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28 February. Deuteronomy chapter 4
We are about to enter the season of Lent, which traditionally starts with thinking about the temptations faced by those who serve God, as Jesus faced temptation in his 40-day desert retreat. In this chapter Moses warns his people of the temptations they will face in Canaan.
He lays much stress on the fact that unlike the so-called gods of other nations, the one true God is not visible, at least not in human or animal form although they had experienced God’s presence as cloud and fire and a voice. This true God is also always present, very close when we call on him, and the laws that he gave were not arbitrary but for “wisdom and discernment”, so Moses warns the people not to ignore the teaching or to forget their experience of the divine presence.
People still face the same temptations now when thinking about faith, though they may take different forms: idolatry (which nowadays might take the form of astrology, the false belief that the planets represent spirits that influence our lives); discounting the reality of God because we can’t see him (although many people testify to encountering God in one way or another); being led astray from devotion to God by the wealth and fertility of the land around us ( we call this consumerism); and treating religious teaching as irrelevant, when in fact there is much wisdom in it if we take it seriously.
May you have a holy Lent.