“Universal & Particular”
Deuteronomy 4:32-43
December 5, 2021
Faith Presbyterian Church – Morning Service
Pastor Nicoletti
We come this morning to the end of Moses’s first of three sermons recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, as he speaks to the second exodus generation, in Deuteronomy 4:32-43.
Please do listen carefully, for this is God’s word for us this morning.
Moses said:
4:32 “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? 34 Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that Yahweh is God; there is no other besides him. 36 Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. 37 And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, 38 driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, 39 know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you for all time.”
41 Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan, 42 that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life: 43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
This is the word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)
“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” [1 Peter 1:24-25]
Let’s pray …
Lord, your testimonies are wonderful;
therefore our souls cling to them.
The unfolding of your word gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple.
Therefore we long for your word
and your commandments.
Turn to us now and be gracious to us,
as is your way with those who love your name.
Keep our steps steady according to your promise,
and let no iniquity have dominion over us.
Redeem us from the oppression of the world,
that we may keep your precepts.
Make your face to shine upon us, your servants,
and teach us your statutes.
Grant all of this, we ask, for Jesus’s sake. Amen.
[Based on Psalm 119:129-135]
Introduction
Our text this morning forces us to think about the universality of the God of the Bible, and the particularity of the God of the Bible.
And then, along with that, it also calls on us to think about the universality of the Christian life and ethic, as well as the particular ways and circumstances in which we are called to live our faith out.
The Universality and Particularity of the Christian God
We begin by considering what our text this morning claims about God.
In the verses we have just heard, Moses tells us that the God of the Bible is the God of the universe, and that that same God has acted in particular ways in the world and in history.
The point that the God of the Bible is the God of the universe is made a few times in this passage.
In verse 35 we read: “Yahweh is God; there is no other besides him.”
In verse 39 we read: “know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.”
That the God of the Bible is not just one more local deity but the God of the universe is stated clearly. [Barker, 338]
But then, at the same time, very specific and local works of God are also described. In verses thirty-three and thirty-four Moses describes the specific works that God did, at specific times, and in specific places, in which he rescued Israel from Egypt and then spoke to them at Mount Sinai. These were actions seen by only a small fraction of the world’s population within a very slim window of world history. But in verse thirty-two Moses stresses that those particular works at those particular times and places, were acts unlike any other that God had performed at any other time or in any other place, since the creation of humanity. [Barker, 338; Wright, 55]
In verses thirty-six through thirty-eight he emphasizes that point further and notes that Yahweh is working in the lives of some people in ways he has not worked in the lives of many others.
And all of that frames the God of the Bible in very particular ways. He has acted in ways seen by some people, but not by others. He has done certain works in some times and places, but not in other times and places.
The God of the Bible is the God of the universe, and that same God has acted in particular ways in the world and in history.
But most of us tend to struggle with some aspect of that.
I. The God of the Bible Has Acted in Particular Ways in the World & in History
Consider first the particular acts of God in the world and in history.
In 2008 atheist scientist Richard Dawkins and Christian scientist John Lennox had a debate at the Oxford Museum of Natural History on the question “Has Science Buried God?”
Dawkins got the discussion going. And after some initial thoughts and a brief discussion of how unscientific he thinks it is to believe in miracles, Dawkins zeroed in on what seemed to frustrate him the most about John Lennox’s Christianity. He says of Lennox: “In particular, he believes that the Creator of the universe, the God who devised the laws of physics, the laws of mathematics, the physical constants – who devised the parsecs of space, billions of light-years of space, billions of years of time – that this paradigm of physical science, this genius of mathematics, couldn’t think of a better way to rid the world of sin than to come to this little spec of cosmic dust and have himself tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. That is profoundly unscientific. Not only is it unscientific, it doesn’t do justice to the grandeur of the universe. It’s petty, and small-minded. And that’s the God John Lennox believes in.” [6:43-8:22]
Dawkins’ commitment to naturalism and materialism – his incredulity at the miracles of Jesus, these are not particularly surprising points for him to make.
But what I think is especially interesting is that what seemed to upset Dawkins even more in his opening remarks, was what he describes as the “pettiness” of the Christian concept of God. He seemed most irritated by the fact that Lennox believes that the God who made the universe in all its grandeur would also then enter, in particular way, into the history of earth – the history of, as he puts it, “this little spec of cosmic dust.” The very idea that the Being who designed the universe would enter into human history and events, he says emphatically, “doesn’t do justice to the grandeur of the universe.” “It’s petty, and small-minded.”
Dawkins rejects the idea of God overall. But he especially rejects the idea that if such a Creator God did exist, that he would enter into, and work within, the particulars of human life, in ancient Palestine.
And I don’t think Dawkins is alone on that point.
Maybe most others are not as aggressive in their doubt. But many people – maybe most people in our culture – struggle with the idea of God – the God of the universe – entering into the particulars of human history at a particular time and in a particular place.
We can tend towards this assumption that God would be more noble if he kept his distance from the details of human life – that a more transcendent God would not draw close to the details of human history.
And Christians can think that way too. We can feel more comfortable focusing on the general spiritual principles of Christianity than the messy historic details of the Bible.
Why is that?
On what basis do we assume that that sort of detached, distant God is preferable to a God who rolls up his sleeves and gets involved in the particulars of human life? On what bases would we just assume that that must be the kind of God that really exists?
Herman Bavinck explains that in the Western world we have become captives of a worldview in which we prefer, more and more, to live in the abstract rather than in the concrete. We view the abstract as higher than the concrete. And so, we prefer to make God abstract – we prefer to reduce God and spirituality to, what he calls, an “arid concept.” [Bavinck, 36-38]
And so, in our culture, the idea of God working in the particulars of human life and history seems childish, and we tell ourselves that we have matured beyond such thinking. The assumption, again, that “arid concepts” are more “mature” than concrete details and actions. Exactly why the cold and the abstract are more mature than the real and concrete is rarely explained.
That is simply our cultural preference in the Western world.
But the Bible will not stand for it. Moses rejects that view here, and the Church has fought against that same tendency from its earliest days.
And the Church’s insistence that God is a God who acts in the particulars of human history is not the result of a spiritual principle or an argument of systematic theology. It’s rooted in the simple fact that if you read the Bible honestly, you simply do not see an abstract, historically-detached deity.
Bavinck puts it like this – he writes: “The Holy Scriptures are […] a […] history, from beginning to end. They never give abstract reasoning or dogmatic argumentation. […] They do not argue; they paint a picture. They do not describe; they narrate. They do not prove; they show. […] Scripture speaks in the language of life, of heart, of immediacy. […] In Scripture, divine thoughts are woven into history; prophecy and history are one. In its entirety, from start to finish, it is thought given flesh.” [Bavinck, 37-38]
The Bible is not an abstract book of theology of philosophy. It is a book of history and particulars.
And that is good news. Because what we most need are not “arid concepts” … because we are not arid concepts. We are not brains on sticks. We are human beings: with minds and with bodies, with the ability for abstract thought, yes, but also called to live our lives in the particular: born in a particular time, in a particular place, into a particular setting, in which we must live. And if we are to have a god who is meaningful to us at all, it must be a God who deals with particulars.
And the God of the Bible does. He saved Israel in particular ways. He worked in history in particular ways. And he remains a God who immerses himself in the particular details of our world, and our history.
And Moses makes that point here in our text this morning.
And so, when it comes to God, first, we must acknowledge that the God of the Bible has acted in particular ways in the world and in history.
II. The God of the Bible is the God of the Universe
But once we have established that, we need to be careful. For our tendency will then often be to err in the other direction.
Martin Luther once made the comment that “The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off again on the other side.” [LW 54:111]
And so, once we have acknowledged that the God of the Bible has acted in particular ways in the world and in history, we must be careful to also affirm the other point we see here in our text – that the God of the Bible is the God of the universe.
We see that point made in verses thirty-five and thirty-nine.
But this too is an idea that many in our culture struggle with. Because while some in our culture are okay with a God who is distant and abstract, as long as he doesn’t get involved in the particulars, others are fine with everyone having their own particular view of God and spirituality, so long as no one’s god makes any sort of universal claims.
Tim Keller summarized this perspective with an ancient parable often used to explain it. It says: “Several blind men were walking along and came upon an elephant that allowed them to touch and feel it. ‘This creature is long and flexible like a snake’ said the first blind man, holding the elephant’s trunk. ‘Not at all – it is thick and round like a tree trunk,’ said the second blind man, feeling the elephant’s leg. ‘No, it is large and flat,’ said the third blind man, touching the elephant’s side.” [Keller, 8]
And that, the argument goes, is how it is with the world’s religions: Each religion has access to some particulars, but not to the big picture. And so while each can cherish its particulars, none should claim that their god is the God of the universe – none should claim to see the whole picture.
Instead, you should allow that the particulars of your religion simply work for you. Just as the trunk worked for one blind man, and the leg worked for another blind man, so the particular details of Christianity may work for one person, while the particular details of Hinduism work for another.
And Christians and non-Christians alike can be drawn to that perspective. Limiting our God to particularities – backing off from the sort of universal claims about the Christian God that Moses makes here – that can feel like a way to keep the details of our faith for ourselves, without offending others.
The first problem though, as Keller points out, is that “This illustration backfires on its users. The story is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant? […] How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?” [Keller, 9]
In other words, the person who makes such claims is making the very kind of universal claims about God and spiritual reality that they are urging others not to make.
That’s an obvious problem.
But, of course, a far bigger problem is, once again, the Bible itself will not allow it.
“Yahweh is God; there is no other besides him,” we read in verse thirty-five. “Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other,” we read in verse thirty-nine.
And Yahweh, the Lord, the God of the universe, can be known because he has chosen to reveal himself in the particulars of human history.
III. The Universal Role of God and the Particular Actions of God Cannot be Separated
Which is a good reminder to us that the universal status of God and the particular actions of God are not contradictions, but they actually must go together.
For it is in his particular historic works that God is carrying out his cosmic mission.
As we are reminded in verse thirty-seven, God is rescuing Israel because he loved and called Abraham.
And what was God’s purpose in loving and calling Abraham? As God stated in Genesis 12 and Genesis 22, God called Abraham and formed Israel, so that through Abraham’s family he would eventually bless all the families of the earth, and through the nation of Israel he would one day bless all the nations of the earth. That is what we are told when God calls Abraham. [Genesis 12:3; 22:18]
It was through the particular, that God would bring salvation to the world. The particular works of God were in service of the cosmic mission of God.
And we are especially reminded of that pattern now, in Advent. For, as Christmas approaches, we are reminded of the intense particularities of God’s saving work. God the Son came to earth, in a specific time, at a specific place – as a baby, in Bethlehem. And he did it to save the world.
At this time of all times we should remember that the God of the Bible is the God of the universe, and he has brought about his cosmic work by acting in particular ways in particular times and particular places.
That is what our text reminds us about God.
The Universality and Particularity of the Christian Life
And that has implications for us, and for how we are to live.
For Moses also reminds us here that just as God is the God of the universe, so we are called to receive his universal moral law and ethical worldview.
And just as God has carried out his work in the particulars of human life, so we are called to live out God’s moral law in the concrete and particular details of our own lives.
I. The Bible Calls Us to Adopt a Universal Christian Ethical Worldview
First, the Bible calls us to accept God’s universal moral law and ethical worldview.
In verse forty, after recounting all that God has done, Moses says: “Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today.”
After reminding them of God’s universal sovereignty, Moses calls the people to accept and to adopt the revealed law of God – the over-arching ethic and worldview given to Israel not only in the ten commandments, but in the first five books of the Bible.
And such over-arching – such universal – claims about an ethical worldview often make us uncomfortable in our cultural setting.
There are many people – and maybe you’re one of them – who do many good things: who do things to try to help others, who work for what they see as the common good, who pursue what they think is right and just for society … but who do not have a universal ethical worldview. They don’t have a reason they can give – a foundational reason – for why certain things are good and other things are bad … for why certain things in this world have more ethical value than other things.
They may still have strong feelings and intuitions about morals and values and justice. But they lack a universal and objective basis for the ethical claims that often even shape their lives.
Sociologist Robert Bellah and a team of scholars produced a significant study of modern American culture titled Habits of the Heart, put out by University of California Press, in which they considered this tendency in our culture: the fact that even though most Americans strive to live what they consider moral lives, they often lacked a universal ethical worldview to make sense of or to justify those efforts.
In their study, they describe a range of people they interviewed in the course of their work. And for all the differences of the demographics they spoke with, they note this common thread – this shared lack of a universal ethical worldview.
This is a longer quote, but worth considering. Describing a representative sample of those they interviewed, they write:
“Brian Palmer finds the chief meaning of his life in marriage and family; Margaret Oldham in therapy. […] Joe Goreman gives his life coherence through his active concern for the life of his town; Wayne Bauer finds a similar coherence in his involvement in political activism. […] All four are involved in caring for others. They are responsible and, in many ways, admirable adults. Yet when each of them uses the moral discourse, they share […] they have difficulty articulating the richness of their commitments. In the language they use, their lives sound more isolated and arbitrary than, as we have observed, they actually are.
“Thus all four […] assume that there is something arbitrary about the goals of a good life. For Brian Palmer, the goal of a good life is to achieve the priorities you have set for yourself. But how do you know that your present priorities are better than those of your past, or better than those of other people?”
Though Brian Palmer had recently gone through a major change of focus in his life, working to put his family first, after years of putting his career before his family, even in the midst of that life-change, the only reason he could provide for it was because he intuitively believed that that’s what was right for him at that time.
“For Joe Goreman, the goal of a good life is intimate involvement with the community and family into which he happens to have been born. But how do you know that in this complicated world, the inherited conventions of your community and your family are better and more important, and, therefore, more worthy of your allegiance, than those of other communities and families? In the end, you simply prefer to believe that they are better, at least for you. For Margaret Oldham, the goal of a good life is liberation from precisely the kinds of conventions that Joe Gorman holds dear. But what do you aim for once you have been liberated? Simply what you yourself decide is best for you. For Wayne Bauer, the goal of a good life is participation in the political struggle to create a more just society. But where should political struggle lead us? To a society in which all individuals, not just the wealthy, will have power over their own lives. But what are they going to do with that power? Whatever they individually choose to do, as long as they don’t hurt anybody.”
The authors then conclude:
“The common difficulties these four very different people face in justifying the goals of a morally good life points to a characteristic problem of people in our culture. For most of us, it is easier to think about how to get what we want than to know exactly what we should want.” [Bellah, 20-21]
In our society we often have strong feelings about what a good and moral life looks like, and we can expend great energy pursuing that vision … but we are often unable to articulate why the vision we are pursuing is morally good.
Is morality simply a matter of preference? We may talk that way, but we know it’s not true. Every time we call on someone to do what is right instead of doing what they want for themselves – every time we sacrifice our immediate advantage for a greater good, we acknowledge, on some level, that there is a moral vision for the world that is greater than and above ourselves, and our own personal preferences.
And that greater moral vision – that universal moral law – is found in the will of God. The will of God, our Maker, is the thing that stands over and above our clamoring opinions.
It is not for me to dictate what that moral vision should be for you. And it is not for you to dictate what that moral vision should be for me. But Moses here reminds us that it is for God to tell us all.
God’s moral law for our world is universal because it is given by the One who rules the universe. God’s moral law should apply to all things because it is given by the One who made all things. God’s moral law should apply to all people because it is given by the God who made all people and to whom all people belong.
And so, because the God of the Bible is the God of the universe, he calls us to accept his universal moral law, and his universal ethical worldview.
II. The Bible Calls Us to Life the Christian Life Out in the Concrete Particulars of Our Lives
But then, along with that, our text reminds us that the universal ethical worldview that the Bible calls us to must be lived out in the concrete particulars of our lives.
And that is made clear in verses forty-one through forty-three.
Those final verses seem so odd and out of place. And in some ways, they are.
But what strikes me, is that right after Moses gives his exhortation to Israel to keep the over-arching law of God in verse forty, he then goes on, in verses forty-one through forty-three to record how he, at that time, went ahead and obeyed, in a concrete way, one of those particular ethical commands that the Lord had given to him.
We’ll get to the significance of the cities of refuge when we get to Deuteronomy 19. But for now, it’s enough to know that these cities were part of a system God told Moses to put in place in Israel to prevent acts of injustice. And so, for Moses to help preserve justice in Israel, he needed to carry out the command in the concrete particulars of appointing cities of refuge. And that is what he does here for the tribes across the Jordan.
And in doing that, he reminds us that the universal ethical worldview that the Bible calls us to must be lived out in the concrete particulars of our lives.
This is one of those realities that seems so obvious that it almost feels silly to talk about it: if you accept the universal moral commands of the God of the universe, you also need to actually live them out in the details of your life.
It seems obvious. And yet, it is so easy for us to fail to even try to do it. And even the brightest among us can resist it.
Karl Barth is often considered one of the most important and influential theologians of the 20th century.
His work Church Dogmatics spans over 9,000 pages (over 6 million words). Though we would disagree with him on many points, his work has been extremely influential, his mind was exceptional, and his knowledge of the Scriptures was thorough.
And yet even Barth pushed against the obvious fact that the express commands of God in the Bible must not just be studied, or believed, or advocated for – but must actually be lived out in the details of our lives.
For Barth, as letters made public a few years ago have brought to light, this took the form of his relationship with his secretary Charlotte von Kirschbaum.
Among other things, those letters seem to support the possibility that von Kirshbaum not only typed for Barth, but may have herself written some significant portions of Church Dogmatics. [Emerson]
But the bigger revelation has come with more information about the nature of Barth’s personal relationship to von Kirshbaum. As Matthew Emerson explains, the letters reveal a romantic relationship between Barth and von Kirshbaum. And rather than either giving up his mistress or leaving his wife, Barth moved von Kirshbaum into his home with his wife and children, creating a terrible and difficult situation which lasted for over thirty years.
There is no doubt that Barth was a brilliant abstract thinker on the things of God – brilliant even when he was wrong. There was no doubt that he had spent decades deeply meditating on the moral vision of the Bible. And yet, in the concrete particulars of his life, it’s not just that he made a mistake or committed a sin – for we all make mistakes and struggle with sins … that is not what’s so distressing – it’s that he clearly stopped trying to apply God’s commands to this area of his life.
And it was maybe Karl Barth’s mother who summed up the situation best. In a letter to her son, she wrote: “What is the most brilliant theology good for, if it is to be shipwrecked in one’s own house?” [Quoted in Emerson]
“What is the most brilliant theology good for, if it is to be shipwrecked in one’s own house?”
But the truth is that we are all prone to do that … in our own houses … in our own lives … and in our own hearts.
As Christians, we adopt, and we align ourselves with the moral laws of God and the vision for human life that he sets forth in his Word.
Of course we all fall short. We all sin. But that’s not what we’re talking about. God’s law itself provides for us to seek his forgiveness and turn in repentance when we sin.
That is not the shipwreck Barth’s mother spoke of. The shipwreck she spoke of was when we accept sin in some part of our lives – when we stop trying to fight it, and simply cease trying to live out God’s calling in some area of life.
Where do you see this tendency in your own life?
It may be in how you treat your spouse or how you treat you children. It may be in how you treat your employees or how you respond to your boss. It may be in how you handle your finances. It may be with how you use your words – whether to deceive or to slander. It might be in the way that, whether in your private life or in your public life, you are so quick to accuse others and so quick to defend yourself.
On that last tendency, Kathleen Norris helpfully points out, drawing from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, that one of the signature sins of our age is our tendency to be so quick to indignation and denunciation towards others, while completely failing to notice the sins of “pomposity … exaggeration, and self-righteousness” in ourselves.
Such behaviors are not new to human history, MacIntyre notes, but we have taken it, he says, from being “an eccentric vice” and turned it instead into “a dominant social mode.” [Norris, 115]
Norris points out that while many in our culture “profess not to believe in sin,” we all still believe in sinners. And we do that by embracing “the comfortable notion that at least they are other people.” [Norris, 116]
We are the good people. It’s others who are evil. And we tell ourselves that again and again, whether the context is a conflict that has gotten heated, a relationship that has fallen apart, or a political climate filled with hate, we tell ourselves again and again: we are the good guys, they are the sinners.
Norris writes: “The loud litany of self-aggrandizement that reverberates through our culture convinces me that, for all our presumed psychological sophistication, we remain at a primitive stage in our capacity to understand the reality of sin.” [Norris, 116]
Because as long as we fail to acknowledge it in ourselves – as long as we refuse to apply God’s calling to repentance in the details of our own lives, as long as we do that, we don’t really understand the reality of sin, or the reality of God’s moral calling.
In what part of your life have you been resisting God’s call to repentance? In what part of your life have you stopped trying to walk in love or holiness? Where in your life do you need to admit that you have made peace with sin, and then, in repentance, how do you need to begin to seriously try to apply the commands of God to the concrete details of your life?
Conclusion
Because the God of the Bible is the God of the universe, he calls us to a universal ethical worldview. And because the God of the Bible works through the particulars of this world, we must live out our faith in the concrete particulars of our lives.
And when we see the gap between how we know we are called to live, and how we are actually living, we can feel despair. We can feel hopeless.
But it’s then that we must remember the source of hope Moses gives us in our text.
Why, after all, had God saved Israel? Why had he revealed himself to them? Why had he gotten involved in the particulars of their lives?
Verse thirty-seven tells us: “because he loved your fathers.” Because God loved Abraham, he saved, and revealed himself to, and got involved in the details of the lives of Abraham’s descendants.
For Abraham’s sake, God, by his almighty power, changed Israel’s life.
And in Advent we remember that one greater than Abraham has now come.
For if God loved his servant Abraham, how much more must he love his Son, Jesus Christ.
For Jesus Christ, God the Son, was with God the Father from the very beginning.
Jesus Christ, God the Son, came and lived a life of perfect obedience to God the Father, far beyond what Abraham was able to do.
It is Jesus, and only Jesus, among humanity, who truly deserves the Father’s love. And he has received the Father’s love.
And he has given that love to God’s people.
For just as God so loved Abraham that he saved Israel from Egypt, even more than that, God so loved Jesus Christ that he has saved all who trust in him from sin.
That means that there is forgiveness in Christ when we fall short – when we twist the Biblical picture of who God is or fail to live as he has called us to live.
But it also means that there is deliverance and change here and now. It means that just as God, for Abraham’s sake, brought Israel out of bondage to Egypt, so now, for Jesus’s sake, he brings his people out of bondage to sin.
Change, and hope, and new life are possible, not by your strength, but by the strength of God in Christ.
The same strength that conquered Egypt.
The same strength that parted the Red Sea.
The same strength that thundered from Mount Sinai.
That same strength drew close to us in the coming of Jesus Christ.
That same strength is available to all who cling to him by faith.
And so, let us rejoice in his power.
Let us rejoice in his grace.
Let us rejoice in his love.
And let us earnestly seek to follow him, and obey him, and glorify him, in every area of our lives.
Amen.
—
This sermon draws on material from:
Barker, Paul. Introduction and notes to Deuteronomy in The ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.
Bellah, Robert N., et al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkley, CA: University of California, 2008 Edition. (First Edition: 1985)
Block, Daniel I. The NIV Application Commentary: Deuteronomy. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012.
Dawkins, Richard, and John Lennox. “Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox – Has Science Buried God? Debate” October 21, 2008. Fixed Point Foundation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVEuQg_Mglw
Emerson, Matthew. “What Do We Do with Karl Barth?” Mere Orthodoxy. October 17, 2017. https://mereorthodoxy.com/what-do-we-do-with-karl-barth/
Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York, NY: Dutton, 2008.
Luther, Martin. From Table Talks vol. 54. Note: I did not track down or confirm this citation myself, but have relied on two online discussions, here:
https://ask.metafilter.com/118341/Help-me-track-down-a-quote-from-Martin-Luther
and here:
https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2020/07/martin-luther-history-is-like-drunk-man.html
Norris, Kathleen. Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2008.
Wright, Christopher. Deuteronomy. NIBC. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996.
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