Subscribe to Ailbe Newsletters
Sign up to receive our email newsletters and read columns about revival, renewal, and awakening built upon prayer, sharing, and mutual edification.
The First Commandment: Statues and Precepts (34)
Deuteronomy 6.13-15
13 “You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you 15 (for the LORD your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the LORD your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.”
The first commandment requires that Israel worship only God. We might expect to see this commandment reinforced in various ways throughout the Law of God, as it is here. God alone is to be feared. His name alone is to be a focal point for oaths and other forms of truthful speech. Israel is to “go after” God only and to stay away from all foreign deities, no matter how they may be pressed upon them by the surrounding nations. God is “jealous” toward Israel because He knows that only His love can suffice to meet their needs and give them full and abundant life. When God’s people reject His freely-offered counsel and promises, they are left to their own fate (Prov. 14.12).
God is adamant about our obeying Him, so much so that He will discipline His people in order to restore them to Him and to His way of righteousness and life. In this, as in all things, God has not changed (Heb. 12.1-11).
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.