Where the Lord Will Place His Name

Deuteronomy 11-12

            I want to talk about Israel’s one place of worship, but first I have to address something that I don’t have a good answer for: in chapter 11:1-7, why does the Lord insist that this generation of Israelites saw all the Lord’s mighty deeds? Every Israelite of the Exodus generation was condemned to die in the wilderness because they refused to enter the land. (See Numbers 14:20-23.) Every indication is that Deuteronomy takes place after the 40 years in the wilderness, which that whole generation should be gone. Here’s the best I can come up with: the Lord’s curse fell on the fighting men, that is, those who were counted for military service in Numbers and who would have all been at least 20 years old. So, the generation that is being addressed here would have been 19 and under at the Exodus and is now between 40 and 60 years old. Everyone under 40 would not have witnessed these things. I don’t know how important that it, but it was bothering me…

            On to Israel’s place of worship. Throughout chapter 12, Moses insists that Israel is to present their offerings and sacrifices only at the tabernacle. This will make Israel’s worship unlike the worship of the Canaanites around her, because the Canaanites worship all over the place—“all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree.” In some ways, this seems strange: the God of Israel claims to be the God of heaven and earth, a God who is not bound by any boundaries, a God who is omnipresent. This stands in sharp contrast to the views of the pagans, who understood their gods as linked to specific places. The God of Israel never gives up His claim to lordship over the whole earth, but He does specify a single place of worship.

            There are a number of things to learn from this. First, Israel didn’t worship willy-nilly, in any way they wanted. The Lord had been very specific about the ways they should come before Him. Second, the Canaanites imagined that the important thing was what they did; they saw themselves as key actors in their worship. But Israel understood that the Lord was chief actor: they made sacrifices, yes, but the Lord was the one who forgave and blessed. Their sacrifices were not buying the blessing of their God; they were the means by which God was blessing them.

            Israel’s worship was indeed a blueprint for Christian worship, the key difference being that Jesus is the final and all-availing sacrifice, so that our worship is “bloodless.” But we, too, worship in a specific way. Acts 2:42 describes it as being ‘devoted to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.’ Acts 2:42 is what we call a chiasm, which means that the two middle terms repeat the same idea. So, Christian worship centers on the Word of God applied in the sermon (the apostles’ teaching), prayer, and the Lord’s Supper (the breaking of bread). (The fellowship here does not mean getting together for fun, but it’s a specific word, koinonia, which the New Testament mostly uses in reference to the Lord’s Supper.) And we, too, recognize that, while God is present everywhere, He is present in a different, gracious way in our gathering; that gathering is the place that He has promised to be present to forgive and to save.