The disciplining of our souls, as outlined in the Law of God, begins with our learning to fear and love Him in our hearts. We must activelynurture these affections, for everything about our covenant relationship with God depends on them.

The Law of God sets forth examples of the kind of active spiritual disciplines the people of God should take up in their pursuit of Him and His will. The Lord teaches us that the proper way to nurture fear of Him – the starting-point, as we have seen, for loving Him – is in hearing His Word as often as we can, and learning to do what it teaches.

The Law being the blueprint for just and loving communities, it would have been essential that hearing and learning God’s Law should be the responsibility of all the people of God.

Every seven years God called the people to assemble as one, during the Feast of Booths. At that time they were to hear the entire reading of the Law of God. Whether this was all the Torah or just the Book of Deuteronomy is not clear. Certainly this reading entailed more than just the Ten Commandments.

Assembling to hear the reading of the Law every seven years would at least make sure that all the counsel of God was proclaimed in the hearing of all His people, to renew them in the knowledge of the Lord and to remind them of their covenant duties toward Him.

We must remember that copies of the Law in writing were not available to all the people. Undoubtedly, scrolls had been made for each community, for the elders, priests, and Levites to use in carrying out their duties. But it is not likely that complete copies of the Law were the possession of every home, as is common in our day. However, since parents, as we know, were expected to speak of the Law to their children, and elders and judges discussed the Law in the open air of the city gates, there must have been present in Israel, to some extent, copies of at least the Ten Commandments, if not more, for people to read, ponder, and hear discussed, taught, and proclaimed.

The people of God must not neglect the hearingof His Word, either by private reading or public proclamation. To the fullest extent available to us, we must turn to the Law, and to the Prophets, Writings, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse, so that we may grow in the fear and love of the Lord and in understanding our calling and duties as His people.

A life of active spiritual disciplines begins in hearing the Lord in His Word. Without this we cannot expect to make progress in the life of faith, in knowing the Lord and laying hold on His promises.

T. M. Moore

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click hereto see the weekly studies available thus far.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.