or behaved ourselves in a way that does not treat Your Name as weighty. Thank You for honoring Your own Name by atoning for us in Jesus Christ. Please help us, by Your Spirit, to treat Your Name like He does, we ask in His own glorious Name, AMEN!
Suggested Songs: ARP8 “Lord, our Lord” or TPH174 “The Ten Commandments”
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