Sunday Stretch: Vol. 66

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

This can be a weird time in the church year, these weeks between the rush of the Advent season and Christmas, and the expectation of Ash Wednesday, Lent and Easter. I find that I’m a person who is often most anxious at the beginning of projects, rather than near their end. In other words, I can tend to be more restless and anxious waiting for something to come - and then in the midst of the more stressful and busy seasons, I ironically tend to feel more calm, an immovable rock in the midst of a storm.

Therefore, it’s in these “in-between” times, not only in the church year, but also as I discern my future potential roles in local congregational and pastoral work, and as I near the manuscript deadline for my next book, I find I have to be even more attentive to my own personal spiritual practices. That’s one of the best gifts of this Sunday Stretch newsletter, and the weekly discipline for me of sitting down and taking time to exegete and deeply read the weekly biblical texts, and also to attentively pray over all the concerns we share weekly at the end of the newsletter.

What I think makes this particular spiritual practice a lasting and essential one for me is the fact that I know I’m not doing it alone: that you all are here with me. What a gift. I hope you continue to find time to dwell in the Word and in prayer with me here, in these in-between and chaotic global times, it gives us a needed foundation of strength, hope, and love.

Let’s get to the texts …

Moses viewing the Promised Land

A painting by Frederic Edwin Church

Bible Stories

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Deut. 18:15   The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet^a like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.^{b  16} This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” ¹⁷ Then the LORD replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet^a like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet,^b who shall speak to them everything that I command. ¹⁹ Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet^a shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. ²⁰ But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”

I found this passage immensely powerful this week. It’s situated right in the middle of the book of Deuteronomy, in the midst of Moses’ retelling of the Law from its original rendering in Leviticus. This in itself is a reminder of the different “voices” of the Bible, and how we often get the same time period retold in different books, like again in Numbers and Deuteronomy.

But here, in the midst of the Law, Moses shares a message from God that offers a foreshadowing of a God whose ultimate purpose for creation will be fulfilled not in a series of Laws (even as they’re presented in the immense and comprehensive gift of Torah) but instead will be fulfilled in a Person, and perhaps more accurately, in a relationship through that person.

Things get complicated, though, when you start to weed through various religious interpretations of the this text. Of course Christians assume that the prophet Moses refers to is Jesus. But many Muslims assume it’s Muhammad. I will not pretend to access the entire interpretive history of this text in Islam or in Judaism, where some believe Moses is referring to his direct successor, Joshua, but other interpretations vary. This in itself was again a reminder of the de-centering work that American Christians often have to do as we read the Bible.

Still, as I continue to discern and sit with this text. I think what speaks to me most is not a fortune-telling of who the “prophet like Moses” will be, but instead the warning God gives in verse 20: “But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”

I really remember reading this verse as a young Christian and even as someone discerning a call into ministry and church work. I felt the weight of responsibility of claiming God’s word,